Bertelsmann?s Gruner + Jahr Electronic Media Sales is the latest European publisher to join mobile advertising company Amobee Media Systems' premium mobile ad marketplace.

Amobee will become Gruner + Jahr?s exclusive partner in mobile advertising, serving ads for the publishers. Gruner + Jahr claims to represent 75 percent of premium mobile content in Germany, which is Europe?s largest and fastest growing mobile market.

?Bertelsmann is the No. 1 publisher in Europe, and what?s unique about this, Gruner + Jahr is a well orchestrated sales division of Bertelsmann, with clear representation of their own titles,? said Michael Bayle, vice president of monetization and marketing at Amobee, Redwood City, CA.

?In addition, Gruner + Jahr is good at what they do, it also attracted a bunch of competitive titles, competing publishers that have collaborated on a unified platform with Amobee to make more money via mobile advertising on a transparent basis, not on a blind ad network basis like iAd and others,? he said.

?We work with both the Financial Times and its competitors, so marketers can buy across a selection of leading financial publications, which they can?t do with either Apple or Google, as these publishers do not give their inventory over to ad networks because they want to control the pricing.?

G+J EMS is the marketing arm of electronic media for Europe's biggest publishing house Gruner + Jahr in Hamburg.

Amobee Media Systems helps carriers, publishers and developers dynamically insert advertising impressions in all forms of mobile communication and content, such as WAP browsing, video and music, SMS, MMS, applications and games.

Bringing Europe?s top publishers together
The deal brings Gruner + Jahr together with other publishers and puts the Amobee Platform at the nucleus of Europe?s largest mobile ad marketplace for ad placement on mobile sites and applications.

Its servicing titles include Financial Times Deutschland, Spiegel, Stern, Gala, Brigitte, Vodafone and O2 Telefonica.

Amobee claims this consolidation of content makes it the largest single-country mobile ad marketplace on the continent.

Here is a screen grab of a Shell ad that Amobee deployed on Financial Times Deutschland's mobile site:

Oliver von Wersch, director of mobile at G+J EMS, said in a statement that mobile advertising gives carriers and publishers the ability to distribute and make money from their content in new and powerful ways.

Mr. Wersch said that the growth of smartphones has given his company exciting new channels to reach its target audiences and this consolidation with Amobee now transforms the mobile ad market from confusing and unproven into a major channel for G+J EMS.

?There is a fair amount of media attention around Google versus Apple, and both are well respected and partners of Amobee,? Mr. Bayle said. ?They are good a focusing on the body?developers and occasionally publishers, but what is often ignored is the head, carriers.

?We?re positioned strongly in terms of our partnerships with operators, and this [partnership with Bertelsmann] is significant because for the first time with Amobee, our platform is applicable to and endorsed by publishers as well,? he said.

?We?ve aggregated more than 50 leading titles and platforms in Europe, including both Vodafone and Telefonica, and we now have 75 percent of the mobile audience on one platform.?

Final Take
Dan Butcher, associate editor, Mobile Marketer