NEW YORK ? A MEC executive at the 2012 MMA Forum said that when it comes to mobile, consumers are way ahead of where marketers are with developing campaigns.

The ?What Do Marketers Need from Their Agency? panel presented a look into some of the challenges that agencies face when managing clients and mobile campaigns. The panel was moderated by Karine T. Mehu, senior director of strategic marketing at NBCUniversal/USA Network, New York.

?The consumer is miles ahead of where marketing programs are today with both the mobile and social platforms,? said Sireesha Baljepalli, managing partner at MEC, New York.

?I think that it is very interesting and important to follow that brand experience,? she said.

?Think of it as a user experience instead of a mobile or social platform.?

Multichannel approach
In many ways, the consumer is leading the way with mobile, Ms. Baljepalli said.

Brands often feel daunted when getting into mobile, meaning that it is important to look at how mobile will fit into an overall strategy. For example, if a campaign is tied to a company?s ecommerce business, it can be easy to measure a marketing effort?s effectiveness.

The addition of mobile has shaken up the ways that businesses are organized, and it is important for agencies to pave the way with building mobile into an organization.

However, getting silos between companies to break down is difficult.

Ms. Baljepalli said that educating clients on how mobile should be used is continually an issue and needs to be consistently used.

For example, when social media started heating up, many brands thought that having a Facebook page was a social media strategy. Similarly, brands need to think strategically about mobile and how it fits into an overall marketing mix.

Mobile steps
According to Sacha Xavier, partner of media and innovation director at , New York, not every brand needs to jump full-on into mobile.

Depending on the effort, it is OK for brands to take baby steps into mobile because the channel is so new.

Brands often have a check-list of things that they want to accomplish with a campaign, but often do not realize that it is not possible to squeeze everything into a single campaign.

Measurement is consistently an issue with mobile, but being able to incorporate third party data gives a better perspective on campaigns. For example, Ms. Xavier said that her company will often use comScore data in combination to apply research to marketing findings.

Additionally, of-the-moment data, such as social media, can be a great resource to measure a campaign by.

From a publisher perspective, it is important to be upfront and clear about what a company does well to give agencies the best opportunity to find the right initiative. Therefore, a publisher-agency relationship needs to be seen as a partnership.

Ms. Xavier said that she would like to see more mobile developers working with sales departments to deliver targeted campaigns to applicable places.

Mobile guard
With the proliferation of smartphones and tablets, many brands have been caught off guard with mobile, according to one exec from Mobext.

?Many brands are looking to agencies to provide an easy button [with mobile],? said Sarah Amitay, vice president and mobile marketing director at Mobext, Boston.

Ms. Amitay agreed that publishers function as silos, which needs to be changed.

Although the opportunities are available on tablets, many publishers are missing out on an opportunity to engage on them.

?Mobile in some ways looks like online, but there are so many new challenges to it,? Ms. Amitay said.

?Open your minds on definitions of success,? she said.