By SARAH WOODWARD
The husband and wife executive producing team of Stephen Banks and Cynthia Wright-Banks has dissolved its 15-year-old shop, L.A.-based Wright-Banks Films, in order to launch two new companies. While Banks new venture remains in development, exec. producer Wright-Banks now heads up L.A.-based Tag Team, which specializes in the kids spot market, specifically commercials both for and featuring children.
Wright-Banks said the new venture enables her to focus on the development of her directors individual careers. She further explained that Wright-Banks Films longstanding reputation had the potential to overshadow its talent base, which was why she opted to form a new company rather than continue under the Wright-Banks Films banner. We want our directors to be the stars, not [the company], she said. Launching Tag Team offered her the best of both worlds: experience combined with new strategic opportunities. We bring that production knowledge and the marketing knowledge, but were bringing it with a fresh approach, she said. We do a tremendous amount of research and targeting for our directors [and] specifically look at every market all over the country to focus on the specific people who work in the businesses that [our] directors are skilled at executing [spots for]. We pride ourselves on our ability to market and [making] the directors goals our primary concern.
Tag Team will represent four directors, three of whom join the shop directly from Wright-Banks Films: directors/cameramen Brian Thomson and Brian OConnell, and director Steve Jarvis. A fourth director and recent addition to the roster, Mark Rowen, comes to Tag Team from Stardust Productions, L.A.
Wright-Banks has represented Thomson for nine years. He originally became known for his cinematography work for the Canada: The World Next Door campaign. He has helmed multiple spots for Mattel and Tyco, including Teen Skipper out of Ogilvy & Mather, L.A. and Barbie Riding Club CD-ROM via Ogilvy & Mathers New York office (both are Mattel products), as well as Tycos Bedtime Bubba via DMB&B New York. Additional credits include Champion, McDonalds, Labatts Dry, Shell and Volkswagen Italy. Wright-Banks said Thomson is very inventive and has superb taste.
OConnell joined Wright-Banks Films in 94. Recent credits include Mattels California Roller Girl and Smoochie Pooch, both out of Ogilvy & Mather, L.A. Last year he received special recognition at the Golden Marble Awards for Matchmaker Magic Mulan, a spot for the doll inspired by the Disney animated feature, also out of Ogilvy & Mather, L.A. According to Wright-Banks, OConnell is capable of doing both girls and boys toys, and thats unusual in the market. Directors get pigeonholed, but Brians done a little bit of everything.
Meanwhile Jarvis has an extensive agency background. Formerly an art director at Ogilvy & Mather, L.A., he has also worked as a creative at DMB&B, St. Louis, where one of his clients was Budweiser. Hes worked on everything from beer to kid toys, said Wright-Banks, including Mattels 101 Dalmatians plush toys and Florida Barbie, and General Foods Honeycomb cereal, all out of Ogilvy & Mather, L.A. Hes done some slick, hip cereal work, Wright-Banks said. Hes a little more diverse and works with slightly older, teenage kids as well.
Rowens credits include a spec spot for Nike via Wieden & Kennedy, Portland, Ore., Shell Oil out of Ogilvy & Mather, Houston; Pizza Hut out of BBDO Toronto, in-house work for Coke Atlanta and several Disney Home Video spots. Prior to his two-year tenure at Stardust, he signed a two-year writing deal at FOX for both TV and features, but at the end of it opted to return to the production front. In the late 80s, he worked as a freelance producer and A.D. for directors David Fincher, David Kellogg and Michael Bay at bicoastal/international Propaganda Films. According to Wright-Banks, Rowen is an organic director who specializes in dialogue and working with young children. He draws out of children their very essence, she said, and very charming performances.
Wright-Banks said her continued interest in childrens advertising stems in part from her experience in the field. We have the production knowledge down, she said. We truly understand everything that can go wrong [with a child on a shoot], and it wont go wrong on our work. We find that a personal accomplishment, but in addition to that it gives us the ability to keep trying new things. Theres always new ways to treat a product; theres new ways to treat toys, and developing different ways to sell, market or show a product is the constant challenge.
Tag Team is currently bidding on two assignments out of New York, but Wright-Banks could not give specifics due to confidentiality clauses.
The shop is repped in the Midwest by Chicago-based Patti Hereau and on the East Coast by Ilene Silberman in New York.
Stephen Banks is expected to announce the formation of his company shortly. Wright-Banks said that her husbands shop is very much in the development stage. She added that Tag Team and Banks forthcoming venture plan to operate under separate banners because they cover different territory. Childrens advertising A is a pretty broad base, she said. But theres a lot of other stuff out there too, and [the two entities need] to be separate because of the way the advertising business is [specialized]. A press release stated that Banks would be hiring an executive producer and that his new enterprise will be designed as a marquee company which will crosspollinate itself into [the worlds of] entertainment, music and A new media.
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