The Weather Channel is offering advertisers a cross-platform experience between Weather.com online and on mobile with its new 300x250 advertising unit.

The network claims to ease the advertiser?s ability to use the same creative for the 300x250 online Web advertising unit and on the mobile Web. This expansion from online ad buys gives advertisers more access to mobile integration, easing the transition from online to the mobile Web and extending a campaign?s reach to The Weather Channel consumers, with a digital audience totaling 45 million unique users a month. 

?The idea to package-up ad products across platforms came from a long laundry list of advertisers we work with,? said Cameron Clayton, vice president of mobile at The Weather Channel, Atlanta. ?We have six people dedicated just to selling mobile ads, and the feedback we?re getting is it is just so hard to know what to buy on mobile, with different ad sizes and aspect ratios.

?We wanted to make it more similar to print or online so it?s easier to buy, and to solve the problem we?re bringing the standard IAB 300x250 unit to make that a cross-platform unit on the mobile Web, within applications and eventually interactive TV as well,? he said.

?The ability to buy one unit at one price and run it across all of our platforms makes a big difference for advertisers and helps them get massive reach.?

The Weather Channel reaches more than 16 million unique users a month on the mobile Web. It also claims to be the No. 1 Weather application on Apple?s iPhone, Google?s Android, Research In Motion?s BlackBerry and Palm.

Cross-platform ad buys
The Weather Channel claims that a combined online and mobile buy delivers not only large audiences, but also outstanding ad awareness and purchase intent numbers higher than industry norms.

The Weather Channel mobile platforms are claimed to deliver a 61 percent increase in ad awareness and a 17 percent increase in purchase intent, while weather.com online are said to see a 174 percent increase in ad awareness and a 62 percent increase in purchase intent compared to mobile industry norms, according to Dynamic Logic Inc.

The new ad product automatically opens upon page load to an expanded view of 300x250 for a few seconds before collapsing into a smaller size of 300x50.

Once collapsed, the ad runs in page along the top banner position across all Weather Channel mobile Web pages on smartphones, including the iPhone, iPod touch, Palm Pre and Palm Pixi, as well as all Android devices.

The consumer then has the option to click-to-expand and click-to-close the ad unit via a text link. 

Companioned with a 300x250 ad unit online, the new mobile ad product offers advertisers an opportunity to deliver a branding message to a large audience, per the Weather Channel.

Highlights of the new mobile ad unit include:

? The 300x250 size for online Web advertising is now transferable to mobile Web

? A 300x250 expanded introduction with a collapsed 300x50 version after a few seconds

? A frequency cap of one view per user per session protects the consumer experience

? Expanded and collapsed versions are fully clickable to all standard mobile creative click actions

? The Weather Channel can create a click-through landing page for the advertiser.

?It?s all about making it easy for advertisers,? Mr. Clayton said. ?When you compare mobile page views to Weather.com page views, mobile is growing very quickly and catching up fast to our PC site.?