The event focused on Naveed Ahmad, CEO of Addictive Mobility, highlighting how some of the trends and insights within North America in mobile advertising could be leveraged within Emerging Markets - in particular the Middle East and North Africa region. "Mobile Advertising is still very much considered an experimental platform in Emerging Markets. However, the Agencies in the Middle East do understand that with the region's explosive smartphone penetration and young demographic, not being adequately prepared for mobile advertising is no longer an option," explained Naveed.

The forum highlighted some of the key building blocks required for a 'Mobile First' advertising strategy. One of the highlights was the importance of developing ad creative specifically designed for a mobile first screen via both Rich Media and Video. There was discussion on how best to navigate through the current fragmentation of devices, platforms and operating system and finally how agencies should try to extract the nuggets of vital data that can be derived from the user's engagement within mobile ad execution.

"Since establishing ourselves in Dubai in Mid 2013, we have positioned ourselves as the 'thought leaders' in mobile advertising with a focus on educating our partners and clients on best practices for mobile advertising," explained Naveed. "When we entered the market, we understood that the learning and adoption rate to mobile advertising would be slow. However, we, along with our partners, RBBi, were willing to invest both the time and resources and we are now truly seeing the fruits of our labour," stressed Naveed.

One of the attendees and Agency partners for Addictive Mobility in the Middle East was Nadim Khouri, Mobile Director from OMD, and had this to say about the event. "We believe events such as this creates a platform by which ideas can be generated that will not only benefit us and the agencies but will help propel the advertising industry in general. Mobile Advertising can no longer be ignored as it is increasingly being demanded by our brands."

About Addictive Mobility

Addictive Mobility was founded in 2009 as a "mobile first" advertising technology platform. Addictive Mobility serves over 250 of the Fortune 500 brands including McDonald's, Pepsi, AT&T, and Time Warner. Addictive Mobility has its presence in Canada, United States and the Middle East.

"After consulting with key Agency partners, what we have tried to accomplish with this report is something that is simple, transparent and reader friendly by summarizing the large data sets we have accumulated over the last 2 years. We have intentionally moved away from the typical Year End reports that are very heavy on text," stresses Naveed.

The report examines how Brands and Agencies are measuring mobile ad campaigns, specifically movement trending from CPM to CPC campaigns. The report also focuses on post-click attribution and driving conversions on mobile. Insights include what consumer verticals have adapted the quickest to mobile advertising and finally what creative executions convert best.

After trafficking several hundred campaigns in the North American and Emerging Markets, Addictive Mobility has a much stronger understanding of how mobile users are interacting with mobile in-app advertising. The three most prevalent findings in completing this report were 1) the mobile user is very much in control of how they interact with the brand, 2) Brands and Agencies are still trying to understand how to measure the ROI of a mobile ad campaign, and 3) Users in different parts of the world engage in Mobile Ads in a different manner.

With the recent announcement of Addictive Mobility's new CEO, an aggressive brand awareness strategy, including a revamped website and ongoing insight reports, the company is poised for both domestic and international expansion.

About Addictive Mobility

Addictive Mobility was founded in 2009 as a "mobile first" advertising technology platform. Addictive Mobility serves over 250 of the Fortune 500 brands including McDonald's, Pepsi, AT&T, and Time Warner. Addictive Mobility has its presence in Canada, United States and the Middle East.

To view Addictive Mobility's 2013 Year End Review, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/2013yer.pdf

"Our clients have been quite clear in what they require. Each brand wants to find the right customer on the mobile device, they want to ensure the potential customer has an engaging experience and finally, the brand wants to deeply understand their ROI on the campaign. Our responsibility is to get this done. By providing them with our comprehensive Real Time Reporting Panel as well as our detailed post campaign report, we constantly hold ourselves accountable to this responsibility" explained Naveed.

