• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, March 31, 2008

Mobile video site mywaves has added a group of new advertisers and launched an in-house studio to help adapt TV spots for cell phone screens.

Among the 25 brand marketers on mywaves since it opened up to advertisers in December 2007 are Microsoft, Toyota, Mini and Paramount Pictures.

This week, Microsoft kicks off a campaign on mywaves that is geo-targeted to 4 million mobile users in India promoting the MS Office New Day product line. The general awareness effort developed with WPP/Quasar in India will feature animated mobile banner ads.

In mid-March, a campaign promoting the new Toyota Matrix launched on mywaves that included both mobile Web banners and 15-second pre-roll spots. The flight runs through April.

Earlier this year, the mobile site also worked with British automaker Mini on a U.S.-focused effort tied to the launch of its new Clubman model. The campaign, featuring four 15-second video spots, is expected to attract 1.5 million views by the end of March.

In partnership with Paramount Pictures, mywaves is now preparing a campaign to promote the upcoming release of Iron Man that will include pre-rolls and click-to-video trailers aimed at young U.S. mobile customers.

The company declined to say what the average spend on campaigns has been so far. Mobile advertising globally is expected to hit $4.6 billion this year, according to eMarketer.

Overall, mywaves says it draws more than 5 million unique visitors a month worldwide, and reaches more than 20 million mobile devices.

The Silicon Valley startup offers ad-supported professional and user-generated video through a platform that operates across multiple carrier networks. It offers more than 400,000 video "channels"--including user-created ones--to mobile users in 175 countries.

In an effort to boost mobile advertising, mywaves has also created a studio to help clients repurpose 30-second TV commercials for mobile devices. The move followed an in-house study confirming that users prefer shorter ads.

"We found that 15-second spots work really well in a mobile environment, given that the average clip is around 3.5 minutes long," said mywaves founder and CEO Rajeev Raman. With its new studio, mywaves aims to help advertisers reduce production costs in paring 30-second spots to 15-second or shorter units.