Creative Director / Partner
Timber
1) Music videos are back, and we’re all having a blast. They’re becoming a healthier and more monetized medium and they’re reclaiming their place in showcasing production creatives and new ideas. The long break was more of a time-out than the permanent retirement we had assumed. We're seeing more risks being taken and more collaboration with artists that are much more familiar with visual trends that can help elevate their music.
The whole process has changed because you can do so much more with so much less. Editorial often happens on set. Color testing can happen while you shoot too. Using CG to augment in-camera limitations isn’t as time consuming as it used to be so it’s easier to integrate it quickly.
2) I think we’re going to start seeing more attempts at consolidation between businesses. Vendors are going to become agencies. CMOs are going to start become CCOs. Agencies are going to start making content for entertainment. Creatives are going to direct. The wheels go round and round. My prediction is that most of these efforts will fail, or at least fail to really pay off. Most of these players have worked alongside their counterparts in the supply chain and quietly thought to themselves “ I could totally do that “. More often than not they’re wrong, and that’s because experience matters more than people realize.
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 — 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