2013 has been another exceptional year for Addictive. The company has not only achieved high double digit revenue growth but also increased its head count by approximately 25%. "The expansion of our team has been not only to support our growth in North America, but to also support our international expansion into the emerging markets. While North America will always be our home territory, we believe in the Blue Ocean strategy. Smartphone and tablet penetration in Emerging Markets is still seeing exponential growth with a young demographic to support the business case. Our success in Dubai has been a result of a great amount of ground work and developing key contacts in the region. By bringing the best in class practices from the North American market, we were able to add great value to our clients in the Middle East."

2014 is going to be a watershed year for Addictive Mobility with further expansion not only in North America, but continued expansion into the emerging markets. The company has already lined up new product features and strategic partnerships for early 2014. "This company has been built on the outstanding contribution of each staff member and leader, both past and present. I have been fortunate to take over the reins of a company that’s foundation were soundly built by its founders and founding employees."

About Addictive Mobility

Addictive Mobility is a mobile advertising solutions technology platform. Addictive Mobility has provided proprietary targeting solutions to its Fortune 500 clients since 2010.

Addictive Mobility is part of only a handful of digital advertising companies inducted into the Branham300. This is a significant turning point in the history of the company. It is further proof that Addictive has validated its mobile/social targeting strategy. "2012 was clearly a watershed year for Addictive Mobility in which we achieved a number of milestones, including becoming one of the first to develop and deploy a proprietary mobile RTB platform" explained Dilshan K. President and CTO of Addictive Mobility.

Since developing its mobile advertising platform in 2010, Addictive has continued to maintain triple digit year-over-year revenue growth. In 2012, Addictive continued to relentlessly develop its technology infrastructure, and also doubled its staff to support the rapid growth it has seen both in Canada and the United States. "We have been fiscally prudent in our transition from a small start up to a growth stage company. Not only have we maintained true hockey stick revenue growth, but more importantly, we have continued to dramatically improve our financial position and are well prepared for further expansion throughout 2013" explained Naveed Ahmad COO of Addictive Mobility.

In Q1 2013, Addictive has already expanded its reach outside of North America via a strategic partnership in Dubai, UAE. Expansion and rollout to other regions are expected to be announced later this year.

Addictive Mobility specializes in social advertising on mobile. The company has leveraged its social targeting capabilities to redefine how advertisers and agencies buy and measure ROI of mobile advertising campaigns. Its proprietary technology offers industry leading conversion rates and improved relevancy of advertisements for publishers. The result is added understanding of the mobile audience, which represents a wealth of data and buying power for advertisers. Addictive Mobility uses a social lens to understand social media activity with real-time accuracy. For more information, please visit addictivemobility.com or follow us on Twitter @addictivelabs."

Audrey was one of the 21 participants chosen out of a rigorous selection process which saw 120 applications in total, vetted by some of Silicon Valley's top leaders. During the program, the TechWomen visited Google's headquarters in Mountain View, CloudFlare offices, Stanford University, Altos Ventures and interacted with speakers and panellists from Google, Adobe, SalesForce, Citrix and Facebook, to name a few. All participants were paired up with mentors whose main objective was to impart their career and business knowledge among their proteges. Audrey was paired with Nancy Broden, the Design Lead of the Revenue Team at Twitter, and gained vast amounts of insight into the business acumen of the startup ecosystem and the tremendous importance of networking within the tech industry.

Since Audrey's return, she has shared the knowledge she gained from her TechWomen Canada trip with the entire Addictive team. "It's one thing to read about the successes of young founders and those in senior positions at top technology companies, but to actually meet them face to face and discuss the challenges every business faces is such a beneficial experience," Audrey reflected."

The Middle East region not only has one of the fastest growing smartphone and tablet markets globally, but has also seen explosive growth in the use of social media. According the Booz & Co., mobile advertising in the region is expected to more than triple in value to $400 million by 2014.

"We have strategically chosen Dubai to be our first market outside of North America, as part of our global expansion plan" said Dilshan Kathriarachchi, President and CTO of Addictive Mobility. "Working with an innovative partner like Rbbi let's us provide a white-glove service to the region's Mobile advertisers and agencies."

Addictive Mobility works with all of the major rich media platforms and social publishers to pair relevancy derived from proprietary social intent graph targeting with award-winning creative executions that is both engaging and measurable for advertisers.

