Sprout technology solves the complexity of mobile rich media planning, creation, distribution, and measurement for brands and agencies globally

AUGUST 2, 2011, 08:00 a.m. PDT: Today, InMobi, the world’s largest independent mobile ad network, announced the acquisition of Sprout, whose HTML5 rich media creative platform helps agencies and brands reduce the complexity of rich media mobile ad creation and distribution. InMobi’s global presence combined with Sprout’s rich media technology will help the mobile advertising industry easily build and distribute engaging rich media ads to consumers everywhere.

Known for simplifying the complex process of HTML5 rich media mobile ad creation and distribution, Sprout’s vision is to help advertisers “build once and deliver everywhere” on both mobile and desktop devices. Sprout’s cloud-based platform brings efficiency and scale to organizations creating mobile ads and its rich media creatives are compatible with mobile devices supporting HTML5, including Apple iOS and Google Android devices. Sprout works with some of the world’s leading brands, including Chevrolet, Disney, Paramount Pictures, HTC, Sega and Nokia.

Naveen Tewari, CEO of InMobi, comments: “Sprout’s technology solves a critical need for the industry by helping bring engaging mobile ad experiences to consumers all around the globe. The acquisition fits perfectly with our vision to enable the mobile ecosystem with best of breed technology and services. The entire industry will benefit from the combination of our technology and operational footprint on five continents and Sprout’s platform.”

Commenting on the acquisition, Ajit Nazre, Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, says: “The mobile industry is struggling to fully capitalize on the engaging advertising experiences now possible through smart devices. This acquisition will help scale the use of rich media advertising globally – a critical next step in helping the industry realize its full potential.”

Sprout will operate as a fully independent company working with the entire mobile advertising industry to solve the HTML5 creation and delivery problem, and will continue to expand its product in the coming months by adding workflow enhancements, analytics, and innovative new ad units.

Carnet Williams, CEO and co-founder of Sprout, comments: “InMobi’s commitment to an open and independent Sprout made them the clear choice for us. We will continue to work with all existing partners, including competitive ad networks, globally.”

About InMobi

InMobi is the world’s largest independent mobile advertising network. With offices on five continents, it provides advertisers, publishers and developers with a uniquely global solution for advertising. Its network is growing fast and now delivers the unprecedented ability to reach 314 million consumers, in over 165 countries, through more than 36.2 billion mobile ad impressions monthly. InMobi was recently included in both the 2011 AlwaysOn Global 250 and the 2011 AlwaysOn OnMobile 100 Top Private Companies lists.

InMobi is venture-backed with marquee investors including: Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers and Sherpalo Ventures. The company has offices in San Francisco, London, Bangalore, Tokyo, Nairobi, and Singapore.

To learn more, please visit www.InMobi.com, follow us on Twitter @InMobi, or read our blog atwww.InMobi.com/InMobiblog/.

About Sprout

Sprout is the leading platform for creating mobile HTML5 rich media advertising. Its team has been market leaders for social media and mobile technologies for the past five years, and was one of the first preferred Facebook Developers. Sprout has a simple philosophy: Creative professionals should be able to build once and deliver everywhere. Its platform creates HTML5 ads that are compatible with leading mobile ad networks, aggregators, and publishers.

Sprout is venture-backed by Polaris Venture Partners and has offices in Honolulu and San Francisco.

To learn more, please visit www.sproutinc.com and follow us on Twitter @sprout.

Please contact Dan Gamble, for further information or for a briefing with a senior spokesperson.

Tel: +1 415 598 8902

Email: dan@If-communications.com

San Francisco, CA – June ##, 2010 – Today, Sprout, the leading technology platform for creating rich, engaging ads and social media applications, announced that the Sprout Engage Platform, a visual authoring solution, has been integrated with DoubleClick Studio, a rich media production and workflow tool. The integration makes it easy for creative teams to develop ads in Sprout’s visual authoring studio and then use DoubleClick Studio to manage their workflow and submit creatives to DoubleClick’s ad serving products DoubleClick for Advertisers (DFA) and DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP).

