NEW YORK ? An AOL executive at the MMA SM2 Innovation Summit 2016 highlighted three key areas for corporate success in mobile ? having mobile-enabled brands and services, effectively dealing with massive amounts of data and partnering with other properties that can offer points of differentiation.

During the opening keynote, ?The Future of Media and Advertising and The Collision of The Two,? the AOL executive discussed Verizon?s acquisition of the media company and what it means for AOL?s future globalization efforts. He also offered advice for other corporations wanting to succeed in the rapidly accelerating mobile sector, suggesting that they follow three key principles.

?All corporations have to be good at having brands and services that are super enabled for mobile,? said Tim Armstrong, CEO of AOL. ?You have to deal with massive amounts of personalization and data.

?Innovate quickly ? partner with other properties, operating systems that are different.?

Scaling up mobile
AOL?s CEO detailed some of the challenges and opportunities that media companies and publishers might encounter while navigating the mobile space.

?For us, we?re in an industry where we have really large competitors ? the Googles and the Facebooks,? Mr. Armstrong said. ?Scale in the mobile world is dramatically different than it was on the Internet.?

Despite having to compete for mobile ad revenue with other major companies, AOL has big plans for the future, some of which stem from its recent merger with Verizon.

?We want to basically hit a big audience and be involved with companies that bring an advantage to mobile, and Verizon brings the best network in the U.S. and an amazing amount of data,? Mr. Armstrong said.

By entering into the deal with Verizon, AOL hopes to excel in the mobile space on a national level before racking up additional international carrier partnerships, which Mr. Armstrong claims are already on the horizon.

?We basically did training camp with Verizon to learn how to do things as a combined entity,? he said.

Another area of opportunity for AOL ? as well as other publishers ? is the impending influx of another three billion connected consumers, all of whom are also potential customers.

This will double the current status of three billion connected individuals in the world.

Entering into partnerships with other operating systems or mobile platforms is another potentially lucrative move.

Applications such as Snapchat and Instagram have moved beyond emerging markets now, thanks to high usage from hundreds of millions of consumers.

AOL has already hopped on this bandwagon, as evidenced by yesterday?s announcement that it is teaming up with American Family Insurance and Mindshare for a content creation and distribution partnership. 

This will enable AOL to innovate more heavily within virtual reality and 360-degree video, a realm also being explored by a number of other publishers, including Time Inc. and the New York Times.

High engagement
AOL will continue to place a high focus on personalization and data as it ramps up its mobile engagement initiatives.

?We want to do high engagement,? Mr. Armstrong said. ?There?s a super need for brands to measure engagement in a different way.

?It could be search, it could be social.?

AOL is presently dedicated to continuing its branding efforts in the mobile space. With the mobile industry being one of the most quickly accelerating ? growing at an average of 15 percent ? establishing a strong presence on consumers? smartphones can yield a higher bottom line.

?Facebook is social, Google is search and we?re going to be brand,? Mr. Armstrong said. ?My personal view is that mobile is going to grow much, much faster than expected.?