SponsorPay and fellow German startup Flip4New topped the Media Momentum charts! Flip4New grew at a staggering 1652% CAGR between 2009 and 2011, relegating us – with a not too shabby 1271% CAGR in the same period – to second place. The entire list is provided below (courtesy of GP Bullhound).

Our latest achievement stems from the success of our engagement marketing product BrandEngage as well as rapidly growing mobile platform. This comes on the heels of an outstanding 2011 during which we not only more than doubled revenues but also extended our footprint in Asia and the U.S.

Of course, although we have a lot to smile about, we are hard at work to ensure we reach even loftier goals this year. Wish us luck!

The latest additions to our workplace (pictured below) include:
- a ‘beach bar’-style outdoor meeting area, just in time for Berlin’s wonderful summer, and
- an indoor ‘hang out’ space with massive Fatboy bean bags, a whiteboard (for Pictionary, Hangman and such) and a gorgeous, red – of course – Smeg fridge replete with beer.

Of course, as excited as we are with these developments, we’d love for there to be more folks to enjoy them!

Among others, we’re looking for product managers for our rapidly growing BrandEngage advertising solution, account managers and ad operations specialists for our industry-leading mobile platform as well as agency sales executives. We had an awesome 2011 and need top-quality talent to ensure this year is even better than the previous one.

Check out our Careers Site to learn more about our commercial success – how we’re one of Europe’s fastest growing startups – and, wonderful team that is Berlin’s most diverse (also smartest, nicest and best looking … but we digress). Look through our many open positions, find one or more that meet your fancy and apply today!

Perfect.

The first game Alternet Reality ran featured a character who was kidnapped, and found himself alone in a boat. Players had to direct the man to find and piece together clues around him so that he could realize his location, and have other characters come to his rescue. The actor himself had no idea where he was which added a real-life element to the game.

“You’re interacting as if this is really a real situation,”Anthony Purzycki, one of the game’s creators says. “In a slightly mundane world where we’re just working non-stop or taking care of family, it provides this escape hatch.”

It should come as no surprise that P&G is one of the brands capitalizing on these opportunities. In an effort to influence the household decision makers, they’ve targeted mothers by highlighting the satisfaction of motherhood using the tagline ‘the toughest job in the world is the best job in the world.’ 

One of the coolest features is the map (pictured above) that shows exactly where each job position is located in Berlin so you can even pinpoint what street you could be working on. Hascore also provides other valuable information including companies’ photos and links to their GitHub repositories as well as lists of ‘most wanted’ skillsets across all employers.

Currently, there are nearly 300 startups posted on the website. Not only is the aim of Hascore to help developers in their search for jobs, but also to provide intelligent insights to ensure each job hunter finds the best position possible.

We wish Juan the best of luck with this venture and are excited to watch it grow!

Our premiere post features this week’s breakout meme – television network TNT‘s A Dramatic Surprise On A Quiet Square, a fantastic example of creative marketing and virality. The video illustrates the power of social marketing; it received over 5 million views in less than 24 hours and now has over 11 million views on YouTube.

In an effort to promote the launch of the TV channel in Belgium a big red push button was set on “an average Flemish square of an average Flemish town” and affixed with a sign that read “Push to add drama”. This is what ensued:

David Diaz

David is a Stanford graduate with a wide encompassing academic and professional background. He began his career at TechCrunch writing for its various properties and developing its wiki-style database of startups and tech entities, CrunchBase. From TC, David went on to work at social and mobile game developer Booyah! as Head of Corporate Communications and, most recently, assisted game developer Metamoki in marketing and business development.

When David isn’t hard at work, he’s often seen frequenting AT&T Park to cheer on Tim Lincecum and the San Francisco Giants.

Mike Pollack

Mike joins us from Adknowledge, where he was a Senior Account Manager. Previously, he managed client relations at CPX Interactive. He’s an expert on user acquisition and virtual currency monetization and brings with him years of experience from the advertiser side of the business.

Mike began honing his business skills at Yeshiva University where he studied finance and accounting, and also had the privilege of interning for NBC Universal.

Like David, Mike is also a sports fanatic.

We’re still looking to fill a number of open positions in Berlin and San Francisco – visit our Careers Page now!

Launched in July last year, BrandEngage is an innovative advertising platform driving customized cost-per-view (CPV) and brand engagement campaigns in social and online games as well as other entertainment portals. Since then, SponsorPay has developed close partnerships with leading publishers, including Bigpoint, Digital Chocolate, King.com, GameDuell, Aeria Games and Spil Games, among others, to ensure brand advertisers can present their campaigns to high-quality users the world over. Efficient targeting and unique engagement tools – including social sharing and survey participation – ensure industry-leading results such as completion rates consistently over 90% as well as sharing and click-through rates above 35%.

SponsorPay’s partners have been extremely pleased with the platform’s abilities. “SponsorPay is a valued partner for effective video distribution to engaged social audiences,” said Steve Dorey, Media Director at social video company Unruly.

The viral capabilities of BrandEngage, which enable branded content to be distributed organically across social networks, are among the platform’s greatest benefits. “BrandEngage is right in line with what agencies and brands are looking for to engage users in the social video space,” said Justin Loresco, Marketing Strategist at iMedia Communications.

Social and online games have increasingly become a mainstream channel for brand advertisers and agencies primarily because of their massive global reach of over 450+ million users (based on a recent study by industry research boutique Newzoo). The attractive demographics of the players – according to a recent study by research firm Harris Interactive, 55% are female and 56% are between the ages of 18 and 44 – ensure brands reach their desired target groups, and research shows players are eager to engage with brands in games.

BrandEngage enables users to consume, share and interact with branded content while simultaneously ensuring advertisers have complete insight into and control over where their campaigns are distributed, thereby maintaining complete brand safety. The engagement abilities enable brands to drive users to complete relevant actions, such as buying a movie ticket, participating in test drives or sampling products, after watching a video ad.

“The success of BrandEngage is testament to the growing importance of social and online games for brand and engagement advertising, but this is only the beginning,” said Andreas Bodczek, CEO and co-founder of SponsorPay. “We are excited at the prospect of developing the product to drive further value for our advertiser partners.”