Rovio, the publisher of Angry Birds, is saying they’re the largest publisher of mobile ads on the globe. Google, the defacto king pin in the category, seems to agree but only when it comes to mobile search. 

Both are totally plausible.

Angry Birds is the juggernaut of mobile game, hell mobile app, downloads. They claim over 500 million downloads across the various operating systems and editions. It’s pretty much that if you have a Smartphone (minus Blackberry) and don’t have Angry Birds you’re an anomaly.

So, okay, Angry Birds has scale for mobile ads. Advertisers like scale. It’s easy to go to one place and reach all your customers. But here’s two fundamental questions that go beyond blind reach (and are applicable to any mobile ad buy it seems to me):

• Will you ads get attention in that environment or will they just be an unwelcome distraction?
• Is that content appropriate or relevant for your brand to be up against?

To date, I’ve only seen display banners in Angry Birds - which definitely don’t meet the first test. 

I’d suggest a better play in this environment will be to look at level-transition interstitials, sponsored (themed) editions/levels/birds/etc or some sort of achievement based brand interaction (see Kiip)