We’re also excited to be making this announcement as HTML5 is gaining momentum in the broader online display ad space. Just last week on Thursday April 8th, Steve Jobs announced the launch of the iAd platform which will serve ads built exclusively in HTML5. And, to our delight he used a Sprout Engage Ad as an example of how interactive and engaging display ads can be. Here’s a photo of Steve with our Alice in Wonderland Ad on stage.

Jobs stated that the iAd platform would serve 1 billion ads a day which makes it a very attractive opportunity for advertisers. But, this also poses a challenge for advertisers because the tools they use to create Flash ads do not export HTML5. Apple is not providing advertisers with a development platform and Jobs suggested that advertisers should use existing tools for authoring this content. This would mean that advertisers would have to acquire new tools to rebuild their Flash ads in another format. Sprout offers a better alternative by allowing advertisers to build their ads once before simultaneously publishing Flash and HTML5 versions. Here’s a short video that explains why we think this is so important and how it will enable advertisers to scale their HTML5 production to meet the iAd platform opportunity:

Here’s a closer look at how serving HTML5 ads can help advertisers gain better performance from their ads. In short, it allows advertisers to avoid the static GIF images that currently dominate the mobile browsing experience.

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.

]]> http://sproutinc.com/2010/04/sprout-announces-html5-beta-program/feed/ 1 http://sproutinc.com/2009/11/the-social-media-eco-system-for-brands/ http://sproutinc.com/2009/11/the-social-media-eco-system-for-brands/#comments Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:20:22 +0000 Roland Smart http://sproutinc.com/?p=4336 The wave of social media adoption is continuing to bring new brands online and as this trend unfolds the social media eco-system is changing to absorb the new participants. In this post, I’ll share a simple diagram that can help make sense of how the eco-system currently works and how it’s evolving.

In the past I’ve written about how social media works its way into brands. In this post I’ll focus on those brands that have identified value in social media and are looking for ways to grow their investment. If you’re working for a brand and want to stay on the forefront of social media you’ve probably looked for a creative agency or a social media agency who can serve as a guide. It’s almost impossible to have an internal team lead this function because the landscape is changing so rapidly. Agencies have more experience, but even they struggle to keep up with the latest opportunities. At Sprout we’re seeing that traditional agencies rely on technology partners not only to help them understand what’s possible with social media but also to help them by building the campaigns.

Sprout is a hybrid of a technology company and social media agency. We’re not alone in this approach. Many of our peers are also trying to combine these disciplines in order to deal with the challenges mentioned above. A differentiating factor is that Sprout began as a technology company with a solution for building engaging and social brand experiences. The rapid rate of change in the social media space has given us an advantage over creative agencies. Of course, after working with creative agencies we’ve learned a great deal about designing experiences and combine that knowledge with the detailed reporting, which our platform enables, to improve the performance of our projects.

It’s important to understand how the creative/technology mix works at the agencies with whom you’re considering working. At Sprout, we use our platform to help brands power continuous conversations across the web, but we also use it to power campaigns that we develop in conjunction with agencies creative agencies. Further, we offer designers and agencies a way to subscribe to a base level of our platform through Sprout Builder.

When the first wave of social media rolled in there was a greater separation between the creative agencies and the technology providers. For the next several years, we expect to see an increase in the number of  integrated agencies, like Sprout, because they are better positioned to take advantage of rapidly evolving networks like Facebook. The left side of the diagram below reflects this trend:

Today, it’s the technology platforms that serve as hubs within the eco-system, connecting brands and creative agencies with social networks and distribution partners like DoubleClick, Clearspring, and Gigya, There is also some consolidation taking place between the distributors and ad networks that will continue to drive down the cost of online advertising. Part of what will ultimately stabilize this devaluation is the integration of social content and connectivity into campaigns such that they become significantly more relevant. This is part of what we do at Sprout.

Finally, if you’re interested in learning about how you can organize your internal team to work with service providers, check out Jeremiah Owyang’s post about how brand’s adopting social media should adopt a “hub and spoke” model. Think of it as an internal eco-system for brands. Thanks for reading and please post a note if you have any questions or comments!

San Francisco, December 18, 2008 – Today, Sprout (www.sproutinc.com), the premier platform for developing and managing creative engagement marketing campaigns, announced that announced that Tracy McGrady’s website, T-Mac.com is using Sprout Mixer to launch an online engagement campaign targeted at Tracy McGrady fans. The campaign encourages fans to create their own personalized widget to determine who is “the Ultimate T-Mac Fan.” The fan with the best widget, as selected by T-Mac himself, and the contestant with the most views on their widget, will win exclusive game-worn autographed memorabilia from Tracy.

