The campaigns and impressions on our platform provide the basis for our reports, and whenever possible, we include the same categories and charts in every report. One benefit to taking this approach is that when you look at the reports holistically and compare recent reports with past reports, you can gain an incredibly unique perspective on how mobile has changed and evolved.

One example of this is the rise of Android. In Q1 of 2010, Android made up 6 percent of all impressions. In Q1 of 2013, it made up 52 percent.

Another example is the advent of tablets and non-phone connected devices. This category has grown consistently, and in the last year, these devices have increased their share of total impressions on our platform from 20 percent to 25 percent.

For anyone looking to get a snapshot at the growth of mobile, I’d encourage you to look back at some of our previous reports, all of which can be accessed for free at http://www.millennialmedia.com/mobile-intelligence/.

Today’s report is now up on the site. Here are some highlights:

• Apple was the top manufacturer on our platform and impressions from all models of the iPhone grew 28 percent from the previous quarter.
• Samsung was the second largest manufacturer on our platform, and saw impressions increase 19 percent from the previous quarter.
• Amazon broke into our list of the top 10 manufacturers and saw impressions increase 125 percent from the previous quarter.
• Android tablet impressions grew 96 percent year-over-year, and now make up 45 percent of total tablet impressions.

If you are interested in connecting with our team to hear more about the data and how it could impact your business, please reach out to our marketing team at research@millennialmedia.com. We’d love to talk.

John Greiner has been named Managing Director of the region, and he will be leading our team out of the newly opened Tokyo office. John has over 18 years of experience in the Japanese market, and his impressive background and knowledge of the region will allow us to quickly scale our business.

Tokyo will be our third official international office, joining regional headquarters in Singapore and London, as well as our expanded sales presence in Paris, Hamburg and Jakarta.

We currently have open positions in all of our international locations (as well as North America!), and if you are interested in learning about the openings, you can read more info and apply directly from our website at: http://www.millennialmedia.com/careers/available-positions/

From the entire Millennial Media team, I want to say welcome to John (or should I say “Konnichiwa”), and we look forward to continued international growth.

The IAB has recognized the important role tablets play in today’s advertising landscape, and recently released a whitepaper with advice for marketers on how to succeed in the space.

We were delighted to contribute to this report, joining executives from Yahoo!, Microsoft and Celtra, who all weighed in with their own unique insights.

The size of our platform gives us a unique look at the mobile ecosystem. We appreciate the opportunity to support industry education initiatives like this that will help guide future buying decisions from our brand and agency partners.

Check out the full whitepaper on the IAB site here: http://bit.ly/112rWHs

Our panel was titled “Build to Grow: Developing Your App with Monetization in Mind,” and I was joined by Joe Lazarus from Backflip Studios, Ryan Chesley from Smule and Eric Futoran from Scopely.

Some key topics that panelists touched on included the different types of ad products that they have used, and their views on the relationship between display advertising and in-app purchases.

Ryan from Smule said that they “build the essential relationship [between advertising and in-app purchases] into the core of an app,” and that they approach different ways of monetizing with a testing mindset. This helps them understand what works for each of their titles.

Eric from Scopely called out their approach in trying to “be at the forefront” of implementing new ad products.  No matter what they use, it’s important that everything is thought out on the back-end so “ads show up when the user wants to see them.”

The overall panel was dynamic and informative, and specifically, there were two key points shared by Joe from Backflip Studios that really seemed to resonate with the audience.

Joe emphasized that it “all starts with a great game.” While this may sound obvious, it’s always helpful for developers to remember this when they want to make money and build a business.  The best first step is to have a great app.

Second, Joe said, “when advertising is done well, it works for both the business and consumer.” We couldn’t agree more.

We say it all the time, but it’s so important for developers to think about monetization from the very beginning. This gives them the opportunity to seamlessly integrate advertising into the overall app experience.

Developers make money. Consumers have access to free apps. Everyone wins.

Visit mMedia for more information on our monetization tools, and check out our special gaming-focused Mobile Mix report for exclusive data and insights on the gaming applications on our platform.

Sarah has played an instrumental role over the years in helping us build new creative units, and she is constantly thinking of innovative ways we can help brands engage consumers.

Take, for example, our recent campaign for Call of Duty: Black Ops II, which tapped into the native camera functionality of the phone to allow consumers to take a picture and actually insert themselves into the ad.Here is a video demo: http://bit.ly/13MIvEp

Joining Sarah on the list was a group of talented, creative individuals, including numerous Millennial Media partners.  One of these partners was Jason Newport, the SVP of Mobile Strategy at Aegis Media. We have worked with Jason on campaigns for a variety of clients, and he has always been an innovator who is willing to take creative chances to move the needle for the brands he is working with.

