Toyota, Quaker, Lysol and Mazda are pulling away from the pack in mobile advertising, leveraging enhanced targeting, greater interactivity and native experiences to provide seamless digital and physical experiences for consumers and boost awareness of products and services.

Automakers, in particular, are showed themselves to be adept at building engagement with on-the-go consumers through mobile ads during the first quarter of 2015. But, brands in the consumer products goods and food and beverage verticals also are discovering new ways to enhance a consumer?s relationship with their businesses, helping to drive both connection and sales.

The second and third quarters of this year likely will see more brands evolving beyond location to deploy data available about consumers for more targeted strategies. Brands also can be expected to add uniquely mobile interactive elements and craft impactful native experiences.

Here are the top 10 mobile ads of the first quarter of 2015, in alphabetical order.

The financial services brand prioritized which cities in which its ads would be heavily rolled out, in the hopes of targeting home buyers and consumers needing mortgage financing services. The move increased its presence on Zillow Mortgages and Zillow in addition to the New York City-based Street Easy app.

Citi recognized that engaging with customers in the digital space is crucial. Zillow is an important tool for potential homebuyers and this alliance allowed Citi to be present on the platform to better serve those in need of home financing throughout the purchase cycle.

Besides amplifiying the volume of ads shown on Street Easy for mortgages, including sponsorship for content, several ad placements and visibility for pre-certified and approved buildings, Citi also rolled out more advertising on Zillow?s mobile site and desktop experience. Teaming up with Zillow was a sound strategy for Citi, as many potential home buyers choose to conduct research for properties online. Therefore, Citi is able to target its exact preferred demographic with relevant advertising.

For Dr Pepper Snapple Group?s endeavor to boost its multichannel strategy, the beverage company bet on programmatic mobile ads that helped drive 213,000 in-store visits to more than 1,000 grocery store locations and placed its products in 25,000 new households.

Through programmatic ad platform Rocket Fuel and digital ad calculator Placed, Dr Pepper was able to execute and measure its combined mobile and in-store activation efforts. Multichannel initiatives are becoming crucial for food and beverage brands such as Dr Pepper to propel their products into the future, where mobile is likely to reign in driving in-store activations.

The brand engaged Rocket Fuel to increase foot traffic and the purchase frequency of Dr Pepper at more than 1,000 grocery store locations. Rocket Fuel succeeded in driving 213,000 store visits at a cost of only $0.21 per visit. And, as a part of the broader promotional effort, Dr Pepper introduced 25,000 new households to its products.

The program capitalized on Rocket Fuel?s scale of more than one trillion monthly global mobile opportunities with 593 billion of those in the United States to reach the right audience with the highest visit intent. 

The ad encouraged readers to tap to find out how Lysol kills cold and flu germs. Its positioning on the Huffington Post news feed ensured the ad would reach readers who were interested in the latest news, including reports of flu outbreaks, and reading informative content from their mobile devices. 

Lysol understood that organic posts are always more valuable than brand originated ones. Accordingly, the brand?s campaign focused largely on shareability ? encouraging others to post their own stories or photos with the hashtag ?lysolthat.?

 

Lysol?s campaign delivered full length articles and tips that would interest their target audience ? providing a strategic way for consumers to engage further with the brand and gain useful ideas on how to keep their surroundings germ free.

The Cxense-developed technology, which uses standard Web technology and works with any browser across mobile and desktop devices, used an optical illusion to create an image that seemingly stood out from a Web page. Putting up impressive engagement results, the 3D ad technology could rejuvenate the banner ad amid criticism that its time is done and that more creative display advertising solutions are what marketers need to engage consumers on mobile.

It is not easy for car companies to be heard ? or seen ? in the mobile world. 

Cxense?s so-called parallax effect created an optical illusion that makes an image move out from a Web page. The campaign was run as any other banner ad campaign. 

The 3D ad solution used plain HTML, saving users from heavy Flash usage, which goes down well on mobile platforms.

With a big red ?Shop Now? button appearing in the ad, the campaign reflected how consumers in the market for a new car were increasingly shopping from their mobile devices. The effort also effectively took advantage of key mobile strategies such as geo-location, native advertising and customization. 

