By Michael Weaver

The Federal Trade Commission recently held a town hall meeting to address mobile marketing and privacy. Several different mobile marketing companies, the Mobile Marketing Association and various consumer groups presented detailed and compelling arguments on behalf of, and counter to, using the mobile phone as an advertising channel.

This dustup fascinates me. I believe there is such an obvious case for marketing in mobile which will benefit all parties that such brouhaha makes little sense.

Let's face it -- consumers love good targeted, relevant and contextual advertising in any channel. If advertising hits these three salient points, it will be well received and appreciated by consumers. If it is in your face, disruptive and pushed onto you, it will not -- in any channel.

Consumers do not like bad advertising. It has less to do with the medium and more to do with the creative and the idea.

You can make a good case that mobile is the medium that allows for advertising to be, by far, the most targeted, relevant and contextual of all advertising mediums.

After all, a mobile phone is the only device that consumers have with them at all times, at home, in the office and on the go.

In fact, a recent study Pew/Internet Study found that 62 percent of all Americans are part of a wireless, mobile population that participates in digital activities away from home or work and 51 percent of those surveyed found it would be hardest to give up their mobile phone. It is the application of creative to this channel that should be watched.

Here are some points that focus on advertising's acceptance on other platforms and delivery channels.

First, consumers don't want to block ads, in general. For example, blocking software is readily available online. Yet, according to industry estimates, only 14 percent to 30 percent of consumers use blocking software for pop-up advertisements. This is a tiny number considering how prevalent pop-up advertising has become.

The usage of this targeted advertising method has become a favorite among advertisers for a good reason. Marketers say up to 5 percent of the people who receive pop-up ads respond with a click, a much higher response rate than non-targeted, non-contextual advertisements online.

As for consumers' privacy concerns, look at cookies (primarily used to optimize advertising), or more specifically, the number of people who erase cookies. Consumers are allowing advertisers to target them further with additional marketing messages.

According to JupiterResearch, only 17 percent of Internet users delete cookies on a weekly basis, 12 percent do so on a monthly basis and 10 percent make it a daily habit.

Sixty-one percent of online users do not erase third-party cookies, and less than 2 percent erase site-side cookies.

If consumers were seriously worried about marketers and advertisers learning about their tastes, buying habits and other personal information, they would be more actively erasing cookies.

Third consider that consumers who watch TV watch more commercial-based programming versus commercial-free advertising.

Of the more than 112 million television households in the United States, only 40 million of those homes, or about 35 percent, subscribe to HBO or its sister network, Showtime (the two leaders in premium, commercial free programming) combined.

Both networks' core value proposition is no advertising. Subscribing to a premium channel costs about the same as renting two movies a month from Blockbuster.

Yet, regular commercial-based TV programming still garners higher viewership numbers on a daily basis. Therefore, consumers are continuing to seek out commercial-based programming and are receptive to advertising.

Otherwise, HBO, Showtime and the others would garner higher subscriber numbers and advertisers, who sink hundreds of millions of dollars in TV, would move away from commercial-based programming as a marketing platform.

In Europe, entire TV stations and shows are dedicated to advertising. And online one can find numerous Web sites where consumers can go and rate TV ads.

Fourth, Super Bowl commercials have become almost as much of a "must see" event as the game itself. How many people watch the Super Bowl for the ads? How much audience would be lost without them?

Let's face it -- there is as much chatter about the advertisements at Super Bowl parties as there is about the game.

Finally, people are as entertained by commercials as they are other forms of content. And those ads take on a viral component that can become a huge generator of traffic.

For instance, David Cook's Guitar Hero commercial on the finale of the "American Idol" TV show has garnered more than 1 million views on YouTube alone to date. And for a long time the No. 1 musical hit in the Middle East and in Britain were both songs created specifically for advertisements.

In the end, ad blocking and privacy fears are subjects that generate a lot of talk and debate. But consumer behavior and the natural forces of the marketplace should be the ultimate decision maker.

Prior consumer behavior shows that people don't like irrelevant advertising, but will be receptive to targeted advertising. This behavior favors mobile as it offers the most targeted advertising.

Provided the creative and idea is correct and not shoved down consumers throats, mobile advertising will be well received by consumers.

The FTC should pay less attention to the minority who are arguing that targeted mobile advertising is an invasion of privacy, and take more action against hideous, untargeted billboards that are everywhere, overloading us with non-essential messaging and destroying our country's beauty.

One would no more like a guy running out in the street with a huge sign and yelling about coupons than a push SMS. They are both just bad ideas.

Michael Weaver is vice president of strategy/business development at mobile site developer Crisp Wireless, New York. Reach him at .