By SANDRA GARCIA
Big Picture Communications, New York, has signed director Gene Cernilli. Most recently at New York-based The Sussan Group, Cernelli is best known for his youth market ad fare. His spots piqued the interest of Big Picture exec. producers Ava Seavey and Marc Campana.
A lot of the kids stuff out there seems outdated but I saw something in Genes work that was superior. It was high-impact and very contemporary, said Seavey.
Seavey and Cernilli met through mutual friend Betsy Rosenblum, a senior producer at Avrett, Free & Ginsberg, New York. At the time Cernilli was shopping around for a new production company and Rosenblum suggested that he work with Seavey on a project. When we met, it was love at first sight, mused Cernilli. What I like about Ava and Marc was that they are aggressive; they have a vision and are very much involved with my work.
Cernilli made a name for himself as a director and one of the creators of MTV Sports, which won him an Emmy Award. After seven years at MTV, Cernilli took his extreme sport sensibilities to the commercial side, first at Five Union Square, New York, and then The Sussan Group.
His work for Kelloggs, Mountain Dew, McDonalds and Swatch demonstrate his ability to tap into youth oriented energy and perspective. For instance, Calvin and Charity, two Kelloggs Frosted Flakes spots Cernilli directed with Five Union Square via Leo Burnett Co., Chicago, feature child icon Tony the Tiger water skiing and skateboarding with kids who are masters at these sports. Cernilli has worked on Frosted Flakes, including doing the voiceover, for seven years.
The final push for Seavey came with a PSA Cernilli directed for the Presidents Initiative on Race through Griffin Bacal, New York titled On Target. Cernilli separately interviewed and filmed people of different race, class and gender, including one woman with Downs syndrome, and then edited together the footage to create a montage of people giving their ideas on different racial issues. The Ad Council awarded the PSA a GD Crain Award last year. The ad really spoke to me because it paralleled the entire initiative of my company, said Seavey, who recently shifted the focus of Big Picture to concentrate on minority and female talent (SHOOT, 1/8, p. 8).
Cernilli joins directors Joe Chapura, Bill Mason and Wendy Hammond. Big Picture Communications is represented on the East Coast by exec. producers Seavey and Campana, on the West Coast by independent rep Terry Seward, and in the Midwest and Texas by indie rep Anita Holmes.
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