There are a number of things that make mobile advertising stand out from the crowd. For starters, mobile ads are aimed at, well, mobile users: a demographic that is high end, with a decent phone and, for now at least, a reasonable disposable income.

But the real key to its success is that it offers a much more demonstrable return on investment (RoI) for brands. Mobile is inherently highly targetable, personaliseable and, perhaps above all, measureable: all things making it ideal for direct marketing.

"Tracking, data generation, targeting and brand awareness measurement are crucial now when people put together ad spend on a campaign - and mobile offers all of that," says MIG's Tim Dunn. "But crucially, it also offers post campaign survey capabilities: offering for perhaps the first time a real way of measuring brand recall in the target audience."

Another key recession busting attribute of the mobile marketing and advertising space is the iPhone. While everyone who doesn't own one is sick of hearing about it, the iPhone - and in particularly its apps store - is a huge opportunity.

"We are already working - with our own in-house iPhone expertise - on projects to deliver brands onto the iPhone through downloadable apps," says Dunn. "It's a huge opportunity. There are 1 million iPhones in the UK and 3 million iPod Touches. All of these have access to the apps store. The browser capability is also important. Globally iPhone is the number one mobile web browser (number three in the UK): all brands should have an iPhone strategy."

And the iPhone apps store model is creating a whole new shift in mobile marketing. "Apple has huge value chain power now in mobile: no one else has the synergy of handset, OS and store," says Dunn. "Operators and handset makers need to respond - and they will. The expertise we can build up around the iPhone in how to use apps as a marketing tool will soon come to be useful on other devices too."

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