Interview: SponsorPay’s Projjol Banerjea talks mobile advertising & why users demand quality #websummit

SponsorPay’s Projjol Banerjea (LinkedIn) is in for a busy day.  Having made it to the Dublin Web Summit through torrential rain (The country’s Met office even issued a weather warning) he’s greeted by nearly 4,000 attendees at what is now the second largest gathering of start-ups outside of the US.

The reason why he’s in for a busy day is because he is here to see what the Irish and European start-up scene has to offer, and he knows the market is fierce.

“There is a talent war in Europe,”  Projjol, SponsorPay’s VP of Marketing and Talent, says, “which is great but it does make things difficult.”

There is a talent war in Europe – Projjol Banerjea %23websummit

Talent is something that SponsorPay already has but needs more of.  The three year old company is in the market to disrupt the online advertising ecosystem using various methods of value-exchange advertising.

Sites using SporsorPay can ask users to pay for content through their regular online payment methods, or through other methods, such as completing survey or via social sharing.

Speaking about the company, Projjol means business, “We’re no longer a young start-up – we’re looking as far a field as South Korea for talent.”

It’s a tough market, but Projjol has no doubt that it’s heading in the right directions.  “We stated out with online gaming and expanded into social and are now working in the mobile sphere.”  As each of these market expands so too does their users’ interest and desire to interact with interesting content.

Projjol says that while users of these systems are all absolutely engaged with the ecosystem, mobile users expect higher quality – such as mobile-customised content.  And this is especially true for tablet users.

“Eighteen months ago advertisers weren’t fully on the mobile space, that’s starting  change.”  And it’s changing fast; Projjol says during the Olympics SponsorPay ran a successful viral video ad for Coke in France through its system.  The company recorded a 75% increase in shares from users.

Mobile, he says, “generates huge uplift for brands – it generates more engagement.”

With tablets, video and streaming media consumption is higher.  Tablet consumers tend to make more purchases and their basket sizes are quite often higher than on desktops.”

He advises that part of this could be that mobile and tablet users have fewer distractions and are more engaged with what they are doing.

“When [a mobile] ad unit pops up there are fewer distractions for the user.  Typically, the engagement is higher and as an advertisers you have more options, such as geolocation services.”

As for users, mobile advertising gives them more control over what ads they see and how they engage with content, and it’s this sense of control that could give mobile advertising the edge.