Crisp Wireless Nabs Microsoft’s Weaver

Interactive and mobile advertising industry veteran Michael Weaver has departed Microsoft to become vice president of strategy at Crisp Wireless, a mobile content and ad firm.

In his newly-created position, Weaver will concentrate on business development strategy, and in particular, mobile advertising. “We found a need internally here to help [Crisp] focus and strategize,” said Debra Bluman, VP of product marketing at Crisp Wireless.

Crisp offers a microsite builder where advertisers can create landing pages for ad placements on publisher sites. Additional advertiser-focused sites include recent work for Cars.com. “As Crisp becomes larger and the microsite builder becomes more accessible, we are looking at deepening relationships with companies like Microsoft and Yahoo,” said Weaver.

The groundwork for a relationship with Microsoft may already be laid. Weaver left his role as advertising strategy director at MSN’s Digital Advertising Solutions team to begin work with Crisp. Before he left Microsoft, Weaver played a role in the recent acquisition of European mobile ad firm Screen Tonic.

Prior to Microsoft, Weaver was a co-founder of Third Screen Media, which was recently sold to AOL’s Advertising.com unit. He was also a founding member of Bluestreak, among other positions held in the interactive advertising community.

Though Crisp Wireless is headquartered in New York, Weaver will remain based on the West Coast.