The Travel Channel has selected mobile ad-serving platform provider Ringleader Digital?s mobile advertising technology to expand their reach across the mobile Web.

In a landscape where publishers are increasingly investing in mobile platforms, Ringleader Digital is providing the technology for the Travel Channel to reach travel-minded consumers via their mobile devices at http://m.travelchannel.com. The Travel Channel will kick off their new mobile initiative by increasing visibility and banner advertisements on mobile sites, but will expand its advertising presence to include even more mobile Web sites and iPhone applications. 

?Travel Channel?s viewers are the perfect audience for the mobile channel,? said Mark Pearlstein, senior vice president of business development at Ringleader Digital, New York.

?Travel Channel mobile properties reach travelers throughout the world who are untethered and interested in instantaneous real-time access to information about the location or attraction they are visiting,? he said.

?This information is extremely powerful to advertisers since it brings together geography and behavioral?for example, someone exploring the trails in Mexico is most likely an outdoor adventurer.?

Travel Channel Media is an integrated travel media business wholly owned by Cox Communications Inc., a multi-service broadband communications and entertainment company. It is currently ramping up its mobile infrastructure (see story).

Travel Channel Media includes the Travel Channel television network, available in more than 91 million U.S. cable homes; Travelchannel.com, the network?s broadband travel hub; and Travel Channel?s video-on-demand offerings.

In addition, the company has a mobile content platform, Travel Channel Go; World Hum (worldhum.com), an online travel blog; and FlightDeck, a content-sharing and advertising network for online publishers and advertisers.

Ringleader Digital delivers the online equivalent of ad-serving technology and functionality to the mobile and new-media markets.

Ringleader has developed the RLD platform to help publishers, agencies and analytics companies to identify, track and target mobile and new-media consumers, integrating with the ad-serving systems already in use.

The Travel Channel has begun by using Ringleader Digital?s RLD Spark Server platform to implement banner ads on targeted mobile Web sites and Dynamic Yield Optimization to optimize fill rates on its own mobile site.

RLD?s Spark Server will provide Travel Channel with targeting, tracking and reporting capabilities similar to online.

The network plans to expand upon the use of Ringleader?s suite of technologies to include RLD Media Stamp, a persistent device identification technology.

By partnering with Ringleader Digital, Travel Channel has the ability to refocus its internal sales team allowing them to use any third-party ad sales force with the goal of fostering new sources of advertising.  

?Travel Channel recognized the value of Ringleader?s approach to extending the online ad serving ecosystem to mobile, enabling agencies to buy on their mobile properties similarly to how they purchase online,? Mr. Pearlstein said.

?They also saw strategic value in having one system centrally manage inventory for both direct sales and remnant network sales,? he said. ?Travel Channel requires advanced targeting to marry up to their content and users.?