A cell-phone user may subscribe to a service that provides news headlines or sports scores along with an advertising message. The firm's experience trying to run a client's campaign on Web phones convinced him of the need for uniform standards. The agency and its client found they would have to develop eight versions of the same campaign to reach customers, given the different phones, phone companies, network servers and other links in the chain between advertiser and consumer, Mr. Bair says. Now there are. The standards also cover privacy issues, says FusionOne's Mr. Albert.
Standards also govern the size of the advertising message.
Other standards tell advertisers how many people receive their ad and act on its message. The WAA standards call for tracking that call-back rate, Mr. Albert says. Establishing standards for wireless ads now, while the technology is new, may head off some of the missteps in the world of wired Web advertising, in which dot-coms that based their business models solely on ad revenue failed when Web advertising declined, he says. While setting standards is important, the WAA also says those standards must be flexible, says Andy Fessel, co-chairman of the association and a vice president with Telephia Inc., a San Francisco company that tracks marketing information on wireless networks. The standards must keep pace with wireless technology that, inevitably, will evolve, Mr. Fessel says.