Eleven of Britain's highest-spending advertisers are using responsive design for their Web sites, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau UK.

The advertisers using responsive design ranged across verticals with 17 percent of the automotive and technology/telecoms sectors using the technology and 14 percent of finance. On top of that, 58 of the 100 companies have a site that is optimized for smartphones.

?The big news for marketers is that a significant proportion of the top spending advertisers in the UK (11 percent) have adopted responsive design,? said Alex Kozloff, senior mobile manager at IAB, London.

?At a time when many marketers are still scratching their heads on how to best adapt their Web content for mobile, 11 of the top 100 spenders have made a significant move towards putting mobile at the center of their strategy," she said. 

?It's especially big news for those marketers without mobile optimized sites-and hopefully an incentive to change this.?

Responsive design
Responsive design is a popular way to adapt Web sites for multiple platforms. The sites automatically display content in a format that reflects the device a consumer is using.

Out of the UK?s 100 highest spending advertisers, the following 11 use responsive design: Peugeot, Nissan, Direct Line, Go Compare, Sainsbury?s Bank, Sky, EE, Microsoft, Colgate-Palmolive, the Department of Health and Chanel.

?The most surprising finding was the range of advertisers that were using responsive design- from luxury, to cars, to price comparison sites and government bodies," Ms. Kozloff said. "The uptake of responsive design doesn't seem as dependent on the type of advertiser as might be expected.?

While many of the advertisers have yet to adopt responsive design, a majority has optimized their homepage for mobile. Fifty-eight percent of the companies had already done so.

Site layout
Consumers expect to see mobile-optimized sites nowadays. Some may even exit a site if it is not optimized for smartphones.

Some marketers are opting for adaptive design over responsive. It seems to be that responsive design is more suited for commerce-focused sites, while adaptive design works better for branding (see story).

Responsive uses flexible and fluid grids, and adaptive delivery depends on predefined screen sizes.

?The study also showed how 42 percent of the top advertisers in the UK do not have a mobile optimized website at all,? Ms. Kozloff said.

?So whilst the study doesn't claim that every marketer should be looking to responsive design as a solution, it should encourage all marketers, big and small, to make sure they have considered the way their websites look on a mobile and check if they are satisfied with the experience,? she said.

Final Take
Rebecca Borison is editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York