• by Masha Geller , June 27, 2001

Speaking of association, the Wireless Advertising Association unveiled a comprehensive set of standards for mobile and wireless devices. The guidelines cover three key platform areas: Short Message Service (SMS, also known as text messaging), Wireless Application Protocol (WAP, or the wireless web), and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs, such as the Palm Pilot and PocketPC). The draft standards will be reviewed by the full membership for thirty days before being adopted throughout the industry.

According to the announcement, the standards create a common set of formats and sizes so that ad creative executions and inventory will be interchangeable. Just as in print, television, and the Internet, an ad agency will write copy or create a graphic in the standardized formats.

That creative can then run over any ad network, or with any publisher, since they will have designed their content to leave "holes" for ads in those formats. Advertisers can relax knowing that every consumer will get the same message, regardless of which mobile carrier they use or what device is in their pocket.

More than 30 experts from industry-leading companies participated in the select sub-committees for the three platforms, including the WAA's European arm, which developed the SMS Standards for GSM networks.

"This is a complex medium, with wide variations in device technology, screen sizes, and publisher needs," said Tom Bair, chairman of the Ad Standards Committee. "Standards will make it dramatically easier for advertisers, ad agencies, 3rd party servers/networks, and publishers to coordinate on a wireless campaign."

Robert O'Hare, WAA chairman, anticipates that the committee's work will "be embraced by the industry and bring this medium into the advertising mainstream."