As President & Chief Executive Officer of Millennial Media Paul Palmieri guides a mobile ad network whose reach is 81% of the mobile web, according to Nielsen. In fact Millennial Media’s network is substantially larger than any other mobile media company. In January 2010, its ad requests exceeded 9B with more than 6.9B in the U.S. More historically he has spent the past 16 years building businesses in and around the wireless technology and media industries. From many angles, he has had a profound impact on the growth of the mobile media industry.
Millennial has also contributed to the industry at large through its monthly SMART reports, which track consumer behavior of the mobile web. We caught up with Palmieri to chat about recent market activity and the future of the business.
Digiday: The biggest possible game change for mobile is the iPad. How do you think it will affect overall market share and how do you counsel clients about approaching it?
Palmieri: We don’t know yet how consumers are going to use the device. It almost completely boggles the senses to think we would be talking about a mobile tablet PC, if you compare the market to several years ago. So that’s why I say we have to see how it works. For clients, the first thing we always address are the goals for the campaign. We’re not launching a device for the client, we’re executing ad campaigns.
Millennial has done a generous and excellent job of making its consumer usage research accessible. As the executive behind those reports, I’m interested to know what they show you about the future of mobile marketing.
Mobile is where the audience is and will continue to be. The important cycles I see concern apps and browser-based ads. From about 2002 to 2005 it seemed like most of the momentum was in downloading apps. Then for the next two years everything was within the browser. Now we’re back to apps. The bottom line is that brads should be prepared to be broad-based. I think the most successful campaigns will execute within the browser and through downloadable apps.
So far Millennial has been platform-agnostic and financially independent as a company. Do you think you could be platform agnostic if you were owned by a bigger company?
I am absolutely confident that the company we’re building is one that will win in this marketplace. In fact I’m confident we will lead in this marketplace. Now there certainly has been a flurry of activity over the past 45 days (with AdMob and Quattro being acquired) but I can tell you that there are a lot of advertisers and developers that want to work with an independent network. We’re committed to adding robust value to every platform.
Your last SMART report showed a surprising 20 percent bounce for m-commerce. That’s a big number.
It is and it’s an opportunity for us to help consumers to pay for goods within the network and within the ad. We’re not going to make an announcement right now, but we’re working on some things in the mobile payment space that will be very exciting.
What verticals are you most excited about as this year develops?
Retail, as I just mentioned, is very exciting especially when you factor in location-based technology. Entertainment is always an exciting category. I’m also very keen on pharma. We’ve been very innovative working with some big pharma companies to delver the disclaimers that are required. Pharma companies want mobile exposure and they also have to be smart about consumer compliance.
It’s a competitive marketplace that you’re in, especially with AdMob and Quatto with big owners now. Are you still evangelizing mobile, or are you competing for mobile business?
Everybody in this business has an investment in it, and every company is still competitive. We feel like we’re in a very good position to compete with anybody.