The Business Insider list highlights a Home Depot campaign, where Jason & his client leveraged our Mobile Circular ad unit over Memorial Day weekend. They created an ad that featured 11 different Home Depot products which consumers could “swipe through,” replicating the traditional free standing insert that retailers have commonly used in Sunday newspapers. As a result of the campaign, on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, Home Depot had the highest mobile site traffic in their history.

From the whole team at Millennial Media, congratulations to Sarah, Jason and everyone else on Business Insider’s list.  Creativity in mobile advertising is helping push the entire industry forward, and we’re proud to be doing our part.

Check out the full list from Business Insider here: http://read.bi/ZVSXol

Games are on for almost 12 hours (spanning work, lunch, traditional primetime hours, etc,), they are played at a variety of locations across the country, and the audience includes consumers who may not usually be interested in sports but are watching because of college allegiances or bracket pools.

For advertisers, there is a great opportunity to leverage the excitement around March Madness to drive results for their brand, and mobile in particular presents a unique opportunity. This year, as consumers went about their day, mobile devices often switched from a first screen device to a second screen device, depending on the situation.

As consumers were working, commuting, or engaging in other daily activities, mobile was the first screen they used to stay connected to the tournament. Once consumers were able to get to a TV (either at home or a bar/restaurant), many people shifted consumption habits and used their device as a second screen, to complement the TV watching experience.

No matter what situation consumers were in, the one overarching takeaway we got from the first day of the tournament this year, is that they were finding ways to use mobile. Period.

On our platform, we saw mobile traffic from NCAA Tournament fans spike 18 percent around tip-off of the first day, and this grew to a 27 percent spike as the day progressed.

Additionally, tablets played a huge role in how consumers engaged with the games, and we saw that sports content accessed on tablet devices was 47 percent higher on the first day of the tournament than on the day before.

We were able to pull this data from our new NCAA Tournament infographic, which is featured below. You’ll also find information on the top audiences, content channels, and more.

If you’re an advertiser that is looking to leverage cultural events like the NCAA Tournament, shoot our team a note at sales@millennialmedia.com, and we’d love to come up with a strategy for the next event, uniquely tailored to your brand.

You’ve told us that sometimes, you want to take a more hands-on approach, and we listened.  We’re happy to announce a new feature that puts the advertiser in total control of their campaign optimization by site/app placement.

Advertisers can now manually target specific properties for their campaign to run on, or call out sites or apps where they may not want their campaign to appear. All sites are targeted by a unique site identifier, or App ID.

If you are interested in adding site optimization targeting to a campaign, just follow these steps.

1. In the “Optimization & Targeting” section of mMedia, click the “Add Targeting” button in “Site Optimization.”
2. Select either “Always run on these sites” or “Never run on these sites” from the dropdown menu.
3. Compare site performance using the “Site Activity” table.  Highlight the specific site(s) you would like to target and click the arrow to the right of the Site Activity box.
4. Save your selections and proceed through the rest of the wizard.

You can also target additional sites by typing the App/Site ID in the “bulk upload” section in the dialog box.

To take advantage of site optimization targeting, make sure you are have either implemented conversion tracking or are tracking campaign performance by App/Site ID.

We welcome your feedback on this new feature. Contact us support@mMedia.com.

Here are a few highlights:

Fast and Easy Integration
A completely updated interface gives developers greater flexibility and control and reduces the code required for implementation. We also made a number of additional updates, including the removal of the READ_PHONE_STATE permission for Android.

Increased Revenue Opportunity
We’re expanding our suite of Video Advertising Solutions for smartphones and tablets giving developers access to even more high CPM brand campaigns. With SDK 5.0, Millennial Media is also IAB MRAID 2.0 certified. Developers can benefit from additional revenue potential as advertisers seek an MRAID 2.0 compliant solution for their premium rich media campaigns.

Support for iOS 6 Capabilities
Integration with Facebook, Twitter and the App Store provides a seamless experience and helps developers keep users engaged with their apps. When users interact with an ad using this functionality, they’re taken directly to Facebook, Twitter or the App Store to complete the action (“Like,” “Share,” “Tweet,” “Download App,” etc.), and then returned immediately to the developer’s app. Developers will also have the ability to make money from brand advertising campaigns that use Passbook to deliver boarding passes, loyalty cards, retail coupons, movie tickets and more directly to a consumer’s mobile device.

In addition, SDK 5.0 does not utilize the Unique Device Identifier (UDID) on Apple iOS devices. Each Millennial Media iOS SDK that we have released since version 4.5.5 in April of 2012 has been compliant with Apple’s decision to deprecate UDID.

