Crisp Voices Blog

First Impressions of Apple iAd

8 Apr 2010 - Boris Fridman

Apple's announcement today of iAd really highlights the importance of relevant, innovative mobile advertising. The era of ringtone and download ads is ending with high profile brand marketers taking their place.

Crisp Wireless has been at the forefront of this shift to brand advertising for the last two years and we've seen significant traction with the likes of major brands such as Skittles, Intel, Paramount Pictures, Estee Lauder, Lexus, Infiniti, and more. We believe in the rich media, engaging experience that provides opportunities for interaction within the ad unit itself, including the likes of location awareness, video, game play, social networking, sharing, and more.

We are going to continue to bring these interactive mobile Web and app ad experiences to premium publishers who would rather maintain control over their inventory and sales. Moreover, agencies will be able to use Crisp to deliver rich media ads to wherever smartphone users access content, whether through their browser or in applications. We deliver a unified experience and reporting across the mobile web and apps, devices, and platforms including iPhone, iPad, Android, and more.

It is wonderful to have the power of Apple pushing innovation and interactivity to drive forward the possibilities of mobile advertising.

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The iPad is here.

5 Apr 2010 - Xavier Facon

I pre-ordered the iPad via the Apple website. Even though the Apple site mentioned the Saturday April 3 delivery date, I was really expecting it on Monday. On Friday, I tracked the package via the UPS site in the style of NORAD tracking Santa. This was yet another reality check of where these beautiful electronics are manufactured. The package was still in Guangzhou, China. Our UPS guy generally doesn't even attempt deliveries in the weekend to our business address, so I called UPS. Before I could get through to an agent, an automated message preempted me. It announced to all impatient kids waiting for their iPad (or something like that) that it was going to get delivered on Saturday. Indeed, it even arrived in the morning.

Once in possession of the device, the crazy idea of taking a golf club to it before even turning it on like Daniel Tosh did in this clip flashed through my head. But that would have been a really stupid thing to do. Minutes after using the device, it became obvious--this device stands up really well to all it was hyped to be.

Even though many people have said that this is all about the irrational culture created by Apple's marketing genius, I have a perfectly rational explanation for the popularity this device is having. Here it goes.

Evident by the basically unchanged Windows PCs many of us have been using for at least a decade now, the consumer is pretty tolerant to the often poor user interfaces of personal computers. After all, what choice did we have? This has not been the case for cell phones. There has been a lot of choice of different mobile software platforms. Since the first Motorola 3000 cell phone circa 1983, all the way up to today, if a mobile phone is hard to use, it will sell poorly and it will give the mobile operator a huge customer support headache. Since I started using a Blackberry 957, I have wished the same care for detail would be put into the user interface of an actual computer OS.

This is it. The iPad is a small computer with the well designed user interface of a cellphone--the iPhone. I can find a large collection of content and software especially designed and optimized for this exact hardware. This is not the case on everyone's PC. In contrast to some PCs, it is a computing experience without the common frustrations of slow software, clogged menus or searing hot laptops with 4 hour battery lives. Not surprisingly, it is individuals who have great computer skills who don't understand the hype about iPad. They miss the point. They are often happy Linux users unaware of user interface obstacles common to software.

Users of the iPhone had seen what developers are capable of in terms of interactivity design on a constrained mobile device. Those are the same users who bought approximately 700,000 iPads over the weekend. It's a great example of less is more. I read a great blog post by Matt Gemmell on iPad user interface design here. The more direct a consumer can interact with content the more fun they have. So far, because of the large touch screen on a mobile 'always-on' device, the iPad allows more direct interaction with content than any other. The device is surprisingly fast thanks to the A4 CPU that can move data 64bits at a time.

Seeing the great full screen advertisements for Coca-cola, Oracle, Buick, and several other advertisers in between the content of great iPad optimized applications (like the WSJ and USA Today applications), I expect this device to be a darling of brand advertisers. The combination of large full page interstitials with integrated video works really well. Advertisers finally have the tripple threat: size, interactivity and measurability.

This is great news for those who bought the iPad. Your favorite newspapers, magazines and TV shows are likely to be largely free to download. For mobile publishers, this is a chance to take more control over monetizing their content as well. The ad network model that has been helpfull in mobile because of its efficiency, I expect to be less important for iPad apps. Regardless what you call rich media on mobile (H.264, HTML5, JavaScript or Flash), the iPad can support more impressive advertisements than any popular mobile device.

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The Mobile Upfront Conference: An Overview

18 Mar 2010 - Tamara Gruber

A crowd of nearly 500 representatives from agencies, publishers, and technology vendors gathered on Tuesday, March 16th down in the Lower East Side of Manhattan for the first annual Mobile Upfront Conference, hosted by Jumptap. The day and the venue were both jam-packed, with discussions from the people out there on the front lines executing mobile advertising campaigns. If you want a full overview of the conference, you might want to read through the tweetstream, but I'll summarize some key takeaways here.

Mobile BRAND advertising is still in a testing and trial mode but all major brands are incorporating some form of mobile advertising
Isobar recommends that all their advertisers start with approximately a $50K ad spend in mobile to experiment, test and measure. They also recommend that everyone commission a brand study to help judge effectiveness.

Mobile advertising spend from brands will continue to grow
Tara Moss from Isobar stated that mobile is approximately 5-10% of the mobile ad spend now, but expects it to represent 40% of the online spend in a few years, and R/GA feels that while mobile ad budgets have been slow to develop, they will be quicker to grow than what we saw in the early days of online.

