True Blood. IAd. Target. Shrek. Those are all words that come to mind when thinking back on 2010 and the way that mobile advertising evolved this year.

Rich media, iAd, better smartphones, increased consumer usage, HTML 5 and the iPad were all drivers of mobile advertising in 2010. Google?s acquisition of AdMob and Apple?s acquisition of Quattro Wireless really validated the mobile advertising industry and its possibilities.

And so, here is a recap of 2010, in terms of campaigns that made people say, ?Wow.?

1. True Blood
HBO?s True Blood mobile ad campaign increased viewership 38 percent. Medialets assisted HBO with the effort.

HBO ran a rich media mobile ad campaign to promote the season three premiere of "True Blood" using a new ad unit that sent chills down consumers? spines.

The goals of the marketing campaign were to excite existing fans, intrigue the uninitiated and garner the attention of the industry to boost awareness and drive tune-in.

The campaign as a whole was successful?more than 5.1 million viewers tuned in to True Blood?s season three season premiere.

Agency of record PHD and Medialets chose iPhone applications from Variety, Flixster and various inventory across Jumptap?s mobile ad network.

Imagine browsing through the Flixter application looking for a movie or browsing the Variety application, and the first touch of the screen turns into a bloody fingerprint.

Tap it again and get another fingerprint, then the blood pours down and takes over the screen and the activation pops up, a tap-to-watch-trailer call-to-action with a banner ad at the bottom.

2. Calvin Klein
Calvin Klein went beyond mere banners in June, with its GQ application sponsorship.

The brand integrated its own content into GQ magazine?s Style Picks application via a sponsorship that hardly felt like advertising.

CK bought this sponsorship directly from GQ to present its new product line to mobile shoppers.

The ad unit was what NearbyNow called a ?sponsored guide,? and was full of interactive content such as model shots, a product catalog and videos.

The idea was to make the ad unit as close to the content as possible, so that it is useful to men looking for style advice.

Within the application, consumers can click on a model with a new summer look and get a list of all the products that model is wearing.

For those users who like what they see, they can find the closest CK store to go try it out.

Additionally, if consumers want to know more about what CK has going for with that look, they can watch the video where style experts from GQ and CK walk through the new items.

CK was able to reach men in discovery mode looking for ideas, who were near a point of purchase.

3. Paramount?s Shrek
In May, a Paramount mobile rich-media campaign for Shrek resulted in 6.2 percent click-through rate.

The ?Shrek Forever After? campaign targeted iPhone users on the Yahoo mobile homepage and the Yahoo Movies mobile portal from May 20-22. Yahoo?s mobile homepage gets about 50 million unique visitors a month, which comes to about 1.5 million unique visitors a day. Therefore the 6.2 percent click-through rate is quite a large number of people that interacted with the ad.

The Yahoo rich media ad unit featured animation. The ad ran on Yahoo?s mobile homepage, with the top of Shrek?s head along the bottom of the iPhone screen.

If a consumer tapped on his dome, Shrek popped up to fill the screen, with ?Tickets? and ?Showtimes? icons on his forehead.

Another tap directs the user to a microsite, where they can watch the trailer or buy a ticket for a local theatre via Fandango.

On the Yahoo Movies mobile page, tapping Shrek?s head also causes it to fill the screen, where the user can tap again to move to the microsite.

Watch the ad in action here:
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Iron Man 2
The average click-through rate of movie-ticketing giant Fandango?s commerce-enabled Iron Man 2 mobile video ads surpassed 6 percent?more than eight times as effective as the average PC Internet video ad.

Fandango?s marketing goal was to drive movie ticket sales for the Iron Man 2 movie. Fandango wanted to target its main demographic of movie-goers and action lovers, so the company chose to place ads powered by iVdopia within movie, entertainment/gaming and sports applications.

