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Q&A: Mobile ad agency Mobile Dreams Factory's plans

Mobile Dreams Factory is one of the most awarded mobile marketing agencies. What makes it tick?

In this interview, Alberto Benbunan, founder and corporate development director at Mobile Dreams, discusses his plans for the next year. With satellite offices in New York and Mexico City to support the Madrid, Spain, headquarters, Mobile Dreams works on clients such as Coca-Cola, Diageo, adidas, Renault, Microsoft, Nokia, Amstel Beer, Heineken, Vodafone, Nestle and Metro International. Excerpts:

What is Mobile Dreams Factory's focus for 2009?
We have a healthy obsession with measurement and ROI, which is why our focus in 2009 will be to measure and improve our client's ROI and link campaigns to results.

The user's knowledge, both of technologies and advertising networks, allows us to predict our campaigns' results according to the desired target as well as realize campaigns that close the purchasing-circle loop.

What was it about 2008 that stood out?
My pick is Diageo's iDrinks campaign. A campaign that sought to better understand consumers in order to find out their motivations.

Once the link was established, we implemented the tools to motivate more consumers to close in on the point of sale and buy the product.

What is the company's growth strategy?
For the time being our company will continue to grow in the U.S., where there are lots of opportunities and unexplored markets, as well as in other European countries where we already have open commercial leads, such as France. These are our wagers for next year.

Currently, Mobile Dreams has operations in the U.S., Spain, the U.K. and Mexico.

Your key milestones in 2008?
In 2008 we consolidated our operations in Europe and completed a round of investment that helped us open our U.S. office.

We also launched our operator-dedicated Mobile Permission Marketing Platform, which allowed us to open a line exclusively dedicated to monetizing operator assets for clients as large as Vodafone and Orange in Europe.

And last but not least, we won eight MMA Awards which, along with the other six prizes from past competitions, makes us the most award-winning mobile marketing company in the world -- all this without including prizes in other competitions such as Cannes and Eurobest.

The truth is we've had a pretty busy year, haven't we?

What's the core offering?
We believe that creativity in mobile doesn't only consist in taking advantage of the 160 characters in an SMS, but in knowing about new technological possibilities that allow you to effectively reach clients.

We've been active for four years in a market that is just getting started here in the States, which gives us the know-how to get into the mobile at any stage of communication -- launch, promotion and loyalty building -- as well as different formats such as SMS, mobile Internet, couponing and Bluetooth.

How is the company helping its clients?
We are a full-service mobile marketing agency.

We work with the client from the idea's conception and all through development, integration and measuring.

Half of the staffers at Mobile Dreams are programmers and developers, which allows us to innovate in mobile technology and respond to the dynamic strategies of mobile marketing, as opposed to any traditional agency.

What are clients saying in this economic climate?
We always say that there is no cheap or expensive advertising campaign, but effective or not.

We do well because our clients look for efficiency and measurement. We close the loop in all our campaigns. We're into measuring from the beginning and we measure each and every step we make.

These days, clients are innovating and branding less, but on the other hand, they are doing more mobile coupon campaigns, or campaigns that bring traffic to the point of sale.

What's next for the company?
To be more creative and give better service to our clients, which will allow us to win more awards.

Winning more awards will make the best professionals want to work with us. Having the best professionals will make the best clients want to work with us. And again, this will make us more creative and win more awards.

As you see, we love to close the loop always.