Co-Founder/Co-Chief Creative Officer
Fancy LLC
What’s the most relevant business and/or creative lesson you learned in 2023 and how will you apply it to 2024?
In 2023 I began to really connect with people on LinkedIn. Sure I have been on the platform practically since its inception, but my experiences were very transactional. Posting my perspective on the industry, consuming others’ content about whatever it was they were posting about. This year however, I really began to interact with people, I began to develop relationships and connect on a human level. It’s opened my eyes and it’s expanded my network. We’re all busy and we don’t often take the time to truly engage with people. And that’s where the inspiration really is.
For next year, I’m building on that connection by committing to engaging in more dialogue, deepening my connections, and being more helpful to more people. And I’m planning to do it offline as well as on. For me, 2024 will be the year of the breakfast meeting, the lunch date, the industry happy hour, and the client dinner. People. Faces. Handshakes. Hugs.
While gazing into the crystal ball is a tricky proposition, we nonetheless ask you for any forecast you have relative to content creation and/or the creative and/or business climate for 2024?
I think we will see brands that had previously had tunnel vision for transaction-based advertising embrace brand-building. They’re starting to realize that in a world where everything can be copied and commodified, building deep and meaningful relationships with consumers is the only way toward long-term brand loyalty and growth. And I hope that extends to brands building authentic connections with a certain affluent, outspoken, and powerful (over 25% of the country) group: Women over 40.
Gender pay disparity, sexual misconduct and the need for diversity & inclusion are issues that have started to be dealt with meaningfully. While the industry has made strides to address these issues, there’s still a long way to go. What policies do you have in place or plan to implement or step up in order to make progress on any or all of these fronts?
Fancy is 100% women-owned, operated, and driven. And we’ve been that way since day one in 2011. As important to us as the work we create on behalf of our clients is creating an environment that works for the way women want to work. We’ve had a distributed workforce for over ten years, we create bespoke solutions for family leave, and we assemble teams on a case-by-case basis to maximize opportunities for passions and skillsets to align with client objectives. We know that when women can fit the job into their life (as opposed to their life into whatever’s left after their job), the work is more inspiring, and the experience is more fulfilling for everyone. We’re not doing this because we have to, because the industry is shifting, because the world is watching. We work this way because it’s the only way we can. It’s who we are.
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