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Solution allows advertisers to create ads once and simultaneously export Flash and

HTML5 ads that can be served on multiple platforms

San Francisco, CA – Today Sprout, the leading software as a service technology platform for creating rich, engaging ads and social media applications, announced that the Sprout Engage Ad Platform, a visual authoring solution, can now export both Flash and HTML5 ads.  Sprout is currently signing up beta partners interested in streamlining their workflow and scaling production of mobile ads for networks such as Apple’s iAd service.

“Steve Jobs’ announcement of the iAd platform and his goal of 1 billion impressions a day will challenge advertisers to scale their HTML5 production” said Carnet Williams, Founder and CEO of Sprout. “Apple is not providing a development platform, and advertisers’ current tools do not export HTML5, so Sprout is providing a solution that is scalable, offers a single workflow, and does not require hand coding.”

The platform supports expandables, 3rd party APIs and social data integration with the leading social networks. It also includes a rich set of analytics to measure performance and optimize for success.

“The Sprout platform is a visual authoring solution that does not require writing any hand code, it protects publishers from malvertising problems. Since code cannot be introduced, Apple can now focus their ad review process on ad content rather than the ad code” said Matthew McNeely, VP of Engineering at Sprout.

Brands, agencies and publishers interested in the HTML5 Beta Program may apply through the Sprout website: sproutinc.com/html5beta.

At Sprout we’re thrilled to start the process of identifying partners to participate in our beta-program. We believe this will make our Engage Ad Platform event more attractive to advertisers, publishers and agencies that are looking to scale production of rich, interactive, and socially connected ads that can be served in both Flash and HTML5.

La Costa, CA – February 23, 2010 – At the IAB Leadership Conference, Sprout, the leading technology platform for creating rich, engaging ads and social media applications, announced the Sprout Engage Platform. This platform is designed to take display advertising to the next level by bringing personally relevant data right into a standard Flash ad unit. Sprout Engage Ads allow brands to make stronger connections with their audiences by providing a fun, interactive experience, wherever their audiences travel online.

“The landscape for how brands market to consumers on the Web has changed over the last couple of years,” said Carnet Williams, Founder and CEO of Sprout. “Broadcasting messages is quickly being replaced by two?way conversations and branded experiences on social networks. We think the future of online advertising is bringing application?like engagement and interactivity into the standard display ad unit. We know brands and customers will benefit when ads contain personally relevant content, be it a Twitter feed, a friend’s endorsement, social data, or an engaging Flash experience,” Williams added.

“Brands have been coming to Sprout for rich, engaging social applications and Fan Pages,” said Adam Taisch, VP of Business Development. “Now, for the first time, brands have an end?to?end solution that extends the conversations beyond the walls of Facebook to any site that runs display ads. The result is a consistent user experience across social networks, brands’ Web sites and display ads,” Taisch added.

Disney will be running Sprout Engage Ads on IGN, Fandango, Movietickets, YouTube, and Addicting Games to support the March 5 release of “ALICE IN WONDERLAND.” “’ALICE’ is a rich, immersive film that’s on the cutting edge,” said David Singh, executive vice president of worldwide marketing for Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. “It’s important for us to give our audience an innovative first?to?market experience every time they come across our film. Sprout Engage Ads will provide that experience through our online display ads.”

Jones Soda is another brand adopting Sprout Engage Ads. “On the Jones Soda web site, we allow our customers to personalize their soda labels,” said Mike Spear, Marketing Director at Jones Soda. “We think this personalization drives brand loyalty and sales. We love the idea that customers can have that same interactive experience wherever they encounter our display ads on the web. I think this will drive increased soda sales.”

Brands interested in running Sprout Engage Ads and publishers interested in offering Sprout Engage Ads can email info@sproutinc.com

About Sprout:
Sprout gives you a better way to connect people with your brand through personally relevant Engage Ads and Engage Apps across all the leading social
networks and publisher sites. Sprout Engage Ads give your brand better ad performance than traditional rich media ads. Sprout customers include Disney, Warner Bros., Intel, Toyota and MTV. Funded by Polaris Venture Partners, Sprout is based in Honolulu, HI and San Francisco, CA. To learn more, please visit http://sproutinc.com.

