The UK's five biggest mobile operators have struck a ground-breaking deal to develop a common system for mobile advertising, which aims to make it as easy for advertisers to run campaigns on mobiles as it is across other media such as TV and press.

Advertisers and agencies have long complained that one of the key stumbling blocks facing the mobile advertising sector is the lack of a consistent way of measuring audiences and transparency between operators.

Now the international operations of Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile, Orange and 3 have formed a working group to define a common mobile advertising audience measurement system, similar to what already exists for other mediums such as TV and press.

"This initiative represents a great opportunity to reach out to the media buying world in order to secure more mobile budget from big brand spenders," said Neil Andrews, head of portal at 3.

"The more we can do as an industry to increase the credibility of mobile advertising the better."

Telecoms companies are conducting a feasibility study as part of industry body the GSM Association's mobile advertising programme to look at aggregating meaningful, audited information from all partners so that advertisers can run campaigns across all the operators at once.

Julien Theys, research analyst for mobile at Screen Digest, said the move also represented a "defensive strategy" by the telecoms sector to try to head off Google.

"Google is preparing an aggressive entry into the mobile sector," Theys said. "This move by the operators can also be seen as a defensive strategy to consolidate their position in mobile advertising, gaining an important head-start."

The GSMA and the working group will work with ad industry bodies such as the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising to gain support for a common mobile media usage measurement system.

"Mobile offers advertisers a new opportunity and we are responding to repeated demands from media planners around the world for more transparency of the mobile channel," said Richard Saggers, head of mobile advertising at Vodafone.

"Vodafone is participating in the UK project with a view to developing a common framework for mobile advertising measurement that can be replicated in other markets as well."

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