Millennial Media is out with its latest SMART report (November, 2011). As always it showcases advertiser behavior and tactics on Millennial's network. This month focuses on the Telecom industry and its mobile ad efforts. What's interesting to me is how advertisers are increasingly and self-consciously using mobile to send people into stores and local dealers.

There are a mix of advertiser objectives on display in the Millennial document:

• Online lead-generation
• Brand or product awareness
• Mobile commerce
• Local store visits

However Millennial reports growth in the use of store locators and local market targeting:

• Store Locator experienced growth of 47% month-over-month, with 33% of the Post-Click Campaign Action Mix in November. Retail and Auto advertisers leveraged Store Locator to drive customers into stores and dealerships for seasonal sales.
• Local Market targeting represented 69% of the Targeted Audience Mix in November. Restaurant and Telecom advertisers targeted customers with a variety of regional promotions to increase foot traffic into restaurants and stores where customers could redeem their offers. 

We're still in a period of experimentation with mobile advertising and best practices have yet to clearly emerge (although there are obviously some). Eventually people will figure out the best uses of mobile and what scenarios are most effective.

I think however we'll see two almost paradoxical things emerge: mobile is great for driving online-->offline visits (a kind of direct response) as well as a great brand-awareness medium.