The native ad appeared in the Huffington Post news feed, insuring that readers would encounter they ad as they scrolled through the day?s top stories. It featured a picture of the 2015 Nissan Altima. 

While native mobile advertising has been a popular tactic on Facebook for a couple of years, it continues to gain steam with other popular mobile publishers such as Huffington Post as a way to provide a more seamless experience for users. 

The campaign included spring images that featured the first collection from its new creative director. To spread the word, Perry Ellis chose top publishers in the industry on the mobile channel. 

The campaign was featured in the February issue of Men?s Health and in March fashion books, including GQ, T Magazine, Esquire, Fast Company, ESPN, and OUT, as well as outdoor campaigns in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas and Canada.

Digital elements were also presented across desktop, mobile and tablet. Mobile ads were delivered to smartphone users who browsed ESPN.com and Esquire.com, among others.

Built around an expandable banner ad appearing at the top of the Huffington Post newsfeed on mobile, the campaign showcased several new products, including Quaker Real Medleys SuperGrains and Quaker Real Medleys Granola. Red-and-while icons overlaid on top of the product images indicated interactive hot spots where viewers could tap to reveal some of the ingredients found in the different flavors. 

The campaign began with a banner ad placed on top of the lead image in the Huffington Post mobile newsfeed. The ad featured the SuperGrains Oatmeal product and urged viewers to tap to expand. When users tapped on the ad, it expanded to take up much of the screen. The top portion of the screen had a series of product images which viewers could swipe through consisting of different flavors of Real Medleys SuperGrains Oatmeal and Real Medleys Granola. 

Each image featured three or more interactive hot spots that, when tapped, revealed  an ingredient. Viewers were also encouraged to tap a red button to learn more. Doing so brought them to a mobile-optimized Quaker landing page with information about the Real Medleys line.

The T-Mobile ad, featuring actor and comedian Rob Riggle, appeared during the Super Bowl livestream on NBC in the NBC Sports Live Extra tablet app and on the channel?s Web site. The mobile communications brand cited research results from the Consumer Electronics Association as a catalyst for developing the mobile ad, as the survey displayed that more than half of millennials prefer to view television programs on a device other than a TV. The ad reflected how mobile's dominance in people's lives cannot be ignored. 

The Super Bowl may be synonymous with the year?s best advertisements on television, but brands and marketers seeking to stand out from the competition were considering other channels of communication to leverage to hit fans while they watched a massive live event such as the Super Bowl.

T-Mobile acknowledged that millennials are constantly Tweeting, Skyping, posting and pinning on their smartphones or tablets, prompting the brand to select a medium for the ad that will resonate best with the target demographic.

Using Delivery Agent?s ShopTV platform, Toyota included an interactive menu in a new ad for the 2015 Camry, with viewers able to use their remote control to browse the car?s features on screen or have information sent to their mobile device while they continue to watch. Results from Delivery Agents? previous brand partnerships showed that much of the engagement for interactive ads takes place on mobile devices. 

The campaign was a way to bridge digital and broadcast media, enabling Toyota to move consumers through the purchase funnel, expanding the campaign from a massive brand push to a brand consideration campaign. 

TV viewers watching Toyota?s ad campaign, ?One Bold Choice Leads to Another,? were also be able to use Delivery Agent?s ShopTV app available on connected devices from Samsung, LG and Roku to explore the new Camry?s features. Viewers who chose to explore the Camry from their phones could enter their mobile phone number to receive a text with a link. Clicking on the link brought them to an experience where they built a Camry with the features they wanted and received a quote. 

Very worked with agency Somo to develop the campaign with the goal of reaching the retailer?s target audience on mobile whether they were out and about shopping or sitting at home in front of the TV. The effort pointed to how the retail landscape is changing, with shoppers expecting more contextually relevant communications from retailers. 

The Shazam activity took advantage of the music used in the Very TV ad. While the song was not a well-known one, it was still the third most Shazam'd ad. The Shazam integration helped Very reach shoppers who were at home watching TV with their smartphones nearby, an activity that is increasingly popular, especially among Very?s target audience of younger consumers. 

By pairing this endeavor with geo-targeted SMS messages, Very was also able to reach its audience when they were in a shopping area and their interest in shopping-related messages was likely to be high.