As more brands look to engage in mobile advertising, we recognize that there is a lot of confusion in the marketplace on the role of different players.  It is no surprise since mobile can look like the wild-west compared to online advertising. 

Online is pretty simple.  If you want wide reach, you go to a horizontal ad network.  For specific audiences, go to vertical networks or direct to publishers.  Your online campaign is bought, trafficked and managed through an ad server, such as DART or ATLAS.  Ad formats and standards have been established by the IAB and rich media vendors like PointRoll or EyeBlaster.  You only need to worry about supporting a handful of browsers, and industry standards such as Flash are commonplace.  Reporting is delivered through your ad server or a rich media vendor’s. 

Yet in mobile, there is much more overlap between vendors.  Some publishers sell direct, others work with ad networks or both.  There is no clear distinction between premium and remnant inventory. Ad networks, rich media vendors, and ad servers all offer different technologies when it comes to ad formats, ad serving, and reporting.  Overall, there are more technologies (devices, OSs, etc) to support, and less standardization.  In short, it is an emerging market.  Rather than specialize, vendors do everything. Ad networks develop rich media ad units and rich media vendors offer connections to publishers.

So where does Crisp Wireless fit in?