• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, June 9, 2010

Mobile ad network JumpTap is adding video to its range of ad options, counting on the category to expand with the growth of mobile TV. The company will serve video ads across a variety of formats including in-stream, tap-to-video, in-banner, interstitial and within applications.

Publishers and applications in JumpTap's video network include MobiTV, MSNBC, Best of YouTube, iBasketball, iBowl, Movie Challenge Lite, and MovieFX. The broader content categories for video ads include entertainment, utilities, games, music, news, and sports.

To date, Rhythm NewMedia and Transpera have been the leading players in video ad-serving on mobile devices. The former has a network of branded mobile apps including TMZ, E!, Discovery, Food Network and CBS's TV.com, while Transpera runs ads on the mobile properties of CBS News, Discovery Communications, MTV Networks and others.

But unlike those companies, JumpTap CMO Paran Johar said his company will offer video as part of a wider mobile buy including search, display, performance-based advertising, and rich media. Its platform also spans devices including Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

"Part of our strategy is to provide different formats. Just buying mobile video in a silo is very limiting for advertisers," he said, portraying JumpTap as one-stop-shop solution for marketers. The mobile TV audience to date has been small, with less than 10% of the 233 million U.S. cell phone users watching video on their handsets.

But those who do watch, seem to watch a lot-an average of three hours, 37 minutes a month, according a Nielsen Three Screen report for the fourth quarter of 2009. Underscoring the challenges of the segment, the CEO of Qualcomm's Flo TV service for mobile devices said last week the audiences had not been what the company had hoped.

"There are people who love it, but the numbers are not nearly what we expected," said Paul Jacobs, speaking at The Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital conference. Even so, Johar noted that the mobile video audience more than doubled in the last year to 17.6 million by the end of last year, citing Nielsen data. Uptake of the iPad (2 million sold to date) and other tablet devices should also help to accelerate the spread of video viewing on portable devices, he added.

Even without big audiences, limited inventory will still keep pricing for mobile video ads in the range of $15 to $30 CPMs on JumpTap, with pre-roll and other in-stream units at the higher end of the scale. Adding a layer of audience targeting will push rates higher. Johar said JumpTap will begin running video campaigns on its network, which overall boasts reach of 62 million mobile users, in a couple of weeks.