The growth of tablets and smartphones with bigger screens will help to spur the nascent mobile-advertising industry, but hurdles remain before it contributes more than a trickle to the flood of global ad dollars.
To be sure, big companies have made strategic advances in the area in the past couple of years, not least Google Inc. paying $750 million for AdMob in 2009, followed by Apple Inc.’s acquisition of Quattro Wireless last year, which it has since absorbed into its own iAd network.
Last summer Google blasted Apple for imposing new rules on developers that could bar it and other rivals from selling ads inside iPhone and iPad applications, underscoring both the growing importance of mobile advertising and the intensity of the turf wars between the two.
The idea of targeted advertising within location-based services is also gaining traction, and the proliferation of mobile apps, in which advertisers can place banners or more eyecatching rich media, has continued unabated.
Sir Martin Sorrell, founder and chief executive of WPP PLC, the world’s largest advertising company by revenue, in a keynote address at the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, described mobile apps as the “holy grail” of the industry.
“Mobile advertising has definitely gained weight. People are absorbed by it and want to experiment with it,” said Mr. Sorrell in an interview, but “it’s still [got] a long way to go.”
Continues at: Mobile Ad Market Still Faces Hurdles – WSJ.com.
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