"RBBI's focus on interpreting user behaviour for performance based advertising solutions for MENA has led us to a new and exciting partnership with one of the most forward thinking advertising technologies in the world. It is with great pleasure that we bring Addictive to MENA and unite the power of social and mobile into one offering."

As part of an extended regional strategy, Addictive Mobility has begun working with regional publishers to localize its EngageFront™ toolset to meet demand from Middle Eastern advertisers for social targeting. EngageFront™'s plug-and-play architecture enhances a publisher's mobile offerings to leverage social targeting and generate higher average revenue per user. The technology results in higher click thru rates and greater user engagement, especially when paired with rich media ads. Unlike other ad delivery solutions, EngageFront™ responds to user behaviour, interaction with social content and its relevance towards the user's social graph.

Addictive Mobility specializes in social advertising on mobile. The company has leveraged its social targeting capabilities to redefine how advertisers and agencies buy and measure ROI of mobile advertising campaigns. Its proprietary technology offers industry leading conversion rates and improved relevancy of advertisements for publishers. The result is added understanding of the mobile audience, which represents a wealth of data and buying power for advertisers. Addictive Mobility uses a social lens to understand social media activity with real-time accuracy. For more information, please visit www.addictivemobility.com or Twitter @addictivelabs."

The Android platform has seen increasing gains in Canada. A recent survey by Ipsos-Reid found that phones running the Android operating system account for 36 per cent of the Canadian mobile market compared to 29 per cent for Apple's iPhone and 27 per cent for Research in Motion's BlackBerry. Android's share has grown 10 percentage points since a previous survey in January.

"Addictive Mobility is proud to sponsor AndroidTO," says Dilshan Kathriarachchi, president of Addictive Mobility. "We believe Android publishers that have tackled the difficult problem of intersecting social and mobile are undervalued in today's ad marketplace. We've worked diligently to build plug-and-play tools that allow publishers to activate their social inventory and tap their true monetization potential. We look forward to sharing our work at AndroidTO with an audience that will benefit from and appreciate it the most."

AndroidTO will take place on Thursday, October 25 at Scotiabank Theatre (259 Richmond St. West) from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit androidto.com.

I can't help but think of the last OnMedia conference I attended, where RadiumOne CEO Gurbaksh Chahal delivered a keynote speech. In a room full of the largest ad networks, he stated they were dead; a controversial idea, but it emphasized how important innovation is to our industry.

Gurbaksh argued ad networks must evolve to avoid being crushed by a wave of new competitors. Advertising is no longer relationship-based and real-time transaction-based systems have made sales reps unnecessary. Failure to change will make ad networks relics in the same way Blockbuster, Kodak and AOL are today.

Opponents say ad networks have already evolved into exchanges and DSPs, which are popular with performance-based clients who aren't worried about brand awareness and simply want to push product. However, even if brands are turning to other outlets for buys, algorithms don't have personalities and can't decide on creative or other high-impact opportunities like people can.

At Addictive Mobility, we try to find a balance by serving real-time ads and maintaining client relations. It's a definite challenge but as a tech company that started out as an ad network, we recognize that people will always be important. The next six months will be a big breakthrough in mobile advertising. We're excited to be a part of it and contribute through innovation.

-Nussar, @addictiveceo

"We are proud to be nominated as part of OnMedia New York's top 100 companies this year," says Nussar Ahmad, Addictive Mobility's CEO. "Our company has grown so much in the past two years as our social targeting continues provide Fortune 500 brands with accurate, relevant and effective methods for mobile. This recognition on such a large scale is quite an honor for us."

Addictive Mobility's AMO adSocial technology tracks conversations on social media outlets via third party Twitter applications. While traditional advertising networks focus on demographics or site-based activity, social targeting ensures advertisements reach the most relevant audiences.

OnMedia New York 2012 will be held on Tuesday February 21^st, 2012 to Wednesday February 22^nd, 2012 at the Time Warner Center. For more information, please visit: http://aonetwork.com/AOEvents/OnMedia/OnMedia-NYC-2012.