Recent research from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) indicates that both clients and agencies believe that mobile advertising will become a mainstream part of marketing plans over the next 2 years. The IAB’s Mobile Council surveyed 115 agencies, media planners, creatives and advertisers to uncover the state of the mobile market, their level of understanding, perceived barriers to entry and how to plan best for the future.

The research further found that usage within agencies is split down the middle, with 50% having used mobile, and the remainder having no experience in mobile advertising at all. There is also currently a disconnect between usage and understanding of the medium.

Some other interesting findings from the research include:

• Respondents thought that mobile ads could be good for a wide variety of product categories, and overwhelmingly stated that the Entertainment category is most suited to mobile advertising (91%), followed by Leisure & Travel (57%), Telecoms (52%), Retail (52%) and FMCG (40%).
• When asked whether mobile will be the primary medium for communicating with 12 to 24 age groups more than 59% agreed.
• Although mobile advertising accounts for a small proportion of overall digital spend, many (62%) foresee that it will grow over the next two years and will become a standard part of budgets.
• Respondents said that more information is needed to drive take up. The key areas where the industry believes it is falling short include: availability of audience data (53%), where to buy mobile inventory (49%), cost parameters (39%) and consumer insight studies (38%).

Jim Cook, Editor of MobiAdNews and Chair of the IAB Mobile Council, said: “Expectations for mobile advertising are high but actual understanding is low. The industry needs to address measurement, effectiveness and benchmarks if mobile advertising is going to reach a tipping point by 2010. The IAB intends to tackle each of these areas through quality research, events and collaboration with other mobile trade bodies like the GSMA and the MMA.”

Also, read the full IAB press release.