Ascend Integrated Media has signed deals with two mobile specialists to create a series of mobile products for its trade show clients. A partnership with Moblico will offer targeted messages and mobile coupons to clients, and a deal with Handmark will create smartphone applications for enewsletters, digital show dailies, buyer’s guides, digital magazines, interactive maps, exhibit guides and directories.

Handmark is a mobile applications and services provider for handheld devices. Ascend recently partnered with The American Thoracic Society (ATS) to develop a mobile app for its ATS 2010 International Conference,May 14-19, 2010, in New Orleans. The app, which will be free for members to download, will let ATS attendees access event information including the exhibit guide, conference preview materials and the conference daily newspaper on their mobile smartphones. Using Handmark’s cross-platform programming, the app will be downloadable on all smartphone platforms. All event information will also be synced and instantly updated through Ascend’s content database.

“The apps we’re creating contain a lot of the same content we distribute at our events and in print and online,” says David Doherty, Director of Ad Sales and Sponsorships at Ascend. It could be an event guide or a floor map or a daily news publication. We’re just distributing it through another vehicle. The powerful part of mobile is that you can take action on the content.”

With Moblico, a mobile application developer, Ascend is concentrating on texting. “Texting can do a few things,”Doherty says. “If you’re doing a marketing campaign or have an event, you can do basic communications — reminders, venue changes or notification that new a DVD is coming out.”

The next step is mobile couponing — an organizer or exhibitor can text a keyword to an attendee to receive 10 percent off at a restaurant. At an event, sponsors can use texting to offer more exhibitor content and drive traffic to their booth. “It’s no different from the way we used to use direct mail,” says Doherty.

Ascend is monetizing apps primarily through banner advertising. “It’s early, but mobile has learned a lot from the interactive world and we can already report on metrics,” says Doherty.“Mobile requires more education for advertisers, but this is a sexy media channel right now and people want to be a part of it.”

On the texting side, there are a few more revenue opportunities, according to Doherty.When a text goes out, it can feature “brought-to-you-by” ads with a URL link or phone number. Sponsors can purchase 25 percent, 50 percent or 100 percent of the ad messages in the communication. Or at the event level, a sponsor could buy a promotional message that goes out to the attendee list.