L'Oreal and Curves Win Grand Good Awards
By Kristin Wilcha
NEW YORK --The Advertising Women of New York (AWNY) presented its 8th annual Good, Bad, Ugly (GBU) Awards on April 5 at Caroline’s Comedy Club in New York. The show celebrates advertisers and agencies that portray women in a positive light with Good Award, while admonishing ads that are offensive and/or insulting to women with Bad and Ugly Awards.
L’Oreal and the Curves fitness and lifestyle chain were each honored with the Grand Good Award. L’Oreal was honored for a spot called “Beyoncรฉ,” out of McCann Erickson, New York, and directed by Matthew Rolston of bicoastal Venus Productions. Curves was singled out for “Now I Fit” out of Publicis, Dallas, and directed by Leslie Dektor of Dektor Film, Hollywood.
A “They Get It Award” went to Dove’s “Real Beauty” integrated campaign out of Ogilvy & Mather, New York. The campaign features spots such as “Anthem,” from director Jeff Preiss of bicoastal Epoch Films, which shows hordes of women in blond wigs tossing the hair pieces aside in favor of their real tresses.
The Grand Ugly for TV went to the Troeg Beer spot “Burp,” which features a bikini-clad model suggestively caressing a bottle of Troeg’s beer, and burping while listing the types of beer offered by the brewer. A second Troeg spot, “Troegenator,” was given an Ugly Award. Rudy Banny directed the ads for the Neiman Group, Harrisburg, Penn., and the shop’s in-house production arm, Falling Olive Productions. The ads were actually entered by the agency in the hopes that they would receive a bad or ugly honor, thus creating publicity for the brand.
THE GOOD
Lowe, New York, scored two Good Awards: one for Johnson & Johnson’s “Same Gift,” directed by Tony Kaye of bicoastal Supply & Demand, and one for the Light of Life Foundation’s “Not What You Think,” directed by Frank W. Ockenfels 3 of Great Guns, Los Angeles. L’Oreal’s “Andie,” also directed by Rolston for McCann Erickson, was honored with a Good Award.
The Girls Scouts of America ad “See The World,” directed by Graham Henman of bicoastal HKM Productions via The Kaplan Thaler Group, New York received a Good Award, as did a Whirlpool/Habitat for Humanity spot out of Publicis, New York.
THE BAD & THE UGLY
“Ref,” for Budweiser out of DDB Chicago scored an Ugly Award. Greg Popp, group executive producer at DDB along with former group creative head John Immesoete directed the spot, which was produced via bicoastal/international Partizan. (Immesoete is now a director with Backyard Productions, Venice, Calif.) Bud Light’s “Fantasy,” also out of DDB, scored an Ugly “honor.” David Kellogg of bicoastal Anonymous Content helmed the spot.
Visa’s “Super Heroes,” directed by Acne of bicoastal RSA USA out of BBDO New York scored a Bad Award, as did a Twix spot out of Nitro, New York.
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