There's plenty of activity in the mobile advertising sector at the moment, but when it comes to game advertisers, clients tend to be the big freemium publishers rather than the big traditional game publishers.

Changing that dynamic was part of the reasoning for ad network InMobi to hook up with Sega to run a case study campaign over its highly rated Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing iOS title.

"We knew Sega would be a great fit for InMobi in terms of our reach, and the rich media game trailer and download link that we could offer," explains InMobi's Gregory Kennedy.

Initially, however, the campaign didn't gain the expected or required traction.

"InMobi's pulled some switches and changed the focus, specifically targetting iPod touches as this is a younger age group," reveals the game's product manager at Sega Ben Harborne.

"We then saw a huge improvement in video engagement and downloads."

The seven-day burst campaign was limited to the US, Canada and Mexico, and boosted the game to #1 in the US App Store. 

Friction in the system

One of the obstacles for the campaign was that the game is only available as a premium $3.99, €2.99 or £2.49 product, whereas most mobile game ad campaigns highlight a freemium product that users can immediately download.

Sega does have some such titles including Kingdom Conquest, which has had over 1.3 million downloads and Samurai Bloodshow, a card-trading game, which is currently paid but will also be available in a Lite version featuring a limited campaign and upsell IAP options.

InMobi levels up

As for the wider market, Kennedy says it's fast becoming clear to brand advertisers that mobile is more effective than web and TV campaigns, because of the personal nature of the device, easier targetting, and longer engagement times.

In particular, he sees apps as being a key focus for InMobi.

"We're making a huge investment in the app ecosystem. We're demonstrating that we're not old school media, but with deal like the one we did with Sega, we're taking a specialised approach. This is where we're taking a stand," he argues.

Indeed, the call was echoed by InMobi's CEO Naveen Tewari last week, when taking about Softbank's $200 million investment into the company.

"We're able to engage at a scale other companies won't be able to in terms of brand advertisers and rich media. We're going after the entire ecosystem, not just network ads," he said.

You can see the game and ad campaign in operation in the following videos.