This article elaborates on the emerging field of mobile advertising, the reasons for its gaining popularity, the potential it has for clients and also the challenges it has to face for gaining acceptance among the masses.

It was 5:30 in the morning and I got a beep on my mobile phone reminding me of a message received. It was an SMS received from an online music company which provides spiritual ringtones. Well, I am spiritually inclined, and such an SMS at this odd hour certainly made me think about this ringtone. Whether I actually bought the ringtone or not is a different question; but the idea really is all about mobile advertising.

So what is mobile advertising? There is no standard definition for mobile advertising. Simply put, it is the utilization of mobile devices to carry an advertiser's message to the end-users. According to Interactive Mobile Advertising Platform (IMAP) 2003, mobile advertising is defined as the "business of encouraging people to buy products and services using the mobile channel as the medium to deliver the advertisement message". So, we can clearly say that mobile advertising is essentially a paid advertising used by advertisers to reach the target audience.

Looking at the Indian story, mobile advertising is the latest advertising medium that is catching the fancy of advertisers and media planners, and why not. The growth in Indian mobile market has been phenomenal. In just less than six years, the growth in the subscriber' base of mobile users has increased from one million to 100 million and we are just behind China, the US, Japan and Russia as far as mobile penetration goes. And the mobile penetration is expected to increase over the years. A market of 100 million plus and growing is huge, and offers advertisers innovative ways to reach the target audience, which is the prime driver for increase in mobile advertising.

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