NEW YORK - Mobile gives legs to other channels such as retail, print, online, television, outdoor, radio, direct mail and insert media, according to speakers at "Mobile Marketing for Agencies and Media Buyers," an event sponsored by Mobile Marketer and the Direct Marketing Association.

The panel of speakers agreed that integrated mobile ad campaigns and built-in mobile programs help win consumer loyalty. However, the message needs to be relevant to the consumer.

"It's all about the audience," said Thom Kennon, vice president of strategic planning at Wunderman, New York. "The consumption is there and audience demand is up."

According to Michael Shim, managing director and head of mobile sales and business development at Yahoo, there are approximately 52 million users of the mobile Web in the U.S. That's a 40 percent increase year-over-year.

Mr. Shim said that Yahoo has the largest reach on the mobile Web, with 33 million unique visitors.

"Mobile advertising is here," Mr. Shim said. "There are all types of advertisers investing in the channel."

The interesting part is that it isn't only the big trendsetting brands that are using mobile, albeit the giants are investing in the channel. Even some mom-and-pop shops are taking advantage of the medium.

According to a study by Nielsen Mobile, there are 58 million unique viewers of mobile advertising in the U.S. Half of these viewers have responded to the ad.

Panelists agreed that it is important to maintain tolerance with a campaign's target audience.

Additionally, as smartphone prices decrease, more teens will start getting smartphones. Smartphones are a hot market for teens because the demographic is made up of avid users of social networks such as Facebook and MySpace, both of which have applications for smartphones.

Applications -- and not just social networking applications -- are very appetizing to the teen demographic, which is rarely seen without their handsets.

The panelists also discussed the ins and outs of messaging.

As per Alykhan Govani, CEO of MX Telecom, North America, brands are sending out more text message communications to consumers per month now than ever in the past.

ESPN, for example, is sending out approximately 20 million marketing messages a month.

"Mobile needs to be in the mix," Mr. Kennon said. "Mobile is sometimes the only answer because of the unique way in which it connects brands to their target audience."

Mr. Kennon said that that morning on the way to the seminar he saw an advertisement on a bus for Disney Radio. He thought the ad should have had a short code so that viewers could get more information regarding Disney Radio.

"Mobile phones are always on and present," he said.

It's so simple. What's interesting is there isn't really a way to track how many people viewed the ad on that bus.

A short code in the ad would have allowed for better tracking of the campaign.

Mr. Shim said it is important to be able to differentiate between the click on a Web site and an action on mobile.

"Brands want action and not just brand awareness," Mr. Shim said. "You can get people to do stuff on mobile."

Case-in-point: Automakers have run banner ads that redirect clickers to a site where they sign up for a test drive.

"We need to think about how complementary something like that can be to other advertising," said Jonathan Shar, general manager and senior vice president of Time Inc.'s CNNMoney.com. "Creative execution and connecting the two pieces is important."

"This can leverage what you have done in other media," he said.

One of the audience members was concerned over marketing to kids on their mobiles because she feared they may not all have all-you-can-eat data plans.

Mr. Govani said adoption of unlimited plans is growing. This is driven by the fact that parents are increasingly concerned about over-texting fees.

The panelists talked about getting consumers to opt-in.

There is only so much room on a consumer's phone for marketing.

Mickey Alam Khan, the editor in chief of this publication and the panel's moderator, said that a consumer has the appetite to interact with 13 brands at a time via email on average.

With the mobile phone it is even less because of the small screen.

"We believe that if we can get people to start opting in, mobile advertising will follow," Mr. Shar said. "Right now it is about service and content delivery.

"Traditional online advertising is becoming invisible," he said. "I don't think we will see the same with mobile."

The panelists agreed that some brands really know mobile.

So what's all the hype about?

"When someone is out, mobile is their only media connection," Mr. Shim said.