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Though mobile advertising has historically relied upon text messages to reach consumers, pressure is now mounting for mobile marketers to find newer and more innovative ways to reach their target audiences.

As more mobile ad inventory enters the pipeline and a growing number of cellphone owners turn to their devices for local search, one of the most promising and intriguing ideas being put forth is location-based mobile advertising - ads tailored to users' geography.

Fatal Flaw

Unfortunately, one of the first trials of a location-based mobile ad recently rolled out with a fatal flaw.

The ad in question featured a sponsored link on the iPhone's Google-powered Maps app for a JCPenney location in New York City. A search for department stores around New York Univeristy turned up the store's phone number, address, URL, and directions.

24 Blocks Away

Unfortunately, there is no JCPenney at the ad's address, 241 E. 10th Street. The nearest is more than two dozen blocks away at 32nd Street and 6th Avenue.

Such a glitch could be catastrophic for a marketer, who could quickly lose the trust of consumers with ads that are wrong.

"A few seconds of time wasted searching on the Internet is no big deal," said Dan Frommer of Silicon Valley Insider, who blogged about the snafu.  "But sending someone walking or driving to a place that doesn't exist could be a huge disaster and reputation-destroyer."

Mobile Gap

Marketers are likely to try again, though, as the number of mobile users searching locally increases and advertisers scramble to keep up. A recent TMP Directional Marketing/comScore study found that the number of mobile users who look up local information via SMS grew by 27% this year. That research also found the most popular local content categories searched on mobile platforms are online directories (42%), maps (41%), restaurant information (37%) and movies (30%).