San Francisco, CA – November 23, 2009 – Sprout, the leading technology platform that powers continuous conversations through personally relevant brand experiences, today announced the launch of Intel Fan Plan, an innovative Facebook campaign that allows fans to exert their power by banding together to lower the price of ultra-thin, Intel® Core™2 processor-based laptops by Toshiba®, Asus® and Acer® on Cyber Monday (November 30).

“The Intel Fan Plan campaign is an exciting example of what can happen when you bring together a brand that understands how to leverage social media, a platform that allows for viral-ready experiences and a developer that can tie all the pieces together and deliver rewarding, engaging experiences,” said Carnet Williams, Co-Founder and CEO of Sprout.” “I hope that fans take advantage of the power given to them by Intel to get the best possible deals on great laptops.” (more…)

San Francisco, CA – September 30, 2009 – Sprout, the leading technology platform for creating rich, engaging ads and social media applications, today announced the immediate availability of Sprout Publisher. Sprout Publisher allows Fan Page administrators to reach fans with highly interactive content and applications that display in the Fan Page feed and in the fans’ personal activity streams, without the need for fans to add the application.

Fan Page administrators can access Sprout Publisher where they normally update their activity feed. A free, Sprout-branded version of Sprout Publisher is available with templates for common branded content such as coupons, frames, event notifications and news flashes. Free templates are also available for consumers, including gifts, moods and cards for different occasions. The look and feel of the templates can be easily altered using simple, visual tools to change backgrounds, insert text, videos, images and more.

For brands that need additional functionality and more customization, Sprout will develop custom Sprout Publisher templates and applications for a fee. Examples might include gifting or coupon applications using a product catalog feed, applications that include asset or video galleries, and more.

To see Sprout Publisher in action, check out Disney’s ‘Gift an Alien’ campaign, which can be found here: apps.facebook.com/youhavebeenchosen/

“Fan Pages have become an anchor in the social media mix,” said Carnet Williams, CEO of Sprout. “While identifying fans is essential, engaging and communicating with them is the most important thing that brands can do to be successful in social media. Sprout Publisher provides simple tools for Fan Page administrators to quickly create and share engaging content via their activity stream that starts conversations,” Williams added.

“We turned to Sprout to help us create our Fan Page because our business is largely driven by word of mouth and a Fan Page is a great way for us to harness our fans,” said Erica Gragg, co-owner of Escape to Shape. “In addition to providing our fans with up-to-date information via Twitter feeds and RSS, we can now use Sprout Publisher to quickly and easily get great-looking coupons and news flashes out to our fans who more often than not share it with their friends,” Gragg added.

Sprout Publisher provides benefits beyond being able to engage fans. Share functionality built into the templates allows fans to become brand advocates and share content with their friends, ensuring added virality and interactions. In addition, since all interactions take place in the feed, end users don’t have to leave the feed to engage with content, which provides a great end-user experience.

Details and Availability:
Sprout Publisher can be added for free from the Facebook application page: apps.facebook.com/sproutpublisher.

Brands looking for custom templates, applications or to remove the Sprout branding from templates can contact Sprout for pricing information at info@sproutinc.com.

About Sprout:
Sprout’s software platform enables brands and agencies to create and manage everything from rich, engaging social ads to fully integrated social media applications that take advantage of platform hooks and virality. With Sprout Builder, creative professionals can quickly and easily create branded content, widgets and mash-up applications that are easily transportable across Facebook, MySpace and other social networks. Sprout Engage introduces a higher level of interaction by allowing fans to engage with content and personalize and publish brand messages. Funded by Polaris Venture Partners, Sprout is based in Honolulu, HI and San Francisco, CA. To learn more, please visit sproutinc.com.

