Michael McLaren has been named CEO of MRM//McCann. McLaren has been serving as president of MRM//McCann since May 2013. Hank Summy will continue to serve as president of MRM//McCann North America and the Global Commerce practice. MRM//McCann is a leading customer experience and relationship marketing agency networks with offices in 22 countries and a blue-chip list of global and local clients. With deep digital, technology and multi-platform expertise, it delivers clients a wide range of industry leading capabilities including content, commerce, CRM, mobile, search, social media, loyalty programs and data analytics. At McCann, McLaren first served as worldwide account director in San Francisco on Microsoft in 1999, and then moved to New York in 2004 as McCann Worldgroup’s director of global accounts. He was named president of McCann Erickson USA in 2007. In 2009 he moved to Japan in the dual role of CEO of McCann Worldgroup Japan and regional president of McCann Worldgroup Asia Pacific, where he oversaw operations in 14 countries. In 2012 he returned to New York as president of MRM//McCann USA and was named worldwide President the following year….Las Vegas based SK+G Advertising has appointed Marc Lineveldt to serve as executive creative director. He joins the agency with 24 years of experience developing highly successful global marketing and branding campaigns for The Coca-Cola Company, Sony, Volkswagen, BMW, Levi’s and many other iconic brands. Lineveldt is the former executive creative director for Fitzgerald+CO of Atlanta, a division of Interpublic. He began his career at TBWA/South Africa where he spent ten years, the first three in Johannesburg as an art director and the next seven years at TBWA Hunt Lascaris Cape Town as co-executive creative director. Lineveldt has also worked at Ogilvy, Y&R and Saatchi & Saatchi….
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