That's the way AKQA Mobile Managing Director Dan Rosen described the state of mobile brand media, alluding to the fact that it's all becoming about the software behind the utilities. "As ads become software brands are now finding themselves as software developers whether they like that or not," he said.

When will bigger budgets emerge for apps and mobile advertising overall? The perennial question. It's a bit of a conundrum because more funding requires standard metrics in mobile to prove its efficacy in terms of brand awareness or purchase intent or any other traditional brand measure. But there aren't such mobile metrics yet to show results, according to Tara Scarlett, Senior Manager, CRM and Precision Marketing at Coca-Cola. She emphasized the importance of maintaining an innovation budget to keep refining new marketing techniques including mobile to get to the point where standard metrics eventually evolve and the value of mobile …

The panelists highlight the two basic schools of app creation: utility or fun and entertainment. Kraft's ifood app would clearly be on the utility side while Coca-Cola's Spin the Bottle app and Zippo's Lighter app would be purely novelty and entertainment apps. Right? While the Zippo app has become something of a cultural phenomenon at concerts, Brent Tyler, Promotions Manager at Zipp, explained there's also a practical, test marketing aspect to the app. Depending on which different designs or "skins" for a virtual lighter turn out to be most downloaded the company could then create actual lighters with the most …

That's what Kraft's Ed Kaczmarek suggested when asked to react to a stat that mobile marketing is "four to five times as effective" as online marketing. "I'm going to say that most brand marketers will tell you that you are smoking something," he said, adding that the incredulity isn't because mobile isn't working better, but because it takes a while for big marketing organizations to assimilate new media platforms, even if they are more effective. He cited how long it took for big marketers to embrace [online] media, but he sees a ray of hope in the fact …

On the day's first panel, focusing on using apps to build closer relations with customers, Ted Hong, Chief Marketing Officer, Fandango, revealed Apple CEO Steve Jobs has used the company's app 60 times in the last five years in the Cupertino area. How did find that out? "We peaked," he acknowledged, asking that no one blog, Tweet or post anything about that to Facebook. Oh, well. Hong mentioned Jobs avid movie going using the Fandango app to highlight what a difference it's made, with mobile purchases now accounting for 20% of sales compared to only single digits previously. It also …

That's what I took away from OMMA Mobile opening keynoter Ed Kaczmarek's presentation this morning. Kaczmarek, the director of innovation-consumer experiences at Kraft Foods, was talking about a new mobile apps platform dubbed CauseWorld, which ties cause-related marketing to Kraft's products and brands. When consumers participate in the apps, Kaczmarek said the users accrue "karmas," or points for engaging with Kraft's brands.  Initial findings have been encouraging, but Kaczmarek said Kraft wanted to see if they could improve on karma, so they came up with something, well, new and improved. He calls them "Double Karmas." "The double karmas …

Who says the shelf life of an app is less than a quart of milk? Kicking things off with today's keynote at OMMA Mobile, Ed Kaczmarek, director of innovation, consumer experiences, Kraft Foods, and father, if you will, of the company's popular ifood assistant app for the iPhone and other devices, points out that 85% of those who downloaded the 2.0 version of the app in November are still using it. What's more, the ifood assistant has been a customer acquisition tool for Kraft, with 90% of users not previously Kraft customers. It also appears to be getting men into …