The mood so far this year, that 2007 would be a banner year (literally?) for mobile advertising, carried through into Barcelona. I was optimistic that, gathered at the congress here, the industry would have noted consumers’ own view that straight-to-handset marketing is annoying and struck gold with a formula to justify some of the recent huge valuations for the emerging sector. But, whilst everyone here was at pains to show they understand how to respect the user experience by not intruding on users’ personal space, there is little consensus on the best way to achieve that. Instead, a plethora of ad services interpreting that key rule differently.
“At the end of the day, you can say ads are good,” said ex-Nokia president Pekka Ala-Pietila