Crispin Porter+Bogusky, with shops in Miami, Boulder, Colo., Los Angeles, and Gothenburg, Sweden, has extended its global reach as Canadian agency and fellow MDC Partners network firm Zig has joined CP+B, creating CP+B Canada.
CP+B thus gains access to a creative talent pool in Toronto as well as a number of top-tier clients. Zig’s current client list includes Molson Canadian, IKEA, Best Buy Canada, Burt’s Bees, Pfizer, SCA and Unilever.
CP+B Canada will be run by newly appointed CEO and Zig alum, Shelley Brown. Andy Macaulay, CEO of Zig, moves to the role of chairman, CP+B Canada, where he will act in an advisory capacity. Creative chief Aaron Starkman assumes the executive creative director mantle. CP+B Canada will be run out of Zig’s Toronto office, and Zig’s Chicago office will wind down as it becomes geographically redundant with the current CP+B locations.
Chuck Porter, chairman of CP+B and chief strategist of MDC, said he’s been a long-time fan of Zig’s smarts and brand-building prowess. “Adding their creative firepower to what we now have in Boulder, Miami, Los Angeles and Sweden will be a great thing for our agency and our clients,” he said. Being in Toronto is an added benefit. This is the third largest advertising market in North America with a fantastic creative community.”
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