Adtile is disrupting mobile ad technology. Here’s why you should care

Adtile makes disruptive mobile ad technology by applying the physics of airplanes, and submarines, to mobile ads.

And now it’s being rewarded for its efforts.

The secretive startup based in San Diego was awarded the Frost & Sullivan 2014 North American Innovative and Contextual Mobile Ad User Experience Enabling Technology Leadership Award this week.

Forget the long title dear readers. The award, despite the ridiculous length of its description, means that Adtile’s software, which incorporates micro-sensors that mimic physical human behavior, GPS, gyro­scopes, motion co-processors, accelero­meters and compasses that sense body movement, is taking names and getting recognized for the disruption it is.

Indeed, advertisers creating mobile ad campaigns, a space expected to grow to $35 billion next year, now have the option of turning what are usually staid and boring click-thru ads into a fully interactive experience, akin to a video game. The ads bend, dip, and essentially conform to the movements of your body when you’re out and about with smartphone in hand, walking and even running.

Frost & Sullivan noted in awarding Adtile the honor that:

“In contrast to competing solutions, which offer obtrusive and tiny banner ads or conventional in-stream ads, Adtile’s solution, with its white-label technology, allows mobile users to experience ads without disturbing the design of a web site, or without disturbing the user’s mobile experience. Adtile is made available to the publishers as native software development kits (SDK) that seamlessly integrate with a client’s Web, iOS, and Android publishing platforms giving the user the experience of a natively built application.”

To be sure, there is nothing conventional about Adtile’s mobile SDK. Nor is there anything conventional about Adtile’s founder and chief executive Nils Forsblom, a type of Finnish-born tech viking who eschews conventional marketing schemes and cares instead to let the technology speak for itself.

Adtile has raised a total of $8 million in venture funding this year, but Forsblom steadfastly declines to say from whom. In talking to Forsblom, one begins to see that the award, given to cutting-edge tech startups who are changing the field, doesn’t really interest him. He’s focused on lining up clients buying his software.

“These awards are not newsworthy, in my opinion, but these guys really put some time and effort to learn what we do.  They even did a research study on our technology,” Forsblom told VentureBeat.

In awarding Forsblom and his small team the award, Frost & Sullivan noted that Adtile’s SDK allows ad developers to pivot and adjust the ads to match the specs and contours of the websites serving them. Adtile’s patented Motion Ad technology, as Forsblom calls it, brings highly customizable elements that elevate the mobile ad experience.

Mobile ads, as generally conceived and deployed by ad houses, are, as I write, boring. The value proposition of Adtile is that their SDK enables ad clients and their products to interact with the user, and it has potential to be a tipping point for high-end brands looking to expand their presence in the convoluted, though rapidly emerging, ecosystem.

Potential customers for Adtile’s mobile technology, according to Frost & Sullivan, include media houses, ad tech outfits, ad exchanges, and even in-flight service providers, most of whom are desperately figuring strategies to match quality products with a complementary mobile format.

In fact, the secretive Forsblom is shuttling like a diplomat from meeting to meeting in the markets that matter: New York, Miami, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Or so he assures us. In keeping with his secretive demeanor, Forsblom declined to say who he’s lining up business with.

“I can’t keep up,” Forsblom said. “If you think about what we’re doing with mobile, it’s unique. The user becomes an extension of the ad itself. That’s how we’re advancing this. To make ads truly more native. It’s the whole banana.