In October Mobclix and Advertising.com announced a "Web to Mobile" ads deal. I wrote at the time:

However in a move that will have significant implications for online ad networks and potentially display advertising as a whole, mobile ad exchange Mobclix has announced a deal this morning with AOL's Advertising.com and Trafffic Marketplace. The deal will facilitate cross-platform display ad buying. The idea is that the two online networks now become a place that advertisers can buy mobile display inventory, as well as online, via Mobclix. 

Greystripe has been working similarly with online ad network Tribal Fusion over the last several months. Traditional online display ads are recoded (w/o new creative) for mobile. VentureBeat summarizes the outcome as reported by Greystripe:

Greystripe has been testing a partnership with Web ad network Tribal Fusion. In the past six months, Tribal Fusion has passed along more than 500 ad campaigns to Greystripe, which re-encodes them to play inside games on iPhones.

The result may surprise even mobile-tech utopians: The mobile versions of the exact same ad performed 10 to 20 times better — in terms of click-throughs by those who saw them — than the versions that Tribal Fusion had served to browsers on desktops and laptops . . .

The performance is 10X to 20X better for the same ad on mobile devices and the reach to mobile is automatic for marketers. This is the model going forward.

There will be more and more connections between online and mobile ad networks that facilitate automatic mobile ad distribution with the same creative or make it much simpler to buy mobile and online together. Pricing is different online and in mobile and creative may need to be tweaked here and there for mobile but this is the model.

What it means is two-fold:

• More M&A activity in 2010 for mobile ad networks as online networks seek to ensure they can extend to mobile (GoogMob was merely the first) -- mobile will soon be a must-have option. They buy the networks to ensure reach accordingly
• Display (and video) will have a strong future as part of the mobile ad mix; barriers to mobile ad creative and media buying will come down

Advertisers will (finally) be noticing and paying attention to eye-popping performance data like this, coming out of the market.

Millennial predicted that advertisers will want more "share of voice" on mobile. They'll want it generally but mobile is one of the few places they can actually get it these days (maybe on Hulu too). Hence mobile will be a big draw as the barriers to creative and media buying come down in 2010. Budgets will migrate more quickly accordingly. 

The other angle on realizing the potential of mobile display, which I've spoken about is dynamic creative (a slightly different discussion). That's what Teracent and a few others do online and to a lesser degree in mobile -- and it's what Teracent will be doing for AdMob/Google in mobile in the coming year.