• USA Today , Thursday, June 19, 2008 11:45 AM

Advertisers are working hard to master mobile -- not least because its potential as a medium far outstrips the Web on PCs -- but creating a viable mobile strategy and message remains a challenge. The world's best efforts are on display currently at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival in France. Some of the campaigns that already have won awards have included mobile components.

The Grand Prix won by AMF Pension's retirement campaign in the media-buying competition includes a feature for people to upload their photos via their mobile handsets and get them back doctored to show how they'll look at age 70. HBO's Voyeur Project, a multiple award winner, offers mobile downloads. And Nike unveiled the Ballers Network, a site that allows urban basketball players to organize pick-up games via mobile devices.

Despite accounting for about a third of global mobile ad spending, the USA lags in creativity. Much of the spending is still for text messages and simple banners. Among reasons mobile advertising is a challenge is that the handset is not a smaller TV or PC, it's a different user experience. Just as it does not work to replicate TV ads on PCs, you can't simply downsize PC advertising for mobile.

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