Executive Creative Director
Butler Shine Stern & Partners (BSSP)
How did your agency adjust/adapt to the marketplace in 2021 (new strategies, resources, technology, health/safety expertise) and what is the most relevant business and/or creative lesson you learned in 2021 and how will you apply it to 2022?
As a group, it was vital for us to emphasize the importance of mental health in 2021. We prioritized collaboration, mindfulness, and self-care for the agency. We wanted to make sure the runways were open for creativity to flourish. That’s why we have implemented many measures from no meeting Fridays to creating “Zoom Watercoolers” that cultivate random digital cross-department encounters to expanding our health & wellness offering as a company. We will continue making mental health a point of emphasis in 2022.
How are the events of 2021–from the pandemic to the call for diversity, equity and inclusion–impacting the content you create and/or the way you work?
It amplified our existing commitments as a company and opened our eyes to what we can do better and more.
Alongside our client partner Blue Shield of California, we created the campaign “Hear Me” featuring Venus Williams spotlighting gender discrimination in healthcare. In the US, 1 in 2 women’s health concerns go unheard. Their pain ignored, concerns disregarded and symptoms dismissed. This leads to years of no-diagnosis, misdiagnosis, or an unexpected diagnosis that could have been avoided altogether. We wanted to shed light on this issue and raise awareness of this problem in healthcare which affects half the population.
What are your goals or New Year’s resolution, creatively speaking or from a business standpoint, for your agency or department in 2022?
In 2022, our goal is with each project to do something new. We will explore new concepts, executions, mediums. No matter how big or small they can be.
Gazing into your crystal ball, what do you envision for the advertising and/or entertainment industry–creatively speaking or from a business standpoint–in 2022?
In 2022, creativity will manifest itself in ways that we haven’t envisioned before. With the emergence of new technologies and trends shifting at such a rapid pace. I think we will see storytelling in places that we have not fully grasped yet, like Metaverse and VR. Given the prominence of ad-free streaming services, I predict long-form storytelling in branded entertainment to be front and center as well. Finally, we have yet see the peak of brand collaborations, especially brands that sit on different spectrums–such as the latest Witcher x Old Spice partnership.
Tell us about one current commercial or branded entertainment project you are working on for early 2022.
We have an exciting music-driven project in the pipeline with our friends at ESPN, which will be released in Q1. We can’t wait.
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