In a sign of the growing role that mobile is playing for agencies, MediaVest is partnering with Millennial Media to provide mobile data and advertising technology to help clients such as Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble better target mobile customers.

MediaVest will have access to Millennial Media?s proprietary mobile data set as well as the ability to beta-test new mobile advertising technology with its clients. The agencies? brand clients will be able to leverage data such as Millennial Media?s Audience Insight reports to see the impact their campaigns have on consumers so they can optimize their advertising spend.

?In this particular deal, we will be providing MediaVest with our Audience Insight reports, which will provide their clients a unique way to understand what audiences they should be targeting,? said Marcus Startzel, general manager of North America at Millennial Media, New York. 

?What we mean by this is that on top of giving clients reporting on how their campaign performed against whatever specific audience they targeted, we can go one step deeper and tell them how their campaign performed against various other sets of audiences,? he said.

?Brands can then use insights like these to better understand who they should be targeting, and they can optimize both mobile campaigns and other online/offline campaigns accordingly.?

Capitalizing on mobile
Agencies, in general, have been accused of being slow to embrace mobile for their brand clients. However, MediaVest clients such as P&G, Coca-Cola and Mondelez are all early adopters of mobile marketing and leaders in the consumer packaged goods space in terms of allocating resources to mobile.

By working with Millennial Media, the biggest independent mobile ad network, MediaVest will be able to better position its clients to further capitalize on the shift to media consumption through mobile channels.

The data being made available to MediaVest will enable it to help its clients validate the reach, engagement and return on investment of mobile.

Currently, many brands allocate around one percent of their advertising budgets to mobile even though research suggests that 10 percent of consumers? media consumption takes place on mobile devices.

Early adopters
Millennial Media?s Audience Insight reports offer data on the impact of brand campaigns on over 600 real-world consumer audience categories.

MediaVest?s clients include, Comcast, Mondelez (the new snacks spin-off from Kraft) and Microsoft in addition to P&G and Coca-Cola.

As new technology solutions come out, MediaVest clients will serve as alpha and beta partners, and will play a key role in determining the evolution of specific products.

?New technologies and products are constantly coming to market that give brands exciting new ways to approach mobile and engage consumers,? Mr. Startzel said.

?Being able to beta-test technologies like these will give advertisers the opportunity to use the products from their earliest stages, and discover the different approaches they can take that will allow them to fit their specific brand goals,? he said.

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York