If you’ve attended any conference over the past year, you know that mobile and the coming “Mobile Internet” wave is a hot topic.  Late last year, Morgan Stanley’s Mary Meeker unveiled her latest mobile internet report, stating that “mobile will be bigger than most think,” with data showing that more users will likely connect to the Internet via mobile devices than desktop PCs in as little as five years.

It was no different at the OMMA Global conference in San Francisco this morning as a key highlight was a panel called “Platform Wars: Will the Mobile Web be Open or Closed?”. Moderated by mobile marketing consultant Laura Marriott, the panel featured Mark Kvamme of Sequoia Capital, Alexandre Mars of Publicis Mobile, Tom Bedecarre of AKQA and James Min of Montgomery & Company.

With the proliferation of smart phones around the world, improved bandwidth, location-based technologies and consumer ease with social networking, panelists agreed that mobile will be the most exciting platform to deliver a true “integrated experience” incorporating all the elements of the marketing mix in a real-time, personally relevant, rich and eventually attributable manner.

Despite the appeal, appetite to incorporate mobile into campaigns is still slow and marketers need to think about the following:

• Mars pointed out that marketers need to understand that mobile has nothing to do with desktop computers – it’s a completely different brand experience (touch vs. click, as one example) and that it’s critical to fully understand the mobile market.  Too many marketers are still trying to apply the same marketing strategies without appreciating and maximizing the potential of the platform.

• James Min felt the opportunities for mobile are huge as mobile marketing enables not only the ability to take market share, but also grow a market to put new dollars into the system.  Min said that once the problem of real-world attribution is solved, the floodgates will open for increased mobile ad spend.

• Despite AKQA’s success with many large brands on integrating mobile elements into consumer campaigns, Bedecarre noted a misperception by many marketers that mobile lacks speed of impact and scale.

• Marketers need to develop on multiple platforms to get the maximum reach, but they also need to understand who they are targeting and which mobile operating system attracts which consumer.  For example, the iPhone may not have the most users in the world, but the demographic may be the most influential target.

So what are you doing to incorporate mobile into your marketing efforts?  If you haven’t thought about reaching your target audience through mobile, you should be.