San Francisco, May 21, 2009 – Sprout, the leader in social media strategy and campaigns, today announced that its technologies are being utilized in the Rock the Space competition on MySpace, in which unsigned bands and solo artists submit an original song for a chance to win a record deal with MySpace Records. Toyota Motor Sales (TMS), USA, Inc., MySpace and MySpace Records are bringing this once-in-a lifetime opportunity to the MySpace community.

Saatchi & Saatchi LA, Toyota’s agency of record, approached Sprout to provide the technology for a viral widget. The widget, which looks like a demo tape, allows bands and artists to promote their submissions within their online communities. The demo tape will include a band’s name, song and link to their MySpace band profile and image. Participants will have the option to customize the look and feel of their tape. Saatchi LA also brought on interactive agency Schematic to work with with Sprout and MySpace on the Toyota-sponsored campaign.

“We are excited to be working with Toyota and MySpace to develop the social media component of the Rock the Space competition,” said Carnet Williams, co-founder and CEO of Sprout. “This competition taps into the popular music culture built on MySpace and adds social media tools that bands can use to create their own online music campaign with the hopes of launching their career.”

“We came to Sprout both because of its background in creating engaging social media campaigns and portable content, and because we knew they could get us to market quickly,” said Matthew Pollock, Content and Interactive Producer for Saatchi LA. “With Sprout’s expertise we were able to create a fun campaign experience that we know bands will enjoy and share with their fans across MySpace.”

Once published, the demo tape will become a fully interactive viral widget that can be placed on a band’s MySpace page, website, blog or other social networking sites to promote the contest and solicit votes. The demo tapes will also reside on the Toyota Music MySpace home page in a thumbnail image gallery in which viewers can click on a demo tape image and be directed to an artist or band’s Toyota Music MySpace page or their MySpace profile page.

The Rock the Space winner will be announced in September and will receive a recording contract as well as a $10,000 prize package provided by Fender. The winner’s song will also be available for download on the MySpace Music Home Page. The four runners-up win a MySpace Records Development Deal friends package.

For more information or to submit for Rock the Space, please visit: www.myspace.com/toyotamusic.

About Sprout

Sprout helps brands develop and deploy engagement campaigns across diverse social networks. The Sprout platform solves a problem that has been plaguing new media marketers for years – How to quickly create brand experiences that are easily transportable across Facebook, MySpace and other social networks without having to find and hire expensive development resources. With Sprout, agencies and brands can create rich experiences that marry brand assets with UGC to capture social gestures and allow advocates to share their experiences with friends. Funded by Polaris Venture Partners, Sprout is based in Honolulu, HI and San Francisco, CA. To learn more, please visit http://sproutinc.com.

About Saatchi & Saatchi LA
Saatchi & Saatchi LA is a full-service agency with both traditional and non-traditional capabilities, including media, creative, strategic planning, 3D asset creation, design and event marketing. The agency was awarded a prestigious Gold Effie for its highly effective launch of the Toyota Tundra full-size truck. Saatchi LA is agency of record for Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., and it also serves Toyota Dealer Associations and Toyota Financial Services. The LA office is the third largest in the global network of ideas company Saatchi & Saatchi, part of Publicis Groupe. For more information, go to www.saatchila.com.

New York, IAB Social Media Event – May 18, 2009 – Sprout, the leader in social media strategy and campaigns, today announced a new package for companies looking to quickly launch a presence on Facebook® with a customized social media package that can be created in less than two weeks for $50,000. The Sprout F3 bundle includes a Facebook Platform application, Facebook Connect integration and a Facebook Fan Page.

“With this bundle, we are offering the most aggressive pricing model available for building a robust social media program for Facebook,” said Carnet Williams, Co-founder and CEO of Sprout. “Nobody else offers the ability to create a completely customized and unique social media campaign from design to tracking in less than two weeks. The Sprout F3 bundle offers a tremendous value for companies that are ready to take the leap into social media and want to engage fans with a fun experience while enabling them to share personalized brand messages with their friends.”

