With more than half the world’s population using mobile phones – and an increasingly higher percentage on smart mobile devices – the potential for mobile video advertising has never been greater.

More brand advertisers today are turning to the likes of the click-to-video ad unit because of its proven effectiveness. In-app advertising is growing in proportion to the explosion in the mobile app field: there are more than 40,000 Android apps and the iPhone app store has more than 200,000. This latest marketing platform has spawned numerous ad formats, from banner ads to call-to-action messages urging users to click and watch a video to social media ad units through iVdopia’s Talk2Me.

In June 2010, ComScore identified social networking as the fastest-growing content category across mobile applications and browsers. With advertisers doubling their reach through users accessing mobile apps, the addition of social media sharing options on rich media ads increases the viral reach of their brand across increasingly popular social networking sites. Through its Talk2Me features, iVdopia noted a nearly 80 percent rise in campaigns that used the social rich media ad unit to direct consumers to multiple social networking sites as a call to action within the ad.

In iVdopia’s recent campaign for the Universal Pictures film “Repo Men,” iVdopia aimed to engage moviegoers and raise awareness, interest and intent to watch the movie by aligning its mobile strategy with the movie’s marketing campaign. The result was pre-application videos ads, which run while the application loads, and Talk2Me banner ad units, which feature various social media functions. These ads created an integrated opportunity for users to engage and share trailers, video clips and photos from “Repo Men.” Here’s how it worked: By clicking “learn more” on the video ad (Pictured in Repo Men Pre-App Video Ad image), the Talk2Me ad unit allowed the user to watch and share the “Repo Men” trailer via Facebook and Twitter; download wallpapers; view multiple video clips and photos; visit the movie’s website; and purchase movie tickets. (Pictured in Repo Men Talk2Me screen image.)

The performance of the pre-app video – at 568 percent greater than online in-stream video advertising benchmarks – and Talk2Me banner ad units – at 400 percent greater than industry benchmarks – outperformed the online medium. From the multiple-user engagement options on the Talk2Me banner ad unit, over 30 percent of the users who viewed the trailer shared the clip with friends on Facebook and Twitter. The “Repo Men” campaign illustrated the power of video ads as well: More than 50 percent of the users watched the entire trailer of the film. On average, they watched 10.8 seconds, or more than two-thirds of the clip.

The emergence of mobile video advertising dovetails with the idea that context-aware marketing is taking off. As users become more drawn and engaged by rich media and video ads, they are also more inclined to take the next step by making a purchase. What we learned from the “Repo Men” campaign is that when users are more likely to click the video ad, watch the entire clip, and share it with a friend, they in turn are more likely to seek out a nearby theater and attend a screening.

The way users engage with mobile video ads is ever changing, in part because of the viral nature of their social media components. Users now demand more from their ads. They are no longer interested in just passively soaking in an image. Expectations have shifted to where the so-called “wow” factor, available through one-click sharing, is a integral component in helping advertisers effectively target a greater proportion of mobile users.

Chhavi Upadhyay ([email protected]) is a co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of iVdopia. With more than 100 million mobile video impressions and more that 4 billion WAP impressions a month, iVdopia (www.ivdopia.com), based in San Jose, Calif., is the largest video and rich media mobile advertising network, with such clients as Coke, Universal Pictures, McDonalds, Wrigley, Microsoft and Miller Lite.