Millennial Media expands mobile ad network overseas

By Mickey Alam Khan

March 13, 2008

Paul Palmieri is president/CEO of Millennial Media

Mobile advertising network Millennial Media Inc. has expanded its coverage to Europe, Middle East and Africa, with inventory from sites including MySpace Mobile Europe, Zannel and Dictionary.com.

The Baltimore-based company will offer EMEA clients such services as its MBrand and Decktrade mobile ad networks and the Motion rich-media engagement platform.

“Millennial Media expanded into the global market in response to growing demand from our publishers and advertisers,” said company president/CEO Paul Palmieri. “A majority of our publishers are already international, and this expansion enables us to expand our support to include international advertiser supply and demand.

“Millennial Media is targeting brand and performance advertisers, as well as quality agencies and publishers, throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia,” he said. “These regions were chosen as first targets due to their already strong representation among our current content partners.”

The company will focus on brand-driven clients and categories such as automotive and entertainment and performance-focused marketers in finance and travel.

“The mobile advertising market in EMEA has to date been delivering select campaigns based largely on the promise of the medium itself,” Mr. Palmieri said.  “It is our particular expertise to not only deliver on the benefits of the medium, but to deliver brand impact and engagement in comparison to other mediums. 

“To date, we have been exclusively focused on the U.S. market, where we have rapidly built a sizeable business,” he said. “The U.S. mobile industry is certainly behind EMEA in terms of mobile adoption and advances, but is growing and innovating rapidly to catch up.

“That said, this expansion enables us to take our networks and technologies to a market well-equipped to take full advantage and get a maximum return on their mobile spend.”

Millennial Media claims expertise in both mobile technology and interactive advertising. It has worked with marketers such as Major League Baseball, MySpace, Ford Motor Co., Nikon, Weatherbug, Warner Bros. and Procter & Gamble Co.

Mr. Palmieri anticipates steady growth in mobile marketing this year.

“Mobile media is headed to the media plan,” Mr. Palmieri said. “Meaning, currently, mobile budgets are test-sized and are predominantly being borrowed from other budgets.

“As consumer adoption grows, advertiser adoption will follow,” he said. “And as advertisers recognize the return mobile delivers, they will realize the need for a mobile line item in their mobile budgets.

“As mobile has already delivered stronger performance than online – a recent industry article cites mobile campaign click-through rates of between 2 and 6 percent, significantly higher than average online CTRs – we believe advertisers will shift their budgets to media that delivers the strongest ROI.”