This post was originally published on www.mobile-ent.biz   

CTO Xavier Facon talks to ME about brands' engagement with advanced ad campaigns.

Of all the companies lining up to provide rich media ad technology for brands, Crisp Media may have a claim for knowing most about what it clients are looking for. The firm didn't always specialise in rich media.

It was founded in 2003 and spent its early years navigating its way through the uncertainties of the first generation of mobile content.

Thus, Crisp ended up as a specialist in mobilising major brands, building sites and later apps for big organisations such as NBC Universal, Bravo Media, Hearst Magazines, Hachette Filipacchi and Paramount Pictures.

By 2009 the iOS revolution was in full swing, and Crisp anticipated the revolution this would bring to mobile advertising. Mindful of its vast web of relationships with premium brands, it built a platform for creating rich media campaigns and did a pivot. 

The 'Engage' platform was formally launched in September of that year, offering advertisers and publishers a reporting dashboard to measure campaign performance in real time, and a catalogue of HTML5 ad units intended for use on smartphones and (later) tablets.

These units offered the full range of stuff that makes rich media advertising so much more engaging than static banners, such as:

* Location-aware with tap-to-Google Maps capability

* Scrolling ad units allowing the user to scroll to read text/product information

* Expandable units featuring multiple calls-to-action in the expansion panel

* Inclusion of Twitter and Facebook feeds

* Floating/overlay units offering static placement as the user scrolls

* Tap-to-video/audio 

* Tap-to-iTunes/App Store 

 Within 18 months, the platform had served one billion rich media mobile ad impressions.

In time, Crisp would enhance its tech with proprietary ad units including Adhesion and Capsize. And it would even make an acquisition to enable it to offer its own ad placement network in addition to a tech platform.

The technical lead behind the core Crisp platform was one of the founders of the company, Xavier Facon. He spoke to ME.

Crisp wasn't always an advertising company. How did the switch happen?

We started out building apps for brands, and ended up working with 400 of them. In the process, we realised how difficult it was to work with all the different ad networks they were using. We got a good sense of what worked and saw an opportunity to build rich media technology of our own – and we built it using HTML5 from the ground up.

So since 2010 we've been able to provide a full workbench to agencies and publishers. The system will build, design and serve ads while making sure they are compatible with all the different devices in the market.

How did you come to launch your own network in addition to the Engage platform for building ads?

Well, we were working with clients and it became clear that many of the networks they worked with didn't certify the ads that run across their inventory; they just hoped they will run seamlessly. So we were really looking to ensure we could promote our own campaigns, and we became a tech company that happens to own its own network.

Fortunately, we met with Smart Device Media, and they had similar challenges. Their network was running static ads but they wanted it to be a premium network, and for that they needed to be able to offer rich media campaigns. 

So who do you count as clients now?

We only work with premium brands and publishers, like WSJ and Yahoo for example. It's still a relatively small market, but we all know where it's heading and we plan to stick with it.

How would you gauge the level of awareness of, and commitment to, rich media advertising in mobile now?

There's not a single major agency in the US that's not aware of the potential of the space. And almost all genuinely 'made for mobile' ads are now rich media ads. But it's still the case that a lot of mobile advertising is just an afterthought of online advertising, which is a shame.

The fact is, you can't run static ads on such an engaging and interactive format. It's a waste. There are still only half a dozen that are genuinely advanced and build their own self-service creative ads. That's why we have a creative department, which currently produces around 25 per cent of the output on behalf of clients.

You're very committed as a company, and personally, to the industry standard ORMMA. Why is this?

There are basic things like the formatting for reports that need to be harmonised. Agencies are used to getting standardised reports when using other ad media, so we have to give them the same level of consistency in mobile.

Open standards are important if you want to move the market forward. That's why we work with competitors like Celtra and Medialets to achieve this, and why we helped start ORMMA to find the best integration. The aim is to have one API that ensures the same functionality. 

You developed a couple of your own ad technologies… Tell us about those?

We came up with Adhesion, and it's delivered fantastic results. The overlay ads stick the the screen wherever you scroll to, and it's been proved to perform in some cases eight times better than regular static ads.

We also have Capsize, which eliminates the need for multiple creative sizes by automatically adjusting the width and height of the foreground elements.  

Can you describe a really outstanding ad campaign built on your tech?

We did a campaign with Chevy on the WSJ that was designed to show how much further you can drive with the same fuel. It asked the viewer where they live and then gave them a destination that they could drive to on a single tank. But it actually showed the journey by displaying a map that synced with a video and a gallery. The completion rate on the ad was 80 per cent, compared to a typical 30 per cent.