The Sprout F3 bundle includes:

• A Facebook application that takes advantage of Facebook Platform features and distribution with hooks into the social graph and News Feed.
• A Facebook Connect application that can integrate with a company Web site to allow visitors to sign in with their Facebook account, interact with friends who are also on your site, and share actions back to Facebook. This integration ensures that your audience can access the core social features of Facebook, such as photos, status updates, and friends, in your campaign, whether it lives on or off of Facebook.com.
• A Facebook Fan Page that provides a unique experience connecting you with your brand advocates and offers an additional place for users to discover your application.

As part of this complete package, Sprout will work with the client to design an engaging social media campaign that leverages existing branding assets or user generated content (if desired), or new assets built specifically for the campaign.
Sprout will then integrate the application with Facebook Platform and develop a campaign in the amount of time it would take a traditional agency to deliver wireframes. In addition, Sprout provides comprehensive QA testing, campaign launch support and the Sprout Engagement Console, which provides 24 hour access to the tracking and analytics needed to measure success and optimize results.

“We are currently working with Sprout to provide one of our key clients, the Tony Award winning musical, ‘In the Heights’,  with an integrated social media campaign using the Sprout F3 bundle,” said Sara Fitzpatrick, Director of Interactive at SpotCo, a leading entertainment advertising agency in New York. “Our selection of the Sprout offering was based on the speed in which they are able to design and deliver a customized, creative campaign that allows us to harness brand advocates both on the brand’s corporate site and across Facebook.”

For more information on the Sprout F3 bundle, please visit: http://sproutinc.com/f3/

About Sprout

Sprout helps brands develop and deploy engagement campaigns across diverse social networks. The Sprout platform solves a problem that has been plaguing new media marketers for years – How to quickly create brand experiences that are easily transportable across Facebook, MySpace and other social networks without having to find and hire expensive development resources. With Sprout, agencies and brands can create rich experiences that marry brand assets with UGC to capture social gestures and allow advocates to share their experiences with friends. Funded by Polaris Venture Partners, Sprout is based in Honolulu, HI and San Francisco, CA. To learn more, please visit http://sproutinc.com.

Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc.

OCEAN FUTURES SOCIETY AND SPROUT PARTNER TO CREATE SOCIAL MEDIA APPLICATION TO RAISE AWARENESS ABOUT TOXIC FLAME RETARDANTS

05.12.2009 – San Francisco, CA, May 12, 2009 – When Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Ocean Futures Society needed to raise awareness and donations for its campaign against toxic flame retardants, it turned to Sprout, the leader in social media strategy and campaigns. Their strategy was to use brand advocates to spread the message to friends and networks who have likely never heard of the Ocean Futures Society or the problems facing the world’s oceans. To succeed, they needed a social media strategy.

“This is our first foray into social media and we are excited to find new ways to reach out and share our news and highlight important causes,” said Jean-Michel Cousteau, President, Ocean Futures Society. “Since this crisis required immediate attention, we had to work quickly to get information on the Web within our budget. Our approach included a Twitter program and social media campaign created with Sprout. We were thrilled to see the depth of the social media campaign Sprout was able to build with its engagement platform and are already seeing great results.”

The Sprout campaign allows end users to create an underwater adventure using assets provided by the Ocean Futures Society, in addition to user generated content. As visitors to the site create their adventure, they can learn about the Cousteau divers, sea life, dive equipment and more. “The Sprout campaign is interactive and fun. I hope it inspires people to make a difference in their own lives and share the experience with others,” said Cousteau.

The campaign launched on Earth Day to coincide with the release of the Call of the Killer Whale, the latest entry in his environmental series Jean-Michel Cousteau: Ocean Adventures, which appears on PBS. During the filming of this special, now available on the PBS Web site, the crew became aware of the dangers of toxic flame retardants and decided they had to act. They are hoping the campaign will drive people to donate money through the website and to help pass Senate Bill 772, which has already been well received by the community thanks to an early Earth Day appearance by Jean-Michel Cousteau and his two adult children, Fabien and Celine Cousteau on the TODAY Show.

