Marketers struggling to find good reasons to expand advertising campaigns to the mobile phone have no problem blurting out a challenge during a heated argument for every benefit technology companies
supporting campaigns can muster up.
The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) recently released a study stating some of those challenges and benefits. One in particular
struck a chord with Google. Some might call this particular challenge a myth, especially when it comes to rendering ads on Apple's iPhone, Palm's PalmPre, and any phone running Google's operating
system Android.
A Google spokesperson says sites optimized for iPhones should render the same on Android, and vice versa, more often than not. "The browsers in iPhones, Android phones and the
PalmPre are all based on the WebKit engine, which means each browser renders the Web in similar ways," he says.
The iPhone, Android and PalmPre browsers all use the same rendering engine, known
as WebKit. Since iPhone, Android and PalmPre use the same WebKit engine, most Web sites retrieved from these browsers should look the same on each phone. This, in turn, makes it easier for marketers
to run ads on more than one phone.
WebKit has become the unofficial standard in the smartphone market, providing people with a "superior browsing experience," according to Don Reisinger at
CNet.com. In August, Torch Mobile, a WebKit developer, announced that it has been acquired by Research In Motion (RIM) for an undisclosed sum.
Still, many in the industry still believe mobile
advertising is too complicated, in part, because of the sheer number of handsets, browsers and ways to render content and ads. Unique device-specific browsers and a variety of other challenges have
deterred marketers from developing mobile campaigns. Having one standard could advance mobile advertising much more quickly.