Display is just the beginning for mobile advertising: Female Friday with Petra Vorsteher

We were blessed to get Petra Vorsteher, Co-Founder and VP of Smaato for today’s Female Friday feature. Petra has had an extremely distinguished career in mobile marketing, and was central to making Smaato one of the biggest players in the mobile advertising industry.

How did you get involved with mobile, and with Smaato?

5 years ago, I co-founded Smaato because we realized that mobile phones are the future of computing. Unfortunately users couldn’t utilize the true potential of mobile devices because there was a serious lack of software especially designed for smartphones back then. But as former CTO of Microsoft Nathan Myhrvold says “Software is a Gas, it expands to fill its Container“. The technological capabilities of the container evolved dramatically and it was only a matter of time, until smart developers started to build amazing applications for a steadily growing international audience on mobile phones.

Smaato was one of the first companies that gained significant experiences and traction in delivering highly targeted advertisement within applications. Smaato helps publishers and developers to overcome the massive regional and technological fragmentation in serving ads to all major platforms (iPhone, Android, Java ME (incl. Blackberry), Symbian S60, Windows Phone) in more than 220 countries.

Today Smaato provides the leading full service solution for monetizing mobile properties, such as mobile websites and applications. Over 6,000 developers and publishers are utilizing Smaato’s ad optimization engine, which analyzes each single ad request automatically and fetches the best performing advertisements of 40+ ad networks in real time. It’s never been more convenient to make money on mobile phones.

We work globally serving ads locally.

Smaato has a heavy presence in display advertising. Are there any other mobile ad channels that interest Smaato?

People love apps as well as reading mobile websites, that’s why mobile display advertising is taking off right now – and that’s only the beginning. Connected devices will be everywhere and people use them all the time. I would call this a promising opportunity.
But ad formats will be richer, and ads will be more personal than they are today. Augmented reality campaigns and location targeted ads are only two things we support and push today.

Any advice for people getting into mobile marketing in 2010?

The Mobile Marketing industry is still in its infancy. That’s why most of the people in the mobile industry are entrepreneurial types and share a passion for technology. We still need to educate marketers to shift their media spent to mobile. So if one of your readers thinks that this description fits his personality, Smaato is hiring!

How did you get where you are today

I have been an executive in IT in the areas of International Business Development, Sales and Marketing for the past 20 years, focusing on Mobile, Media, Telecommunications and Venture Capital in the US, Europe and Asia.

Prior to founding Smaato, I was Vice President, Business Development & Strategic Alliances at Intershop Communications Inc. in San Francisco where I had the responsibility for all business, technological and strategic partnerships and alliances in the US and International and was largely responsible for Intershop’s $25B licensing deal with Deutsche Telekom and their investment in Intershop. As founding member of Intershop, I was instrumental in growing the company from a start-up into a publicly listed company with a market cap of $12B and worldwide subsidiaries in Europe, Asia, Australia and South America. As a Senior Executive of an ecommerce company I was one of a few women executives globally who has brought a company from startup to IPO. Under my guidance, Intershop received the first Governors Entrepeneurial Excellence Award for a California High Tech Company, partnering with a European Company; Deutsche Telekom. The Award was delivered to me by the Governor of California, Pete Wilson in a ceremony in London. Present were also the British Governor to the US and the Secretary of the State of California. It was quite an honor. Also in 1998 the prestigious Smithsonian Institute awarded Intershop with an Award. I received the medal at a spectacular ceremony at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC from the distinguished faculty. Another very special moment in my life. Prior to Intershop I was founder & president of International Strategic Alliances. A consulting firm specializing in creating market entry strategies for national and International IT companies that were seeking to establish a presence in the either the European or the US marketplace and I developed distribution channels, sales, marketing activities, press and PR as well as advice in the raising of capital.

Prior to ISA, I was with Mathematica Inc., a developer of high quality image editing tools for medical imaging and image editing tools for consumer products; creating and executing their strategy for Mathematica’s European market entry including sales, marketing, distribution and PR for Mathematica’s consumer product line.
Now I am excited about working in Mobile because of its opportunities and impact in many areas of life as well as being a pioneer in mobile advertising and creating a highly personalized, relevant and valuable experience for the consumer on what is certainly the most personal communication device is a new and exciting frontier. Having the privilege of getting to know and sharing thoughts and ideas with some of the most brilliant and amazing individuals around the world in the process is an honor and a privilege.

What are you most proud of?

Having co-founded one of the hottest and most promising companies in mobile makes me very proud! Also for being nominated for Mobile Women to Watch 2010 for my key role and thought leadership in mobile marketing and advertising by Mobile Marketer in New York as well as and being recognized for making a difference in overall mobile advertising, marketing and media; by shaping the industry and by being a role model for other women in business is a great honor.

Outside of advertising, what things are happening in mobile at the moment that you find interesting or exciting?

Having the opportunity to help closing the digital divide is exciting. When looking at the adoption of the mobile phone in developing countries, it is the access to the web and the global digital community that is changing changing peoples lives.

I also find mobile commerce exciting. For example, receiving an ad that I find interesting, clicking on it and then being able to buy the product no matter when and where I am, gives me, the consumer control and more flexibility. I guess, here I speak as a female shopper