Ric Anello, executive VP/executive creative director of D’Arcy Masius Benton Bowles’ North American unit, announced he is retiring from the advertising business on Oct. 1. His ad career spans 28 years, the last 11 with St. Louis-based D’Arcy….Directors Harry Karidis and Malcolm McNeill are joining Santa Monica-based Tropix Films, a satellite of Atlas Pictures, Santa Monica….Director Jeff Roland has signed with bicoastal Reactor Films….Director Art Haynie has joined Circle Productions, Vancouver, B.C., and Toronto….Noted feature filmmaker John Frankenheimer (i.e.—Ronin, The Manchurian Candidate, The Birdman of Alcatraz) has made another foray into the spot arena, helming an International 7-Up commercial for Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco. The job was done via Aegis, a bicoastal shop launched earlier this year by bicoastal Johnson/Burnett (SHOOT, 1/18, p. 7). The James Bond-themed action/adventure ad was shot on location in Toronto, and facilitated by Johnson/Burnett’s recently opened Toronto production services office (SHOOT, 6/2, p. 8)….Los Angeles-headquartered Milk & Honey Films has opened a studio facility in Prague to serve the international feature film and commercial production industries as well as to host its own productions. The company has acquired two large stages and is closing a deal on a third to create Milk & Honey Studios Letnany. Milk & Honey Films maintains offices in six countries, including the Czech Republic. Milk and Honey maintains two divisions: Milk & Honey Production Services—with offices in Prague, Montreal, Mexico City, Moscow, Rome (via an alliance with Panorama Films) and London—facilitates and orchestrates feature, TV, commercial and music video shoots; and Milk & Honey Pictures produces creative content for the feature, TV and home video markets…. Composer Dave Metzger has joined Chicago-based music/sound design house Catfish Music; Metzger was most recently on staff at Chicago and San Francisco-based Plug’d Music & Sound Design, a sister shop to H-Gun Labs…..Devlin VideoService, New York, has been renamed Devlin Video International. Former manager Cari Davis had been upped to executive VP of operations, and sales manager Mick O’Connor has been promoted to VP of sales….
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