Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Interview with John SanGiovanni, Co-Founder and VP of Product Design at Zumobi (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: I more or less agree with you that the ability of a click to get into a more immersive user experience is much higher than [with] a TV channel. When you are on the mobile phone and you click on something, instead of a 30-second ad roll there is a real story coming up; we spend five minutes listening to that piece. I do think that there is a much more interesting and productive engagement model than just viewing these ads.

John SanGiovanni: I agree. The numbers validate this point in a dramatic way. I referenced the Chevy example because they were kind enough to share the data. People spend six and a half minutes on an ad on their phones. For a high-volume automotive ad campaign that number is science fiction. It is an incredibly high number. If we can produce that with technology at scale, and if we can get publishers to embrace that as a trend, we can get advertisers to start thinking about buying advertising in this way. I think it is a whole new generation of branded content. Even as a user I am excited about this, because I am so tired of standard banner ads. I feel that I am not being respected as a user, whereas if I had an affinity as a user to American Express, I will engage with their high-quality content. This is an exciting trend.

SM: Are you working with American Express on the consumer or the small business side?

JS: We work with them on the brand side.

SM: Is there anything you would like to add?

JS: We are passionate about this category. It is an exciting time in mobile. The international growth of mobile is staggering, and it is so good to see brands thinking big thoughts on how to use mobile in a dramatic way. We just hope they will turn to technologies like our ZBi platform that powers those types of experiences.

SM: John, before concluding the interview, could you tell us about where your company is located and what the structure of the company is?

JS: We are venture backed. I was a program manager at Microsoft Research, working on user interfaces for mobile phones. In 2006 they packaged up my patent portfolio and a small team and spun us out to an independent company in downtown Seattle called Zumobi. Soon thereafter, the iPhone, iPad, App Store, and Android happened, so we were well positioned to take a position of strength in this expanding marketplace.

All of our engineering and product development is in Seattle, Washington. We have four other regional sales offices that are typically close by to our publishing partners – they are in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago – so that we can work with our partners and cultivate direct brand relationships. We are about 40 people, and we have had incredible traction on the market with some of the biggest media brands in the world.

SM: It was a very interesting conversation, and I really enjoyed it.

JS: Thank you very much. I am a big fan of your writing.

This segment is part 6 in the series : Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Interview with John SanGiovanni, Co-Founder and VP of Product Design at Zumobi
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