Greenpoint Pictures has added Lauren Sick to its directorial roster for commercial representation in the U.S. Having come up in the industry as an actor and producer, she currently focuses on writing and directing a wide range of content including short films, music videos, and commercials. Working with artists such as Vampire Weekend, Chromeo, and Foster the People, she has garnered several Vimeo Staff Picks as well as tens of millions of views. Her 2015 fashion film for the Kering Group shot in New York, London, Milan, and Paris, premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Sick’s distinctive approach has grabbed the attention of clients including New Balance, Beats by Dre, Garmin, FADER, and SoulCycle.
Coupling raw emotion with a visual style rooted in her background of theatre, punk rock, and dance, Sick brings a youthful and darkly adventurous tone to her filmmaking. “Finding a reel with her level of inventiveness is rare,” assessed Niles Roth, Greenpoint creative director.
Sick related, “I have been a freelance director by choice for many years. But the moment Greenpoint Pictures entered my orbit (and the moment Niles Roth showed up to our first meeting wearing a bedazzled, black light, wolf t-shirt), all bets were off. Joining this team, I immediately felt the support, transparency, and big-picture vision that makes Greenpoint so unique.”
Greenpoint Pictures–which is home to both directors and editors–has turned out work that’s earned assorted accolades, including Webby distinction, an AICP Show honor, a Gold Clio Sports Award and a Cannes Gold Lion.
Google Witness At Antitrust Trial Says Government Underestimates Competition For Online Advertising
Federal regulators who say Google holds an illegal monopoly over the technology that matches online advertisers to publishers are vastly underestimating the competition the tech giant faces, an expert hired by Google testified Thursday.
Mark Israel, an economist who prepared an expert report on Google's behalf, said the government's claims that Google holds a monopoly over advertising technology are improperly focused on a narrow market the government defines as "open web display advertising," essentially the rectangular ads that appear on the top and along the right hand side of a web page when a consumer browses the web on a desktop computer.
But the government's case fails to account for a variety of competition that occurs beyond those rectangular boxes, Israel said. In the real world, advertisers have dramatically shifted where they spend money to social media companies like Facebook and TikTok, and online retailers like Amazon.
When you account for all online display advertising, not just the narrow segment defined by the government's case, Google gets just 10% of the U.S. market share as of 2022, he said. That's down from roughly 15% a decade ago.
In addition, advertisers have moved away from placing their ads on the screens of desktop and laptop computers where Google is alleged to control the market, with money migrating to ads placed on apps and mobile device screens. Israel cited marketing data showing display ad spending on desktop and laptop devices has decreased from 71% in 2013 to 17% in 2022.
The government's case "seems to miss where the competition is today," Israel said.
His testimony comes as Google wraps up its defense in the third week of an antitrust trial that began earlier this month in Alexandria,... Read More