AdMarvel Collaborates with ORMMA to Launch New SDKs that Leverage Open Standards for Rich Media Mobile Advertising

AdMarvel Enables Advertisers to Run Campaigns Across Multiple Publishers and Applications

NEW YORK – July 8^th, 2011 –  ORMMA, the Open Rich Media for Mobile Advertising initiative, today announced that AdMarvel, an Opera Software company, will support open standards in its new developer Software Development Kit (SDK). By incorporating the ad creative Application Programming Interface (API) shared among rich media providers, AdMarvel has augmented its ad serving capabilities to not only deliver ads to a wide distribution of mobile applications but to also deliver rich media advertising from any ad platform that can deliver ads with HTML5. 

AdMarvel’s new SDK lets publishers and agencies use HTML5 to deliver highly interactive display ad formats. AdMarvel now exposes the many ad capabilities supported via the ORMMA API, thus extending a broad range of industry-leading applications to run standards-compliant ad creative.  This further enables a sophisticated and standard approach for apps to communicate information related to state, position, events, resizing, orientation, network availability, device capabilities, and more.  This information makes it possible for rich media ad creative to modify their behavior when a specific device model, network condition, or application calls for it.  It vastly simplifies ad operations for large-scale mobile campaigns.

“AdMarvel’s work with ORMMA demonstrates that open APIs can be supported alongside very innovative, proprietary features. By adding open APIs to their existing SDKs, AdMarvel creates an important advantage over competing platforms right now,” said Xavier Facon, CTO of Crisp Media, one of the founders of ORMMA. “AdMarvel’s new ad SDKs are a sign that the days when ad creators needed to use native code and undertake a high level of customization to develop and deploy rich media campaigns are over.”

“Our publishers have been asking for standards over the past year, and we have now been able to deliver on that promise,” said Manoj Malhotra, SVP Engineering and Support Services at AdMarvel. “By implementing the ORMMA specifications in our SDKs we can now support all of the leading mobile and desktop rich media platforms, in a scalable and reliable manner.  In our support for ORMMA, we avoid having to make changes to our SDKs to fit editorial requirements such as different ad sizes, and more importantly, we can now support any rich media provider that can deliver ads according to ORMMA’s specifications.”

The goal of ORMMA is to allow ad developers to create one campaign that can run across a universe of mobile applications and sites, without sacrificing a rich user experience. 

“The challenge in the industry for in-app mobile and tablet advertising has been the fragmentation of SDKs and not having a standard way for ad creative to communicate with the device,” says Todd Pasternack, Director, Creative Technology at PointRoll. “ORMMA provides a solution so the same engaging, interactive ad experience can run across apps. And with a big SDK player like AdMarvel adopting ORMMA it clearly shows that open standards create scale and opportunity for everyone.” 

The ORMMA group is supported by a growing list of rich media providers including Celtra, Crisp Media, EyeWonder, GoldSpot, MediaMind, and PointRoll. Since its founding, ORMMA has developed a specification for an open API that unlocks many native capabilities and currently supports iOS and Android through JavaScript, allowing advertisers to create better ads using HTML5, and deliver them across iOS and Android. ORMMA is also developing capabilities that ORMMA-compliant developers can include in their advertising SDKs, including support for ad caching, polite loading, and increased privacy controls. 

With support from the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), the goals defined by the ORMMA consortium of companies is quickly becoming reality.  AdMarvel and ORMMA also support the working group at the IAB to define the initially more limited MRAID API, which is estimated to be ready later this summer.  With ORMMA determined to stay compatible with MRAID, AdMarvel is poised to support it when it becomes available.

Companies interested in joining ORMMA should visit the ORMMA blog, join the Discussion Group, or visit the Google Code Project.

About ORMMA

ORMMA, or the Open Rich Media Mobile Advertising initiative, was founded in November 2010 to simplify the serving of rich media ads into mobile applications by creating an open standard and set of industry best practices.  Founded by leading mobile advertising companies Crisp Media, The Weather Channel, Jumptap, and PointRoll, the open initiative has grown to include over 20 member companies.  Through an open source forum, ORMMA has released three-levels of standards and best practices for adoption by publishers, developers, and vendors. For more information visit http://blog.ormma.org.

About AdMarvel

AdMarvel Inc., an Opera Software Company, is the premier ad serving and inventory management platform in the mobile  industry.  Providing services to the world’s largest media companies, mobile operators, publishers, application developers, ad networks and agencies, AdMarvel provides dynamic SDK(s) and single platform to enable and manage the most engaging ad units available from the leading ad networks, rich media vendors and video ad providers in mobile today.   As a “trusted and open” solution, AdMarvel leads the industry in working with 3^rd parties to certify on the AdMarvel SDK(s) and ad platform for execution to ensure the intended user experience, audience measurement and analytics.  AdMarvel Inc., is a wholly owned subsidiary of Opera Software ASA.

For more information, visit www.admarvel.com 

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Media Contact Information:

ORMMA:

Tamara Gruber (tamara@redgiantconsulting.com)

AdMarvel/Opera Software:

Falguni Bhuta (falgunib@opera.com)