French Advertising Group Publicis said today that it will be opening new offices in North America, where its Phonevalley division will provide mobile-marketing expertise to U.S. brands. The offices will be located in Chicago, New York and Boston. In June, Publicis formed an ad network with all four major ad serving systems—Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), Google/DoubleClick, Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) and AOL— in order to be able to coordinate campaigns across the platforms. In addition, Publicis formed a deal with Yahoo for mobile advertising, which aims to help brands reach mobile consumers more easily. There’s been quite a bit of finger-pointing between the ad agencies and the mobile ad networks as to who is to blame for slower-than-expected advertising growth in the mobile industry, but between these two deals, it seems that a foundation is being laid for some substantial new mobile-marketing campaigns to emerge in the U.S. As part of the announcement, Phonevalley also said that Angela Steele will be named Regional Director US in North-America. Angela was formerly vp of mobile at Starcom USA. Previously, she has managed mobile programs for brands such as Sara Lee, Nintendo, ESPN (NYSE: DIS) and Miller. Release.

• Publicis Creates Dedicated Mobile Arm With Phonevalley Acquisition