Chat with IMImobile CEO Vishwanath Alluri on Ad-Ring

by: Bena Roberts Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008

I had heard of IMImobile as the company was an entrant in the Meffy Awards earlier this year – but I wasn’t sure of the new Ad-Ring platform.

So, I had a short, yet informative chat with Chairman and CEO of IMImobile Vishwanath Alluri today. The conversation started with a background in IMImobile. It is a WAP infrastructure company that has provided and delivered mobile content services since 2000. With over 350 employees and a HQ in India it is now venturing into mobile advertising.
The new Ad-Ring platform is what Vishwanath (Vish) describes as a natural extension of the companies services. I must admit, I think I gave Vish a deliberately hard time on the phone this morning as there are so many new ad-networks, servers and start-ups it is important to get straight down to the differences provided.

So, I asked Vish what the competitive advantage of Ad Ring was, his answer was interesting.

Vish said (paraphrased by me). Basically, the Internet model is a great success online. As experts in the mobile space and mobile content we know what is vital for mobile. By taking the side of the mobile operator we hope to provide a for mobile – made for mobile – advertising platform. Our ideology is not about contextual search or advertising. Our ideology is that personalised advertising is vital. This means that we know the consumer and context is not enough – personalised targeted adverts based on “personality” of the users is vital.

We can provide this and this is why operators will benefit from our solution. No one can guarantee why someone is surfing on a particular site and what is relevant based on context alone – we have the expertise, analytics and details of past purchases and a roadmap on the consumer that ensures that when we serve an ad – it is effective.

I dug a little more and contested that the advertising market was small yet fierce and it would be difficult to conduct a global launch strategy for IMImobile. But Vish was adamant that IMImobile was a global player and anticipated an entrance into Europe was on the agenda.

All in all; I thought that was an interesting take on mobile ad technology and IMImobile are on the radar – more to come.