CBS Interactive has promoted Rob Gelick to senior vice president and general manager of CBS Mobile in a move intended to cement the content provider?s position as a mobile leader.

Mr. Gelick previously served as vice president of CBS Mobile and prior to that he worked at Motorola and Helio. CBS Mobile has been responsible for applications and mobile sites for its brands such as The CW, CBS, CBS News and CNET.

Mobile Marketer?s Chris Harnick spoke with Mr. Gelick about his promotion and CBS?s mobile strategy. Here is what he had to say:
 
What?s your strategy going into this position, knowing what has worked and what hasn?t worked for CBS and other affiliated companies and networks on the mobile platform?
Clearly what we see in the market place is a kind of shift in directions over the past 12 months. We?re heavily looking at direct-to-consumer offerings, not only for our key shows on the entertainment side, but really across different content areas.

CBS basically has plays in content categories such as entertainment, news, sports, technology, gaming and business. We have key properties in each.

The basis for us leveraging those brands is to create some effective destinations on air and online today.

What do you hope to accomplish in your first year?
Well, I think what we want to do is have a much more proficient dialog with customers in the space, people using brands.

We want to make sure customers have a touch point and broad association in mobile, that?s key.

Another key for us is to make sure that the same audience is coming to us on mobile, but that we?re growing a new audience on the mobile channel.

I think doing that, adding to our direct-to-consumer offerings such as mobile sites and apps, it opens a dialog with the audience for on-air, in-show interactivity, fortifying distribution channels.

What were the mandates given to you by CBS?
Clearly the organization looks at mobile as a growth opportunity. We?re already participating in space heavily and have been.

The question is:  how do we take that to next level and engage consumers in a way makes sense on mobile, not just doing a straight version of a Web site and just mobilizing it, but actually creating an experience unique to the mobile platform and tying it there.

We?re really starting to see the intersection between show world and real world.

We have a number of CW-based properties on mobile. There are two iPhone apps that are out, similar to what we do online. Consumers have the ability to watch highlights, find out more information about the cast and characters and link back to iTunes store. It?s really for The CW fan base (see story).

It?s a great experience on how to monetize, this product has richest variety of mobile ads available in the market today. There are banner ads and we have full page interstitials that come up and users can click on them for more information or to have them go away.

There is preroll video and actionable preroll video and what I mean by that is consumers can click on a video to watch and a video ad comes up before it as an overlay.

Mobile devices have limited real estate, banner ads are a great way to advertise but not the only way.

In another app, CW City Wize, that?s really the concept of real world matchup with what is the show world (see story).

Consumers click on the ?Gossip Girl? show map of Manhattan and watch videos that take place at the location, whether it is where the characters ate or shopped. It is done along with supplemental info with our partner [Target].

We see it as leading to the next generation of location-based services.

How are major media brands evolving on the mobile platform?
I think from our perspective, we?re looking at different things like live events, a concept game or show.

What changed dramatically this year alone is how we released March Madness earlier this year.

We?re the first ones really streaming live events on iPhone, we had all 63 games of the tournament.

More and more people are not able to tune-in because of certain circumstance like they are not in front of the TV or computer as the event is happening. It?s a powerful trend that continues to grow and grow and using mobile as a way that kind of broadcasting medium fortifies our traditional broadcast.

It is becoming more common place that a person's touch point for their favorite show isn?t just watching on air, but interactions that come from both online and mobile.

How has CBS and its subsidiaries evolved on mobile over the past few years?
I think audience is a big one. I think because we had a presence ? and brands have to have presence ? and strong offerings in key brands.

We have now launched at the very least apps for our brands as a baseline entrance. We have rich mobile sites with compelling content on platforms that matter the most where audiences are interested in downloading apps more consistently.

The audience keeps coming back and spending time on our offerings. Video syndication is still very strong for us.

Video views of our properties are very high and we?re seeing it continue to grow.

Do you think that the networks and movie studios get mobile marketing?
We?ve worked very successfully with a number of networks and studios themselves not very infrequently.

We?ll get some movie campaign working around a site for consumer integration. They?re out there, establishing a voice in mobile.

Movies in particular are not just doing mobile advertisements,  but making sure to have deliberate calls- to-action to drive viewers to their content.

The movie industry has successfully picked up mobile and it made part of a stable of channels it will leverage to promote a film.

We do that as well with shows, we use our own inventory and promote the new shows coming out. When we launched the new fall season we worked with Pepsi and they basically took over Monday night promotion on mobile, online and on-air.

We?re constantly using the mobile as a channel to promote.

Can you give recommendations on how to convince other media institutions like networks and film studios that mobile is becoming a viable marketing channel?
I think simply put, the level of engagement is very high.

The nature of mobile is ? this is maybe an overstated term ? it is a highly personal device, that is undeniable.

When a consumer is engaged on a mobile screen they are engaged where there is limited real estate even on richest device, so if a brand appears there they have the ability to influence what is happening in and around the content.

It?s a very compelling, integrated, natural way where advertising takes over the intended experience.

I think it works very well, meaning they?? see higher click through and higher levels of engagement.

We?re seeing more and more brands step up to the plate in the mobile space.