Trade association for mobile downloadable media engages

By Mickey Alam Khan

December 3, 2007

Chris MacDonald, chairman of the Association for Downloadable Media

A changed advertising and media landscape requires new industry leadership. That’s where the mobile-focused Association of Downloadable Media steps in.

Formed a few months ago, the association has now named its executive board, advisors and committee chairs. Its focus is to ensure the effective measurement of mobile episodic and downloadable media.

“ADM is coalescing advertisers, media publishers, measurement companies and online ad brokers to facilitate the growth of the emerging mobile ad-supported media market,” said Chris MacDonald, chairman of ADM and executive vice president of business development and operations at Wizzard Media’s Liberated Syndication.

“As more and more audience goes mobile,” he said, “we will facilitate that changing advertising landscape with primary research, resources and initiatives to effectively measure and deliver value to advertisers.”

In essence, ADM is trying to be to mobile what the Interactive Advertising Bureau is to the interactive advertising and marketing community – an arbiter of industry standards.

The association’s membership roster includes marketers focused on mobile device platforms, including Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., Nokia and Nielsen. Broadcaster members are Discovery Networks, CNN/Turner and National Public Radio.

Among other members are RSS media and advertiser platform providers such as Wizzard Media/Libsyn, Kiptronic, Podshow and Podtrac.The portable media side is represented by Ask A Ninja, Digg, PodTech and Susan Bratton’s Personal Life Media.

The profile of ADM’s chairman is a hint of what the membership looks like.

Mr. MacDonald is a veteran in the creation, distribution and tracking of downloadable media. In September 2004 he founded IndieFeed Networks, which distributes 1.7 million Nielsen-certified unique downloads each month to rank among the popular music discovery RSS networks.

Immobile standards

Corporations pay $1,000 for inaugural-year membership and individuals and nonprofits $150 each. The site at www.downloadablemedia.org includes all the trappings of an association site, including primary research and blog posts.

“We want to dovetail the aligned interests between advertisers, intermediaries, measurement companies and content publishers and producers to reduce the friction we currently tend to see with ad fulfillment on mobile downloadable transactions,” Mr. MacDonald said.

“The transaction costs for one-off advertising deals need to reduce so that we can help to scale transactions at the volumes advertisers are accustomed to working with.

“We want to bring all the parties to the table through membership, substantive development of ad unit standards – much the way the Interactive Advertising Bureau did with ad banners on the desktop – to encourage rapid growth of transactions in this space,” he said.

Media companies often close ad deals on a case-by-case basis to fill inventory, but ADM sees higher yields in establishing a common currency or vernacular to engage advertisers with confidence.

ADM also intends to offer primary research that gives advertisers a truthful assessment of the value proposition for downloadable media, much of which is consumed at the mobile device, Mr. MacDonald said.

The potential for mobile is huge, he said.

“Much as the advertising market is blossoming at the online level, mobile consumption of content is on the rapid rise,” Mr. MacDonald said. “But advertisers have not figured out exactly how to optimize this new medium.

“That is where we can come in to help,” he said. “You hit extremely valuable niche markets where [consumers] consume and buy, engage them in ways they want to be engaged, and then you are really on to something. That is what ADM is about.”