• Brandweek, Wednesday, January 3, 2007 11 AM

Data group eMarketer, which asserts that a percentage of ad spending credited to the Web properly belongs under mobile, says advertisers spent $420 million in mobile advertising in 2006, and predicts spending will leap to $900 million in 2007.

But several experts in the field say that while momentum will increase, spending is unlikely to grow at such a rapid pace. They feel 2007 will be marked more by more experimentation.

"The carriers need to start working in a more advertiser-friendly form," says Chad Stoller, executive vice president, director of emerging platforms at Omnicom's Organic, which has done mobile campaigns for Jeep, Sprint/Food Network and 20th Century Fox. Steps include more detailed metrics and dedicated sales forces.

That said, the phone industry has taken some key steps that enable a more complete testing of its potential as an ad medium. The most recent was last week's announcement from Verizon that it would begin to accept mobile ads. Sprint, with 51 million subscribers to Verizon's nearly 57 million, said it would do the same in October.

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