Does mobile advertising work?

The hundreds of mobile search and entertainment firms that are counting on mobile advertising as their primary revenue stream will be happy to hear a recent Weather Channel advertising research study has produced some favorable results.

The Weather Channel, which has always been a strong proponent of advertising (particularly banner ads), decided to hire an independent research firm to help them determine whether mobile web advertising works.

The company commissioned Dynamic Logic to conduct the study, which measured the impact of ads for Hampton Hotels. According to the research, 72 percent of those studied had traveled for business or leisure within the past two years and nearly two-thirds use their mobile phone to access the Internet more than once a day. And 42 percent visited weather.com on their mobile phone at least once a day.

The study's results are pretty compelling, particularly when it comes to mobile advertising's impact on brand awareness. Respondents who were exposed to the ads responded more favorably to Hampton Hotels (62 percent) compared to those that weren't exposed to the ads (48 percent). The campaign also showed 11.4 percent of respondents said they were more likely to consider staying at the Hampton for their next trip after they were exposed to the ads.

Jon Gibs, director of research and insight at The Weather Channel Interactive, told me the company commissioned the research so it could give its potential advertisers some type of independent feedback indicating that this channel works. "One of the biggest questions we have from our potential advertisers is whether mobile advertising works," Gibs said. "These results were not only good for the mobile platform, but they also outperformed online and TV scores. We are very pleased with the numbers."

But Gibs admits that while the results of this study are favorable for The Weather Channel, not all mobile web advertising will garner the same results because not all mobile web publishers get the high click-through rates the Weather Channel gets. "Smaller publishers with less inventory may not see the same results," Gibs said.

The Weather Channel study is a positive indicator for mobile Web advertising, but I think we're still a long way from proving that all advertising on the mobile channel is effective and relevant. We need a few more independent studies like the Weather Channel's research before we can fully validate this channel. -Sue