Accomplice Media has signed comedy director Ben Whitehouse for exclusive representation in the United States. The British-born director launched his career in 2009 and since then has established a reputation in character-driven comedy through work for Subway, Amazon, Enterprise, KFC, Specsavers, Phones 4U and others.
Starting his career as a researcher and treatment writer, Whitehouse collaborated with many top commercial directors including Traktor, Jonathan Glazer, Tom Hooper and Ivan Zacharias. This work was international including many U.S. jobs for shops like Anonymous Content and Smuggler.
Whitehouse credits these early experiences working with top directors for his ability to transform concepts into successful ads. “I learnt from the best how to structure an argument, how to focus on the core idea and how important it is to be brave and wholeheartedly commit to an approach.”
His directing career began through Joy@RSA, a division of RSA films, before joining Agile in trendy East London which continues to represent him for U.K. projects. While versatile, Whitehouse has developed a signature cinematic style combining elements of visual humor, punchy comedy and character-driven narratives.
His latest multi-campaign work for the insurance company Royal London is a classic example. The British obsession with talking about the weather is brilliantly observed through unlikely mundane moments in history ranging from Medieval witch burnings to Napoleonic battlefields.
Whitehouse was attracted to Accomplice Media by its track record in helping European directors break into the U.S. market. “Jeff [Accomplice EP Snyder] and Mel [EP Gragido] have worked around the world and understand the market that I come from,” he says. “They know how to work with directors with a British or European sensibility and how to make that fit the American market.”
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