Mobile advertising is effective
While measurement is a concern for all the panelists throughout the day, what they have measured so far has been an unprecedented success with three to four times the results of online. Measurements vary depending on campaign goals (acquisition, retention, brand awareness, commerce, foot traffic, etc) so measuring both engagement and conversion across all campaigns is critical. John Hadl from Brand in Hand described how he has an assistant dedicated to compiling reports from various ad server and ad networks -- clearly that problem needs to be solved for mobile advertising to scale (and Crisp Wireless has some solutions for this.) Marriott has actually had amazing success with revenue driven from their mobile site exceeding that from individual country sites.

Mobile expertise needs to be integrated throughout the agency
Instead of chasing shiny new objects, mobile needs to be leveraged according to the campaign goals and objectives. Everyone needs to understand mobile to be able to properly advise clients, develop compelling creative, and execute media buys. Isobar has taken bold steps in this direction and now has 150 mobile specialists spread throughout their 3000-person organization.

Mobile web is the future
We heard this from Brand in Hand but most eloquently from Sony Music who believes in the mobile web because it reaches across all platforms and countries and "hits more people." Panelists believe that HTML5 will change the course of mobile and lessen the focus on apps.

Mobile ad networks still dominate
Media buyers want scale and to achieve this in mobile they've worked with ad networks. Brand in Hand spends 65% of its budget through mobile ad networks and prefers to work with just a few organizations and publishers to manage resources. Premium publishers expressed a clear desire to sell direct and offer greater value to brand advertisers with sponsorships, cross-platform buys, and association of brand with premium content.

Creatives need to understand mobile
It is great to creative-types to play and experiment with each new thing, but ultimately someone needs to set the marketing communications objectives and figure out how mobile incorporates into that. For some audiences, it is central. For others, it is a sideline. But because mobile is quickly becoming the "first screen" it needs to be a piece of all.

Matisyahu performing at Mobile Upfront

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Build Better Mobile Ads

17 Mar 2010 - Xavier Facon

Steve Jobs says "Mobile Ads Suck". (Pardon the expression. His words ... not mine.) He apparently said this to a source of a BusinessWeek article earlier this year. I need to agree with him. Many ad campaigns are indeed poorly executed, with slim banners and little ad content.

So, what needs to happen to make mobile display advertising better? We have a couple of ideas that I will briefly exlain in this blog post. But first, let's be clear about something. Some mobile display ad campaigns are amazing. Crisp is currently serving a gem of an ad unit for advertising new Intel processors.

The ad unit is a collaboration between various ad technology companies who are each doing what they do best. Crisp Wireless is involved as the rich media platform that ensures compatibility with various device versions, serves the ad, tracks every event on the unit and reports on user engagement through a rich reporting interface. This interactive ad expands from a non-intrusive banner ad and employs drag and drop input for the consumer to engage with the message. The ad lets the user answer a series of questions to discover the processor that is right for them according to the chosen answers. Take a look at the video to see what you think or check it out live on CNN Mobile or CBS Mobile.

So how can you build better mobile ads?

1. Use HTML/CSS/JavaScript: Basic banners are out. We believe, to make for compelling advertising, these richer technologies need to be leveraged. There is no need to wait for Flash.

2. Make the advertising SDKs in applications compatible with these web technologies. This Intel ad, runs both on mobile web and within iPhone applications.

3. Track the events created by the consumers interactions. Because the ad is built in JavaScript every event can be captured.

4. Invoke the ad client-side. In other words, use a JavaScript invocation system for that ad. This allows the browser to load the page first and the ad later. This seemingly small change allows ads to be much larger in terms byte size without impacting the user experience negatively.

5. Keep the consumer on the mobile web site of the publisher or in the application. With these richer ads, all the ad content can be conveyed without taking the user out of the experience.

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Crisp to Present at Upcoming Mobile Advertising Events

3 Mar 2010 - Tamara Gruber

Crisp Wireless will be on the move throughout the month of March to participate in several mobile advertising-related events.

digiday: Mobile
The first will be digiday: mobile on March 8th at the Hilton in Los Angeles. At this event, Boris Fridman, CEO, will provide the 12pm spotlight presentation: Brand Advertising on Mobile – Moving Beyond the Long Tail, which will provide examples of how brands are moving beyond experimentation and using mobile rich media to engage with consumers. Following this brief presentation, he will also participate in the “How to Innovate with New Mobile Ad Units” panel discussion. For complete agenda please check out digiday:mobile agenda. Registration for this event is free and can be completed at digiday registration using the code “DDMLASP.”

Mobile Upfront Conference
The first-ever Mobile Upfront Conference, hosted in part by Jumptap, is being held on March 16th in the Lower East Side of Manhattan for advertising and media executives to gain insight on “All Things Mobile.” Crisp executives will be on hand and participating in rich media panel discussions. To learn more visit http://mobileupfront.com/ or register today.

OMMA Global
Wrapping up our events this month, Crisp will be out in San Francisco to attend OMMA Global “Unbound” on March 17-18th. You will find Tom Limongello, Sr. Director of Business Development, participating in the panel discussion “Publishers Show Us the Mobile Money” on Wednesday, March 17th at 2pm. Tom and Andy Sullivan, SVP of Client Services, will also moderate a special workshop panel discussion: App Fatigue: Why the Mobile Web is the Future of Mobile (& Tablet) Advertising on Thursday, March 18th at 12:15pm. This presentation will discuss the importance of the mobile browser when it comes to the future of how consumers use the web along with how companies will utilize the web as a communication channel. You can also find Crisp at Booth 123 – right near the bar! This event’s full agenda can be found at OMMA Agenda. To register for free, please visit OMMA Registration.