TBWADublin has hired Andrew Murray as director of social media & content.
Murray enters his new position after an extensive career across the creative industries that has equipped him with a mastery of digital, social, and content advertising. Earlier Murray worked his way up the ranks at Cybercom (now Huskies) to become head of social content, where he worked with a host of brands, including Guinness, Vodafone, AIB and Carlsberg Football, across many European markets. His subsequent position as director of social media & content at McCannBlue saw him successfully build a department from scratch and bolster the agency’s client base. In just over two years, Murray helped McCannBlue/AV Browne win a host of UK and Irish social and content work, including Ulster Bank, Beck’s (Be Kreativ), TABASCO, Blue Dragon, and Patak’s.
Initially training as a spatial planner, Murray completed a broad range of destination branding projects at a top architectural firm before making the move into advertising. The major success of two of his notable projects–The PIVOT Dublin World Design Capital Bid and ‘The ‘80s Kid”–caught the attention of agencies and was instrumental in sparking this career transition.
On his appointment, Murray said, “When it comes to social media and content creation, there’s a big battle going on out there. It’s the most competitive space in advertising and marketing right now, which is all really exciting. I strongly feel that social media and content should be creative-led, with input from digital and technology departments, and heavily rooted in strategy, data and insight. That’s what produces the best work and that’s what we have here at TBWADublin. I immediately bought into TBWADublin’s aspiration of being a world-class creative agency that just happens to be based in Dublin, and I wanted to be part of it. The opportunity to build a department on a larger scale with its current client list and some incredibly exciting new clients, that are yet to be announced, was too good to turn down.”
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads โ essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More