Nestoria UK Blog

For our April Nestoria interview we have the pleasure of interviewing Lance Johnson, Global Head of Sales for Nokia Interactive Advertising. Nokia Interactive Advertising allows brands to create more valuable relationships with the world’s four billions mobile consumers.

A regular speaker at industry events, Lance worked as a consultant for numerous startups before joining Nokia. Before that he was GM of Mobile Media for Yahoo!, rising through the ranks there from his original role in Yahoo!’s Munich office where he was responsible for various media products. Orignially from Colorado in the US, Lance was a Fulbright Scholar studying economics in Freiburg, Germany.

Lance, thanks for speaking with us. A few questions:

1. The one area the economic downturn doesn’t seem to have dented is innovation in the mobile space. The last few years have seen an amazing amount of new development, from the traditional heavyweights like Nokia but also new entrants like Apple and Google. For those of us not in the industry, can you briefly summarise the current state of affairs in the mobile world?

Services are really what’s driving innovation in mobile at the moment, with the top end devices but also with low and mid range devices. Nokia has a 37% market share globally and we’re really looking to create sticky services and content that consumers love as it helps us to strengthen our connection to the consumer. This is the reason we’ve launched Ovi, which includes services such as Nokia Maps that come bundled on device.

If services are what’s driving innovation, then advertising is what’s going to drive revenues. Increasingly consumers want something for nothing (or not much), and they have high expectations. By linking up with brands, we’re ensuring quality content for consumers through a sustainable business model, and matching up brands with consumers that are likely to be interested in their products.

What I think is interesting for mobile advertising and for digital advertising in general is that the lines between advertising and good service are blurring. When an ad campaign is executed well, it can be indistinguishable from direct customer communication.

2. Mobile advertising has long been heralded as “the next big thing”. How will the current economic climate effect that? What are some of the innovations you’re seeing (or even developing).

The advertising industry is undoubtedly having a difficult year. Most analysts see advertising spend shrinking by 15-25% this year. The fact that mobile and likely interactive are predicted to grow (if only slightly) is testament to their effectiveness, and to the growing importance of the mobile device to the consumer.

Technology that ensures relevance of marketing is key, not only for better brand returns, but also for the future of advertising. We’ve lived in a world where the amount of noise from different media channels has continued to grow. Digital mediums can reverse this trend and put the consumer back in control. If you’re a brand and you want to engage a target demographic you need to meet consumers on their turf. Mobile advertising that uses location data is going to be a really interesting play.

3. Here at Nestoria we love all things geo. Nokia recently dove headfirst into the mapping game with the acquisition of major geo datasource and technology firm NAVTEQ. Likewise we’ve seen the big online players maneuver into the location space, be it Googe’s Latitude or Yahoo!’s FireEagle (to name just a few of many). Why’s everyone so hot on location?

Despite the many advances we’ve made at Nokia and as an industry, we firmly believe that the mobile phone can still be far more useful. By leveraging data based on your past behaviour, what your friends like, where you are and where you’ve been, the mobile device will become even more useful at pre-empting your needs, and providing useful services, and sometimes brand messages to help you on your way. The better the targeting and results, the higher premiums advertisers will be willing to pay. Location will be our emphasis in the 2H of 2009 and we will work every more closely with our subsidiary business NAVTEQ.

4. What chances does the mobile space hold for vertical search engines like Nestoria?

I think it’s an opportunity to differentiate your offering and innovate. In regions like North America and Europe, convergence matters. Both PC and Mobile penetration rates are extremely high. Consumers are using services on their mobiles and on their PCs that should offer useful ways to connect the two. Whether it’s researching a property online on a PC and then going mobile or capturing information while on the go and then making that information useful, there are lots of use cases. These ideas are no longer on the drawing board. Convergence is coming and the successful verticals will make use of mobile’s unique characteristics.

Thanks Lance! Interesting times ahead. For those interested in keeping up with Lance and the bleeding edge of mobile innovation he’s @lancej on twitter.

past Nestoria interviews: Peter Le Masurier, Henry Yates, Andy Allan.