NEW YORK -- Agencies have long been lamenting the lack of scale and standard in mobile. However, the entry of large media and tech players may shake things up a bit.

But it seems all the mobile evangelism is paying off as agencies finally realize the importance of mobile, according to panelists at MediaPost's OMMA Mobile show.

"Clients have been coming to us in the last six months and saying they've looked at their budgets and they are going to approach things differently," said Byron Morrison, president of mobile agency Ipsh.

"Mobile wasn't a core concept, but today most of the clients we work with realize the medium isn't going away," he said. "A program needs to continue on an ongoing basis and mobile is a fantastic opt-in, direct marketing medium."

Mobile allows consumers to decide what is right for them and whether they want to continue a relationship, he pointed out.

Mobile is seeing significant uptake this year. This is a result of educating clients and getting people to think about mobile in the right way last year, Mr. Morrison said.

"Research must coexist with mobile," said Angela Steele, global account director at media services agency Starcom Worldwide. "Because in the end what it really comes down to is knowing what the consumer wants.

However, marketers need to know what consumers want and what they will tolerate.

"Remember what consumers say and what consumers do is very different," Ms. Steele said.

Consumers will be tolerant of ads as long as they are relevant, almost to the point that it doesn't seem like advertising.

"We show clients all the opportunities, not just a tactic, [but] an entire platform," Ms. Steele said. "It's such a new space we can't determine who we don't need to meet with."

Mobile allows marketers to engage the consumer with a brand in a new way as well.

Jeff Malmad, director of digital media at Mediacom, said that the Apple iPhone transformed the mobile channel and opened people's eyes to the medium's potential. With the iPhone people began to surf the Web on their mobile phones.

"Awareness and engagement," said James McNamara, president/CEO of Wasabi Mobile.

Mr. McNamara said you need to think deeply on what type of engagement will work best for the situation.

"We're doing two things: On the traditional side, we've actually embedded a mobile marketing agency into JWT for the first six months of 2008 and a mobile marketing expert will be a part of all of our teams," said Jeff Stier, senior partner at WPP Group plc's JWT ad agency.

Mr. Stier said many of his clients are interested in mobile.

"We're taking the bull by the horns and creating mobile platforms around audiences," he said. "There aren't enough people in mobile advertising. We believe that mobile is a tool."