Lars Albright of Quattro Wireless speaks with our managing editor about the company's beginnings, its recent campaigns and key mobile marketing tactics.

Emma Brownell: How did Quattro Wireless develop? Who are the founders, and what motivated you to start your own company?

Lars Albright: Quattro was founded in the fall of 2006. The founding management team all came from the mobile company m-Qube (acquired by VeriSign in the spring of 2006). The team is led by Andrew Miller (CEO) and Eswar Priyadarshan (CTO). I joined as the VP of business development.

All three of us have been involved in multiple start-ups, and after the successful sale of m-Qube, we were looking to roll up our sleeves again to try to build up another company. We felt as though we played an important role in helping to build the North American off-deck mobile content market and we wanted to try to play a similar role in the mobile advertising space. We are big believers in the positive growth trends for the mobile web and mobile advertising, and we wanted to be involved in this space. We also believed that off-deck mobile advertising would not take off until the mobile web was a better experience for consumers, and that is part of what Quattro's technology is helping to do.

We started discussions with Highland Capital Partners in Boston and closed a $6 million series A in September of 2006.

Brownell: What is Quattro Wireless' objective?

Albright: Quattro's mission is to create industry leading "Adapted" mobile websites for media companies of all shapes and sizes. Quattro's approach and technology enables us to seamlessly bring the best quality rich media website to the broadest possible audience of mobile handset users. Our goal is to create a compelling user experience that engages and maintains user interest over time and creates a valuable asset that can capture advertising dollars. Quattro's approach is to partner with our clients to build a substantial mobile web audience and then work to generate meaningful advertising related revenue.

Brownell: What do you see as the evolution of the mobile medium over the next year? Over the next five years?

Albright: We see the mobile web and "off deck" traffic continuing to grow quickly both internationally and here in the U.S. with more and more consumers looking at the mobile device as a way to explore media content. We think the emergence of things like mobile search, upgraded handsets, better media content availability and a better mobile web experience will all help to fuel mobile web usage. Corresponding to this growth in the mobile web we see mobile advertising continuing to emerge as an effective medium for both brand and direct response advertisers. We feel mobile advertising will mature out of a "test" line-item and become a meaningful part of marketing budgets for a wide range of companies. 

Brownell: You have partnered with CoverGirl. Can you describe the campaign?

Albright: We launched the P&G CoverGirl microsite this spring across our network as well as on other networks. We are not allowed to release specific details, but the CoverGirl "Clean" mobile campaign was an extremely successful initiative for P&G. 

The CoverGirl site is one of the most involved ad units in the U.S. market. The site incorporates WAP and messaging products from multiple vendors (like Limbo and Soapbox) to develop an immediate and long term relationship with the visitor. This ad campaign is currently being run across the Quattro Network as well as on multiple carriers (Sprint, Virgin etc.). It's on and off-deck; clickthroughs and submissions to the text club have performed
extremely well. Consumers actually used the shade finder in stores, so it is a nice example of the intersection of mobile advertising helping to drive retail revenue.

Brownell: I heard you also worked on the Nuestra Belleza Latina contest; I'd love to know more.

Albright: The Belleza Latina mobile site was part of our larger relationship with Univision. Belleza is a television show that searches for the next great Latin American model. (The show is similar to America's "Next Top Model.") Univision wanted to use mobile as a way to cross-promote the show and capture consumer interest in the contest that extended beyond TV. Quattro created a site for the show that featured updates, images and profiles of the contestants. The site was promoted on the Cingular deck as well. We can't release overall figures, but I can say that the site performed extremely well, and the average pageviews per user session were over 12, which shows strong user engagement with the mobile property. Based on the success with Belleza we will be continuing to do projects like this with Univision.

Brownell: What would be your recommendation for a CPG advertising in the mobile medium?

Albright: First, we think it is crucial for CPG companies to have quality ad micro-sites that allow for a positive browsing experience and user interactivity. If users click on an ad and all they see is a poorly designed landing page they are likely to just leave the ad. CPG companies, and advertisers generally, also need to think carefully about what action they want to drive or information they want to convey and be sure the micro-site reflects those goals. For example, on the CoverGirl site the brand wanted to be sure people signed up for The Covergirl Text Club, and we offered a "Shade Finder" to promote interaction with the brand. Both of these options were clearly highlighted on the ad micro-site, and they drove a significant amount of sign-ups and clickthroughs.

Additionally, it is important for CPG companies to know where their ads are being placed and to be sure the mobile sites that run the ads are quality properties that will represent their brand well. This is part of the value that Quattro is bringing to the market in that we enable premium brands to get access to inventory on high quality sites, and we offer full transparency to our advertising clients.

Brownell: Are there specific brands that you think are best suited to mobile?

Albright: We think there are a variety of brands that work well for mobile, but the key is the value, clarity and relevance of the mobile advertisement. CoverGirl is a good example. The mobile ad unit Quattro built offered interesting content and options for consumers to take an action. It is too early to rule out any broad categories of advertisers, and clickthrough rates have been good across the board as long as the ad has been appropriately matched with the right consumer audience.

Brownell: Any other advice for marketers interested in the space?

Albright: Marketers with strong online content and assets should take full advantage of all types of media, including images and video. As an example, we have recently built a campaign for a major CPG company that will be launching shortly, and it features both an image and video gallery of various sponsored athletes (our system automatically sends images instead of video for phones that do not support video.)

Emma Brownell is iMedia's managing editor. Read full bio.