Millennial Media has just turned out its Year In Review Report, with nine of its global verticals experiencing triple-digit, year-over-year growth. Among these verticals, finance leads with a 699 percent upturn. Instead of using traditional media, banks diverted advertising funds to mobile with awareness campaigns to drive customers to local branches. Credit card brands, on the other hand, used mobile to generate leads.

Tablets have helped drive the trend, doubling the number of devices an advertiser can target.  You see this reflected in the app developer’s trends, where distribution portals doubled up as well.  Many app makers prioritized tablet-optimized apps in 2011, catching up with consumers any way they can.

Entertainment slips, local and video rule

Entertainment, which has always topped the chart, goes down in rank to 3rd place, with  a 133 percent increase year-over-year. The sector utilized mobile to promote motion picture and DVD releases, as well as drive downloads of branded apps for premium TV content.

While Fitness and Wellness may have not made it in the top 10, this vertical is ranked third in terms of year-over-year growth at 299 percent. This is credited to health businesses providing seasonal, relevant messages to customers to promote fitness products, especially during the beginning of the year and summer months, as well as wellness products and services during cold and allergy seasons.

The three global advertising trends widely used in 2011 were local targeting, mobile video, and mass market reach. Local targeting uses mobile to send messages to their target audience. Mobile video is incorporated into campaigns to enable audiences to watch movie trailers and TV spots. Mass market reach uses social media for its omnipresent nature for the channel.

The top campaign goal in 2011 was Sustained-In-Market presence, representing 31 percent of Advertiser’s Campaign Goal Mix.  Advertisers drive consumers to download apps and play games to promote their products and services, while at the same time increasing brand awareness and loyalty.

HTML5 and developer trends

Mobile ads are soaring, thanks to HTML5. It’s a combination of the fifth version of HTML markup language, CSS3 and a series of cross-platform Javascript API to eliminate third parties. It can manipulate pages beyond its dimensions, as well as enable users to rotate, move and resize videos. 24 percent of all campaigns in 2011 had a “watch video” post click action, while 31 percent of campaigns enabled consumers to place a call, and 32 percent let them download an app.

In developer trends, Games top the chart (thanks to Zynga and Rovio), followed by Music and Entertainment, then Social Networking. It’s a different order in 2010 with social networking topping the chart, then Games and Music and Entertainment. Android leads  the OS Mix, accounting for 47 percent of the impressions with a growth of 57 percent year-over-year. It’s the fastest-growing OS for the Millennial Media platform in 2011, surpassing iOS, which topped in 2010.

There’s a growing consumer trend around cloud services and big data trends, and finance is one of the primary entry points. The race is on to compete in the mobile payment arena. Paypal’s been beefing up its mobile payment strategy, while PaymentOne undergoes an entire revamp, with a new platform and a new name, PayOne.  NFC will also play an important role in the development of the underlying structure powering mobile payments, a Juniper Networks study predicting mainstream appeal by 2015.