Amid the new and nostalgic innovations unveiled last week in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress (MWC), the world's largest mobile industry gathering, the battle for our sacred mobile screen space continued to heat up.

The trend of consumers taking control of their relationship with digital advertising was a big talking point for the industry.

We have just seen mobile ad blocker start-up Shine Technologies change its name to Rainbow and pivot – for a second time – to position itself as a service that will verify ads from advertisers (and enforce the industry's standards) rather than helping consumers avoid them.

MWC also hosted Mark Evans, chief executive of Britain's second biggest telco O2, who spoke to attendees about the notion of allowing users to "decide how much advertising they get".

Evans also mentioned consumers would be willing to view ads if they were relevant and personalised, essentially building trust between brands and consumers.

Unlockd increased its physical presence this year as well, with a contingent of our team taken to Barcelona where we were speaking with some of the largest telcos in the world to figure out how we can help them in a similar vein to Sprint (Boost Mobile), Tesco Mobile and Digicel.

Additionally, Jonathan "JC" Oliver, our global chief creative officer, spoke on the main stage about our global growth and the value exchange model we're trying to establish, so that telcos, advertisers and consumers, can all co-exist and benefit.

Understanding customers

While ad-blockers and our approaches are different, we all agree on one core element: we need to better understand our customers, how they use their phones, what ad and content offerings they want and if they want any value exchange in return for their attention.

To take Rainbow's announcement as an example, its move from ad-blocker to ad-verifier is a response to people's growing desire for greater control over their relationship with digital advertising.

We've known this for a while already. The uptake of ad-blockers demonstrated to the advertising community that if their ads didn't have a clear value exchange, then they would be turned off altogether.

We expect to see continued developments in opt-in advertising this year, whether through verification services such as Rainbow to ensure that ads meet the standards consumers desire, or by going a step further and delivering desired rewards for consumers in exchange for their attention.

This would mean things like free access to premium content or reduced financial outlay on key services.

Learning from experience

We know from experience that telcos who innovate in this space have increased customer retention and open up a new source of revenue from mobile display advertising.

In fact, our partners are seeing the benefit of increased ARPU's, higher customer satisfaction and an increased value perception, which manifests as positive momentum in their acquisition and retention metrics.

We're seeing that success today involves the ability of brands to own specific moments in time – not just with advertising, but with valuable and relevant content.

It's about being in the right place, at the right time, with the right message, and finding new ways to stay on top of the Facebook and Google-dominated ecosystem (these two players receive 75 per cent of the combined digital ad spend).

As the power changes hands back to the consumer, the companies that succeed in developing successful mobile strategies and business models will be the ones that will succeed and survive.

Matt Berriman is founder and chief executive of telecommunications and advertising start-up Unlockd