Executive Creative Director
Hanson Dodge
What’s the most relevant business and/or creative lesson you learned in 2023 and how will you apply it to 2024?
Make a strong recommendation. If you can’t, you haven’t cracked it yet. I’ll use the development of strong recommendation muscles in 2024 to bullet proof our work both internally and with clients, and to inspire us to create unexpected solutions that are force multipliers of the strategic objective and the media spend.
While gazing into the crystal ball is a tricky proposition, we nonetheless ask you for any forecast you have relative to content creation and/or the creative and/or business climate for 2024?
I think you are going to start to see creative people who have both the classic art direction and/or writing skills and are also prolific content creators.
Gender pay disparity, sexual misconduct and the need for diversity & inclusion are issues that have started to be dealt with meaningfully. While the industry has made strides to address these issues, there’s still a long way to go. What policies do you have in place or plan to implement or step up in order to make progress on any or all of these fronts?
We have a steadfast commitment and annual goals to build and maintain an agency that reflects the world around us.
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