By TYLER HAMPTON
I was definitely underwhelmed as far as anyone doing something really big on the Super Bowl. A lot of stuff tried to be clever but overall, a lot of it was just borrowed interest to make a simple point. I didn’t feel that many of the ads had anything to do with the product. I was disappointed by a lot of the brands that I thought might do something cool.
BMW has a lot to live up to, but I felt they haven’t really lived up to the brand, especially with that X5 stuff [directed by Laurence Dunmore of bicoastal RSA USA for Fallon McElligott, Minneapolis]. I just wasn’t buying that. Quite a few things were mildly amusing; I really liked the EDS cat herder spot [directed by John O’Hagan of bicoastal hungry man for Fallon McElligott] until they just stumbled at the end; it was a funny thing to watch for fifty seconds, but the connection was pretty tenuous to EDS. They had to take two or three sentences to explain their analogy.
I was disappointed by Monster.com [directed by Andrew Douglas via bicoastal Satellite-he’s now with bicoastal 8Media-for Mullen in Wenham, Mass.]. I liked their spots from last year so much-they were right-on and strategically insightful. I felt the whole Robert Frost thing was just way too lofty; it’s not going to register with people.
The Nuveen spot [directed by Douglas for Fallon McElligott] was a fresh idea, but I just don’t know how I feel about it. It’s kind of creepy, kind of over-promising, but I did like the chance that they took doing it-which most spots didn’t do at all. It seems crazy to me not to take any chances if you’re spending this kind of money on a Super Bowl spot.
I thought the Bud work was very ordinary; the spot with the horse being born made me laugh, but not in the right way. The "Whassup" spot [directed by Charles Stone of New York-based C&C Films for DDB Chicago] was funny; I get the connection to the word "true," but … it seems Bud is coming out of left field with that one. I think it’s funny once, but everyone’s been saying that here, so I already hate that.
The E*Trade spots are generally always funny; the one with the guy diving out the window was the most relevant. (E*Trade’s Super Bowl ads were directed by Bryan Buckley of hungry man for Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francico.) The one with the monkey was a cool idea; the basketball one was funny, but it seemed like there was a point that they wanted you to understand-[the importance of] having a backup plan-so they built up a funny situation that has nothing to do with anything. I got it, but feel it’s less relevant to an individual investor.
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