“We are really pleased that the Ocean Futures Society turned to us to help with their social media efforts,” said Carnet Williams, CEO of Sprout. “We strongly believe it is within each of our power to make a difference on the Earth and using social media is a great way to raise awareness for a very important cause.”

The Ocean Futures Society social media campaign created by Sprout is available here: http://bit.ly/oDiM0. For more information about toxic flame retardants, please visit www.toxicflameretardants.org.

About Sprout

Sprout helps brands develop and deploy engagement campaigns across diverse social networks. The Sprout platform solves a problem that has been plaguing new media marketers for years—How to quickly create brand experiences that are easily transportable across Facebook, MySpace and other social networks without having to find and hire expensive development resources. With Sprout, agencies and brands can create rich experiences that marry brand assets with UGC to capture social gestures and allow advocates to share their experiences with friends. Funded by Polaris Venture Partners, Sprout is based in Honolulu, HI and San Francisco, CA. To learn more, please visit http://sproutinc.com.

About Ocean Futures Society

Ocean Futures Society (OFS) is a non-profit 501(c) (3) organization. With the motto, “Protect the ocean and you protect yourself,” the mission of OFS is to explore our global ocean, inspiring and educating people throughout the world to act responsibly for its protection, documenting the critical connection between humanity and nature, and celebrating the ocean’s vital importance to the survival of all life on our planet. OFS is based in Santa Barbara, California, with offices in Paris, France; Lucca, Italy; and São Paulo, Brazil. For more information, visit www.oceanfutures.org.

San Francisco, March 31, 2009 – Today Sprout (http://sproutinc.com) announced support for Facebook Platform, Facebook Connect, and OpenSocial. Now, for the first time, a Flash-based social engagement campaign created using Sprout’s visual design platform can be simultaneously published as a full-blown OpenSocial application, a Facebook application, a Facebook Fan Page application, and as a standalone campaign integrated with Facebook Connect. The automated solution enables brands and agencies to focus their time on the creative campaign development, not back-end integration, and still reap the rewards that social networking applications offer, such as increased virality, activity, and access to richer customer data.

Using the ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for Facebook Platform (http://www.adobe.com/go/facebook), Sprout was able to integrate its campaigns with the Facebook platform, allowing customers to simultaneously create both web-based engagement campaigns and social media applications. “A year ago, Sprout was on stage with Adobe at Web 2.0 showing how we give visual designers the ability to create rich media content and engagement campaigns without writing a single line of code,” said Carnet Williams, CEO and founder of Sprout. “Now, a year later we are providing our customers with a way to turn those campaigns into fully functioning social media applications without coding or adding time for production.”

“We have been really impressed with Sprout and what it has to offer our customers in the social media space,” said Nicole Neopolitan, senior vice president, production at Schematic. “As a leading interactive agency, Sprout gives us a world-class, turnkey option to quickly build engaging campaigns across social networking sites.”

The social media technology announced today will dramatically help brands increase their reach on social networking sites. “I am really excited that Sprout campaigns, such as the one we built for the launch of Afro Samurai the videogame, can now be published simultaneously as applications across the leading social networks,” said Ryan Grissom, senior manager, interactive at NAMCO BANDAI Games America. “The focus addresses our desire to extend our reach into social networking sites in a fun, natural way while limiting the need to secure additional support and development,” Grissom added.

Availability:
Sprout engagement campaigns can be rolled out as Facebook applications, Facebook Fan Page applications, or standalone campaigns integrated with Facebook Connect starting today. To see a demo, go to http://sproutinc.com/socialmedia. OpenSocial support will be available in Q209.

About Sprout:
Sprout enables brands to engage their audience across the social graphs. The Sprout platform solves a problem that has been plaguing new media marketers for years – How to quickly create brand experiences that are easily transportable across Facebook, MySpace and other social networks without needing expensive development resources. Funded by Polaris Venture Partners, Sprout is based in Honolulu, HI and San Francisco, CA. To learn more, please visit http://sproutinc.com.

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