• by Joe Mandese , October 4, 2006

Dan Hodges, a pioneer in cable TV and online advertising sales is jumping into the mobile advertising marketplace. Hodges, known as the key advertising strategist at Discovery Networks during its heyday, has joined Enpocket as executive vice president-sales, responsible for developing advertising sales across a range of new mobile services and applications ranging from text, to banners and even full-motion video on the Sprint Mobile Media platform.

The Sprint mobile platform, which currently has an installed base of about 10 million subscribers, is one of the biggest and most developed among the major telecommunications players. Enpocket also powers mobile marketing services fro Cingular, Alltel, Vodafone, BT, Orange, Airtel and Virgin, and works with media companies such as News Corp. CNBC, A&E and Clear Channel and marketers including McDonald's, Dunkin Donuts, Pepsi, Subway, Motorola, Samsung, Panasonic, and General Motors.

"The telephone was invented in 1876. The portable cell phone was invented 100 years later. And then the Internet came along in 1995. Now all these things are coming together to create a rich platform that is changing the way people use media," says Hodges, who most recently was a principle with Greenwich Consulting Partners, a consultancy that worked with media companies, including mid-size and emerging cable networks.

Hodges describes the moment as a "strategic inflection point" for the mobile advertising business. The major telecommunications companies now have a critical mass of mobile services subscribers, and those subscribers are beginning to expand their usage from conventional voice services to a range of new features including photography; music, game and software downloads; and even television. But Hodges admits the market still has a way to go before it becomes embraced the way cable or the Internet have as a formal part of advertising budgets.

"Right now, it feels like the Internet in 1997 or 1998," he says. "People understand what it is, and how to use it, and we're beginning to build standards."

Standardization has emerged as a key issue among a number of emerging mobile advertising developers, and trade groups ranging from the Mobile Marketing Association to the Interactive Advertising Bureau are working quickly to establish guidelines for mobile marketing formats in an attempt to avoid the early ad anarchy that plagued the first iteration of the online advertising marketplace.

Big companies like Sprint Nextel, Verizon and AT&T all are beefing up their advertising sales operations in anticipation of a rapidly expanding mobile marketplace, and most big agencies on Madison Avenue have either formed specialty units, or are integrating mobile as part of their general media services practices.

Hodges points to overseas markets, especially Asian markets like Japan and Korea where mobile already is maturing as part of a base advertising buy, and he says the U.S. will begin to move rapidly now that consumers are embracing mobile as part of their media lifestyle. He cites research from Ball State University's Center for Media Design indicating that the average American is now using mobile services as much as 30 minutes per day. The usage levels are even higher among younger consumer groups, many of whom no longer subscribe to land line services. "Think about it. There are two things you do when you leave your house in the morning. You look to see if you have your wallet. And you look to see if you have your cell phone," says Hodges. "No other medium is as compelling as that. No other can provide that mobility, reach and targetability."