• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, July 15, 2013

Publicis Groupe has invested $15 million in Jana, the Boston-based mobile rewards platform.

With the investment, Publicis Groupe CEO Maurice Levy is taking a seat on the Jana board of directors, the company said.

Levy believes that the platform is “the next big thing in the communication industry.” The platform targets consumers in fast-growing and emerging markets, like Indonesia, India, Nigeria and Brazil. “Consumers in these dynamic markets are spending 10% of their daily income on mobile airtime, while global advertisers are spending more than $150 billion to reach them through traditional advertising channels,” Levy stated.

Jana, which rewards consumers with airtime for looking at mobile ads, filling out surveys, referrals and buying products, “is changing the face of advertising by enabling us to invest in targeted, mobile-based campaigns that put advertising dollars directly into the pockets of the ‘next billion’ consumers our clients are most eager to reach.”

According to the holding company, the Jana platform can “instantly reward” nearly 3.5 billion consumers in emerging markets with prepaid airtime.

The Publicis investment brings Jana’s total capital raised to about $25 million from investors, including venture capitalist Todd Dagres, former AOL and News Corp. executive Jon Miller, media veteran and investor Paul Sagan, among others.

Another senior Publicis executive, Rishad Tobaccowala, chief strategy and innovation officer at VivaKi, will join Jana’s board of advisors. “The Jana relationship will help us disrupt traditional ad models and connect our clients to the world’s fastest-growing populations where mobile adoption is far outpacing other technologies,” he stated.