Fandango provided iVdopia with a Flash creative with a countdown of days left until the movie?s premiere. IVdopia helped convert the Flash creative into a video advertisement and executed the countdown with different video creative each day from April 29 to May 7.

The mobile video ads appeared in a variety of applications for the iPhone and iPod touch, including Skyworks? Goaaal! Lite, Arcade Hoops Basketball Lite, Field Goal Frenzy Lite, Arcade Bowling Lite, 3 Point Hoops Basketball Lite and World Cup Air Hockey Lite.

The mobile video ad creative had a clear call-to-action asking consumers to buy tickets that resulted it in 6.17 percent of users clicking on the ?Buy Tickets? icon.

On average, more than 25 percent of users who click on an iVdopia mobile video ad also do a post-click action.

Fandango received more than 50,000 actions on the custom Iron Man 2 Talk2Me page created by iVdopia.

Around 25,000 users clicked on the ?Buy Tickets? icon and more than 11,800 users viewed the trailer for the Iron Man 2 movie.

More than 5,800 consumers click to download the Fandango application, while another 7,800 clicked to view Iron Man 2 showtimes.

Forty-nine percent of users who clicked on the ad decided to buy tickets now, while 23 percent viewed the trailer, 16 percent searched showtimes and 12 percent downloaded the application.

In total, the mobile video campaign generated 817,495 impressions and 50,410 clicks through iVdopia?s Talk2Me actions in nine days.

Chase Sapphire
JPMorgan Chase & Co.?s Chase Sapphire, a rewards card targeting affluent consumers, was the exclusive launch sponsor of The New York Times Editors? Choice application for Apple?s iPad.

The New York Times Editors? Choice application offers a selection of the latest news, business and technology news, opinion and features chosen by Times editors that can be downloaded automatically to iPad.

The Editors? Choice application launched with a full-page vertical and horizontal interstitial ad that provided a large interactive canvas for Chase Sapphire.

Ad agency T3 and Medialets collaborated on the design of the Chase Sapphire ad units.

The card issuer?s goal was to drive users to a landing page to get more information about Chase Sapphire and apply for the card via a link on that page.

The opening interstitial ad unit was optimized for the iPad?s functionality. Depending on how a user tilted the iPad, a different reward showed up, spilling out of each side of the Chase Sapphire card.

There are 12 different rewards that the ad promoted related to airlines, resorts, ski trips, even romantic dates.

In addition to the interstitials, the campaign also included half-page ads and banner ads with both landscape and portrait versions.

Target iAd
Retailer Target?s iAd holiday campaign is a sign of where mobile advertising in going in 2011. Creative executions will be like nothing ever even imagined on the mobile platform.

In the iAd, which appears in applications such as The New York Times for iPhone, the actual ad becomes a live application of its own. It allows the user to stay within their application while engaging with the ad, even while watching a video, playing a game and engaging with other interactive media content. The ad is evidence of where mobile advertising is headed in 2011.

The Target experience begins with a banner ad that reads, ?Find sleighloads of holiday cheer. Right here.?

Next, a full-page overlay comes up introducing the campaign. The text reads, ?The merrymaker. Gift ideas and random acts of jolliness.?

Next, the screen asks viewers, ?What makes you merry?" Consumers get choose from gift ideas, tips and recipes, and holiday cheer.

There is also an opportunity to download the Target branded iPhone application, which is commerce-enabled.

Here is a screen grab:

For consumers that click on gift ideas, Target recommends Keith Urban and Taylor Swift CDs, amongst other potential presents to give friends and loved ones.

In the Tips & Recipes section, consumers can get timely tips from Target?s fashion expert Nina Garcia, who is also a fashion director at Marie Claire magazine. She appears in a video that can be shared via email or on Twitter.

Here is the video:

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The Target holiday cheer section of the iAd gives viewers free downloadable wallpapers that feature Bullseye, the retailer?s mascot, in various Christmas and holiday-inspired scenes.

Here is a screen grab of that section of the iAd: