Today Greystripe announced that they will now be offering advertisers the ability to target the iPhone audience for the first time through rich media ads including Flash IAB medium rectangles and game-in-game (or "tailgate") ads. The largest ad-supported applications and games network has made marketing to the iPhone mobile audience turnkey for agencies, digital media buyers and brands by supporting online ad servers like Google's DoubleClick and Microsoft's Atlas.
"Greystripe's rich media ads performed extremely well for us," said Michelle Mayorga, Mobile Director at Rock the Vote, a Greystripe advertiser. "Advertising in the iPhone with highly engaging ads was perfect for our mission to build the political power of young people because the iPhone reaches a highly targeted demographic."
In an effort to make it easier for the online media buyer to purchase mobile, Greystripe has brought creative power to the iPhone with Flash creation tools. Each of Greystripe's new ad formats are focused on consumer engagement:
· GS.Impact - offers all of the creative power of Flash on an iPhone, allowing brands to extend any online advertising campaign directly into mobile
· GS.Tailgate - offers the ability to create miniature advertiser-branded games in Flash and place them before, during or after existing iPhone games
Actions for all of Greystripe's ad formats include branding, click to YouTube, iTunes, maps, App Store, data, call, audio, survey and canvas.
"Mobile has long been in need of a scalable advertising model and Greystripe's new ad formats resolve that issue on the iPhone," said Michael Cai, Director of Digital Media and Gaming at Parks Associates. "Using the iPhone's revolutionary platform, Greystripe has solved the serving, reporting, third-party tracking and, best of all, ad creation problems that have plagued the mobile advertising industry since inception."
An April 2008 Screen Digest report forecasts that the market for rich media advertising on mobile will reach $2.79 billion by 2012. The report also states that mobile game ad formats will provide a valuable source of innovative marketing opportunities for brands aspiring to connect and interact with their customers. Screen Digest predicts that by 2012 over 60 million ad-funded mobile games will be downloaded per year worldwide1.
"Greystripe is looking to address the lack of advertising standardization in mobile by committing to IAB online formats," said Michael Chang, CEO and Co-founder of Greystripe. "We have made it easy for advertisers by removing barriers to execution. Brands like Jeep, RadioShack, New Line Cinema, Rock the Vote and Yahoo! have seen strong results."