Mary Knox, former managing director of Curious Pictures and Smoke & Mirrors, has launched NY-based Minerva Content, a management consulting and representation firm, with partner Shauna Seresin, long-time head of marketing for Amber Music and former agency and post producer. Named after the Roman goddess of wisdom and strategy, Minerva reflects a new twist on both the repping marketplace for production and post services and the ad agency new business model, as the consulting and rep firm will market its client roster to agencies as well as marketers for direct-to-client assignments. This is particularly the case with its innovative representation agreement with Odysseus Arms in San Francisco, a boutique ad agency that includes Coca-Cola and Ubisoft among its clients. Odysseus Arms was launched in 2011 by former Goodby ECD Franklin Tipton and Mother co-founder Libby Brockoff. Odysseus is presently working on a PSA for ZanaAfrica, a Kenyan NGO, which is a project brought to them by Knox. Also on Minerva’s roster is award-winning editorial company The Assembly Rooms (for which Knox also functions as U.S. executive producer). Owners/editors Nik Hindson and Sam Rice-Edwards headline a roster of 10 editors at The Assembly Rooms which has among its clients such directors as Frederic Planchon, Seb Edwards, Mario Testino and Pleix, and such brands such as Lexus, Adidas, Burberry, Guinness, Volkswagen, Range Rover, and Dove. Minerva is additionally handling SixDay Productions, a nonunion web content company featuring the talents of director/cameraman/editor/producer Thomas Henwood, and Amber Music, the original and licensed music and sound studio founded by Michelle Curran. With the exception of Amber, which Minerva will handle on the East Coast and in the Midwest, Knox and Seresin are representing their roster nationally to both agencies and brands, and they will share consulting assignments. Knox got her start as an ad agency copywriter. She later moved into commercial production as a bicoastal rep. Knox joined Curious Pictures as EP in 2005, launching the company’s live-action division, signing numerous directors, and presiding over animation work that won a 2010 Emmy for title design and multiple One Show Pencils. During this time she served two terms on the board of AICP’s Digital Chapter. Seresin was a producer at Smoke & Mirrors in London before moving to the agency side as a producer at CHI & Partners in 2005. While there she produced for such clients as Toyota, Lexus, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and the Sunday Times. She has been with Amber since 2010. Minerva is currently undertaking its first consulting assignment and bidding a variety of projects, working in office space in SoHo belonging to animation company Th1ng….
kaboom productions has secured Catherine De Angelis of indie rep firm Hot Betty to handle the Midwest. The kaboom directorial roster includes Brandon Dickerson, Doug Werby, Erik Moe, Gary Shaffer, Kent Harvey, Michele Atkins, Reynir, and Ricki+Annie….
Dattner Dispoto and Associates (DDA) has signed cinematographers Peter Wunstorf, ASC, and Thomas Scott Stanton for representation. Wunstorf’s credits include the Roger Spottiswoode-directed Midnight Son while Stanton lensed director Matt Sobel’s Take Me To The River, which was screened at this year’s Sundance Film Festival….
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