We encourage developers to integrate with us or update their apps as quickly as possible to take advantage of the opportunity available with this release. SDK 5.0 is available for download now on mMedia.com and technical documentation and release notes can be viewed here. We welcome developers to contact us with questions, feedback or if they need assistance with integration.

Almost half of all Consumer Goods campaigns on our platform in 2012 focused on brand awareness – a percentage that is more than 3X what we typically see. Consumer Goods advertisers know that keeping their brand top of mind influences decisions made at the store shelf. In addition, Consumer Goods marketers use unique mobile campaign features more often than marketers in other verticals, including mobile video, location-based targeting and social media tie-ins.

If you’re interested in learning more about how Consumer Goods advertisers are leveraging mobile, grab a copy of the brand new Consumer Goods edition of our Mobile Intel Series. The Mobile Intel Series is the most comprehensive set of reports we put out, and this particular version includes data on topics like the most frequently targeted audiences by Consumer Goods advertisers, the top sub-verticals within Consumers Goods, and much more. It’s a handy guide for marketers in all verticals.

Here are a few highlights from the report:

• Mobile ad spend in the Consumer Goods vertical grew 235 percent year-over-year from 2011 to 2012 on our platform.
• The audience most frequently targeted by Consumers Goods buyers was “Foodies”, followed by “Pet Owners,” “Parents,” “Avid Shoppers,” and “Household Shoppers.”
• 40 percent of Consumer Goods campaigns on our platform in 2012 utilized real-time location-based targeting.
•  “Beverages” was the top sub-vertical in Consumer Goods, and made up 43 percent of campaigns on our platform. “Cosmetics and Hygiene” was second, followed by ”Food,” “Household Products” and “Pet Products.”
• Females were more likely than males to access Consumer Goods content on their phones, and the top age group for mobile Consumer Goods content was 25-34. This age group was also the most active demographic for “mobile grocery shoppers.” (CLM question: this last point is confusing – is “mobile grocery shoppers” an audience? How is this age group determined to be most active?)
• 82 percent of Consumer Goods impressions on our platform in 2012 came from smartphones, and 18 percent came from tablets.

You can download the full report on our website, along with past editions of the Mobile Intel Series focusing on Retail & Restaurants, Automotive, Finance and Entertainment.

When the iPhone 5 launched, Passbook didn’t receive the press attention that many of the other new features were given. However, with the ease-of-use and clear utility in the storing of vouchers, travel tickets and loyalty cards, we believe that Passbook could have a huge impact and become a bellwether for mobile wallet implementation.

The Harvester campaign took advantage of Millennial Media’s targeting technology to serve display ads to iPhone 5 users, and those who had upgraded to the latest iOS6, with a skew towards families. Upon clicking the banner, the consumer was taken to a simple landing page that clearly communicated the offer, with the call-to-action to add this to their Passbook. Eagle Eye then pushed the individually-coded voucher to their smartphone, with no additional details required. This seamless consumer experience was a major step forward and by removing the need to enter form details, such as your mobile number, we were able to reduce friction in the customer journey and improve issuance levels.

Once the voucher was loaded into Passbook, the Eagle Eye platform enabled the consumer to redeem the offer securely via the Chip & PIN terminal in participating outlets. Using this technology, Harvester managed to close the loop on their marketing campaign by measuring each customer engagement with the campaign from issuance to redemption, driving real value and efficiencies, in a way that is not possible with more traditional media.

The campaign ran in the UK for two weeks and in that time drove issuance of almost 16,000 vouchers, with over 700 vouchers redeemed within the campaign period.

Commenting on the campaign, Eagle Eye CEO, Steve Rothwell, stated: “The launch of Apple’s Passbook with iOS 6 marks the beginning of the end for paper and plastic based coupons and vouchers… More than ever, success in the retail sector comes down to being able to provide a superior service to customers. Mobile is a key component for this and as such is at the heart of what we’re doing here.” This bold statement is validated by OnDevice Research, who published a report that indicated 53% of consumers would prefer to redeem instore vouchers using their mobile, vs 34% via printed means.

Further opportunities with mobile couponing campaigns are manifold: these include the ability to analyse and respond to campaign metrics such as average basket size, changing the offer or creative as appropriate in real time; active audiences can be enrolled into relevant mobile CRM programmes; and the campaign can be optmised, not just to media segments where issuance is strongest, but also environments where redemption itself is seen to be highest.

The ability to put mobile at the centre of well-used sales promotion techniques, and enhance the experience for brand, merchant and consumer, is just beginning. Retail distribution remains a key value-chain partner, as technology integration, staff education and training is necessary to facilitate redemption. However, as we have demonstrated, by adopting a partnership approach between brand, retailer, technology partner and the mobile media platform, exciting results with a strong and measurable ROI are possible.

To read further details on this campaign, please download the Harvester campaign summary.