“Tracy McGrady fans are among the most loyal in the NBA,” said Chris Talbott, director of athlete marketing, Wasserman Media Group. “Sprout Mixer allows us to invite fans to show who the most passionate and creative T-Mac fan is, while sharing their own T-Mac photos and videos. The resulting highly customizable widgets can then be posted to their profile pages for friends of fans to see and remix. It’s a great, fun way to tap into the loyalty and creativity of Tracy’s fans and their friends.”

Fans can visit http://www.t-mac.com to create their own Tracy McGrady widget. Using a simple and fun drag and drop interface and toolset, fans can use assets provided in the campaign, or their own images, videos, and more to create their own media-rich content that they can then display on their own site. Their friends, in turn, can click a Remix button on the posted widget to restyle and personalize that content.

“Allowing fans to personalize content is proving to be a very popular engagement strategy for our entertainment clients,” said Carnet Williams, CEO of Sprout. “We are thrilled that Tracy McGrady and the Wasserman Media Group have chosen our platform to engage Tracy’s fans and showcase the best T-Mac fans in the world.”

About Tracy McGrady:
Tracy McGrady is a member of the NBA’s Houston Rockets. A 7-time all-star and two-time NBA scoring leader, Tracy is one of the most well known basketball players in the world today. Tracy is also the founder of the Tracy McGrady Foundation and recently completed work on his documentary on the crisis in Darfur – 3 POINTS. For more on Tracy, please visit http://www.t-mac.com

About Sprout:
Sprout is the premier creative engagement platform used by leading advertisers, publishers and brands such as Warner Music, Sony Pictures and REI. With Sprout Mixer, brands invite consumers to participate in the creative process using simple tools to remix content, personalize applications and share their brand experiences with their friends across social networks. Sprout is based in Honolulu, HI and San Francisco, CA. To learn more, please visit http://www.sproutinc.com

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San Francisco, November 17th, 2008 – Today at Adobe MAX 2008, Sprout (www.sproutinc.com), the premier platform for developing and managing creative engagement marketing campaigns, announced it has integrated Google Analytics™ Tracking for Adobe® Flash® technology into its solution built with the open source Flex framework.The integration of Google Analytics Tracking for Adobe Flash with the Sprout Platform will allow all Sprout Mixer customers that publish rich media content to have access to one of the most robust analytics solutions in the marketplace. They will now be able to track the length of time the consumer interacted with the content, what actions were taken within the application, and detailed anonymous user demographic data.

“Brands come to Sprout to develop media-rich campaigns that capture the consumer in a totally new way,” said Carnet Williams, CEO of Sprout. “Our technology platform allows for the most engaging applications on the Web, allowing consumers to remix content provided by the brand. I am thrilled that we will be able to provide our partners with comprehensive reporting data that combines enhanced event tracking with existing page tracking, allowing partners to track activities and time within the Flash application, and whether those interactions result in the desired campaign goals,” added Williams.

“Flash provides a very rich user experience on the web, but up until now creating custom indicators to track how users are engaging with Flash content was a difficult task,” said Brett Crosby, Group Product Marketing Manager of Google Analytics. “This new native Flash tracking capability will provide the feedback loop content developers have always wanted about referring sources, geographies, campaigns and conversions.”

“We’re excited about the enhanced data now trackable around our Sprout Mixer campaigns,” said David Bell, VP of Digital Strategy at Zomba Label Group. “As a record label, we focus heavily on online engagement marketing as it’s the ultimate way to have consumers interact with our artists and their music. Being able to collect anonymous, aggregate customer data and exactly which media in the applications they are interacting with is an incredibly powerful way to measure success and learn more about our customers while safeguarding their privacy,” Bell added.

“The Sprout solution is based on the Adobe Flash Platform because Adobe Flash is the industry standard for creating and delivering interactive content that reaches the widest possible audience across the Web,” said Tom Barclay, senior product marketing manager for Flash Player at Adobe. “The pervasiveness of the Adobe Flash Platform along with Google Analytics tracking for Adobe Flash gives Sprout Mixer partners a sophisticated and safe solution for tracking how users interact with the Sprout content.”

Pricing and Availability:
All Sprout Mixer clients will receive customized reports based on campaign goals using Google Analytics Tracking for Adobe Flash as part of their standard package. For more information on Sprout Mixer, please go to www.sproutmixer.com. For more information on the integration with Google Tracking for Adobe Flash please go to www.sproutmixer.com/analytics.

About Sprout:
Sprout is the premier creative engagement platform used by leading advertisers, publishers and brands such as Warner Music, Sony Pictures and REI. With Sprout Mixer™, brands invite consumers to participate in the creative process using simple tools to remix content, personalize applications and share their brand experiences with their friends across social networks. Sprout is based in Honolulu, HI and San Francisco, CA. To learn more, please visit http://www.sproutinc.com
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