By Kristin Wilcha
New Faces
Walt Connelly is joining JWT, New York, as an executive creative director. He comes to the shop from McCann-Erickson, San Francisco, where he oversaw creative for Microsoft….Gary Pascoe is joining BBDO Detroit, Troy, Mich., as a creative director, working with chief creative officer Gary Topolewski on the shop’s Chrysler assignments. Pascoe had been with TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles…. A trio of staffers at Saatchi & Saatchi, New York–Andrew Jeske, Steve Mitsch and Richard Wallace–have been promoted to senior VPs/creative directors….Dean Bastian is moving to the Detroit office of McCann Erickson where he will serve as director of creative development. He had been a group creative director at the New York office of the agency….John Livengood has been promoted to executive creative director at DDB Seattle. He had been executive creative director of the shop’s online and direct units. Livengood succeeds Fred Hammerquist, who is leaving the agency….Patrick O’Neill, a group creative director at TBWA/Chiat/Day, New York, who oversees Abolut, is leaving the agency at the end of April….
Account Movement
BBDO, headquartered in New York, has been awarded ad duties on the eBay account. Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco previously handled the online auction company….180 Amsterdam has been awarded a branding assignment from Motorola….McCann-Erickson, San Francisco, will handle advertising for Mike’s Hard Lemonade….Martin/Williams, Minneapolis, has won ad duties on the Payless ShoeSource account….AKQA, San Francisco, has won online ad duties for Coca-Cola Zero, a new product to be launched in June….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