The Mobile Marketing Association has opened a public review period for the latest version of its Global Mobile Advertising Guidelines.

The MMA guidelines are designed to provide an industry-standard framework that encourages the worldwide growth of mobile advertising while protecting the consumer experience. The review period for the new version 4.0 guidelines, which will be published in September, runs through Aug, 31 and is open to the public, MMA members and MMA partner organizations.

"There is a strong globalization effort that is underway here at the MMA, and the guidelines are only applicable in North America in its current form," said Mike Wehrs, president/CEO of the MMA, New York. "We're not just exporting what we have, but truly trying to globalize the guidelines.

"We're finding commonalities wherever possible, but we're also addressing localities to formulate a single set of guidelines so brands don't have to reference many standards for the content they're producing," he said. "We also have to remain relevant to the marketplace.

"Web standards do change and new capabilities are brought to the market all the time, so we want our standards to remain current and state-of-the-art to help people develop compelling content based on the current standards."

The Mobile Marketing Association is a global nonprofit trade association established to lead the growth of mobile marketing and its associated technologies.

The MMA is designed to clear obstacles to market development, establish mobile media guidelines and best practices for sustainable growth and evangelize the use of the mobile channel.

The more than 700 member companies, representing 40-plus countries worldwide, include all areas of the mobile media ecosystem.

A draft of version 4.0 of the mobile advertising guidelines is available for download at http://www.mmaglobal.com/mobileadpublicreview2009. Anyone can leave feedback for the MMA in the public review forum.

By making each new version of the Global Mobile Advertising Guidelines available for public review, the MMA wants to ensure that this resource meets the needs of the entire mobile advertising ecosystem.

The new guidelines include several major updates and additions:

The MMA's new Universal Mobile Advertising Package (UMAP) provides industry-standard ad units.

The Mobile Application section has been expanded from North America-only to worldwide.

There is an expanded MMS section, including new ad units and guidelines, an expanded Mobile Video & TV section with new ad units and guidelines, and an expanded Mobile Applications section with new ad units and guidelines.

There's been a focus of the MMA to involve the consumer more, reaching out to them beforehand rather than just waiting till after the release of guidelines and getting complaints.

"The industry gets together to review the document and after that there's a period of public comment," Mr. Wehrs said. "Rather than just have things change, especially now that it's more globalized, we're trying to deliver something that consumers find valuable and desirable and that they don't perceive as spam.

"We wanted them to know that the MMA would be responsive to their input," he said. "This is a pretty significant revision with an eye toward growing mobile investments in Latin America, Europe and APAC.

"We need to be addressing the broader membership and communities that we serve, so you should expect to see us involving our international members more and more going forward."