• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, May 11, 2011

That year-of-mobile meme just won't die. The big breakthrough year for mobile advertising has been predicted for so long it's become something of a tired running joke within the industry. Nevertheless, there seemed to be agreement during the morning panel sessions at the Mobile Upfront event in New York today that 2010 was indeed the long-heralded year of mobile. Proponents pointed to Apple's unveiling of iAd, the iPad and the explosive growth of Android as evidence.

But that consensus didn't last long as others pointed out that actually spending in mobile still hadn't exploded. "We're not quite there yet," said Vik Kathuria, managing partner, corporate strategy for digital investments at GroupM/MediaCom. "To me, Year of Mobile-level acceptance is when brands are spending significant dollars. It's still pennies on the dollar."

Despite growing adoption of smartphones and tablets and apps, the "f-word," fragmentation, remains a key barrier holding back higher ad spending in mobile. The popularity of apps itself has only increased the level of fragmentation as people divide their attention across dozens of programs, according to Jeff Minsky, director, emerging media, OMD Ignition Factory.

"We all have different formulations of apps on our devices," he said. "The incredible fragmentation on the device that brings down the scale unless you are a direct response advertiser," he said. "Going forward, the future in this medium is to balance direct response with the big brand dollars that are out there."

What about a hugely popular app like "Angry Birds," with an estimated 30 million users? Minsky noted the game isn't necessarily a good fit for all of the brands he works with, and beyond that, there's just aren't many hit titles like "Angry Birds" out there to advertise against.

Also lacking are the structural pieces needed to encourage more spending including third-party audience measurement, measurement across devices, and mobile-optimized sites and landing pages. "Without that, it's very hard to realize the value of a click," noted Michael Collins, who heads Joule, the mobile marketing agency within GroupM. Once the user clicks on a link and there's nowhere to send them, you're not going to get back a return on the cost you had to pay to get to that click."

The more brands invest to build out their mobile presence, whether through mobile-friendly sites, apps or other initiatives, the more mobile ad spending will grow to drive consumers to those properties. Getting mobile to that level of "brand-readiness" is the biggest hurdle to higher spending in Collins' view.

Minksy suggested one step toward that goal was for companies to start using comScore's tag for Web and mobile sites for inclusion in its new "Total Universe" reporting service tracking audiences across mobile phones, apps, tablets and shared computers (as in Internet cafes). "I would urge you to do that as fast as humanly possible," said Minsky. Before it's really the year of mobile.