Bicoastal music company Heavy Duty Projects has added Maura Gaudio as director of business development and Sebastian Ade as associate producer, both based out of New York. The two new positions at the music-for-picture studio were announced by Josh Kessler, founding partner of Heavy Duty Projects, and Kate Urcioli, its New York-based EP and partner.
Gaudio’s newly-created role underscores Heavy Duty’s ongoing expansion; she’ll lead business development, strategy and partnerships.
As associate producer, Ade will be joining the HP’s heavy-hitting team of producers as they broaden their work with blue-chip-brands and agencies while fueling the careers of producers and songwriters.
Prior to joining the Heavy Duty Projects team, Gaudio served as founder and managing partner at Happening Entertainment, an experiential and marketing studio based in New York. While leading Happening Entertainment’s growth, she brokered partnerships and produced on behalf of festivals, artists and brands, including Bumble, CAVA, Participant Media, Focus Features, Hypebeast, Calvin Klein for Something Special Studios, Time’s Up, Moncler, All Things Go Festival and many more.
Before that she worked on partnerships for Cara Lewis Group and at MAC Presents, and also spent time on the agency side at IPG Mediabrands. Her previous work includes Uber’s Grammy “Road to Best Nominee” commercial featuring Khalid, Hollister’s Back-To-School anti-bullying campaign featuring Noah Cyrus & Khalid, and Foo Fighters Cal Jam music festival, as well as pitching artists such as Travis Scott, Eminem and Chance the Rapper. Gaudio’s previous clients and artists include Unilever, USTA/US Open, Sony, Uber, Metallica, Childish Gambino, Phoenix and many more.
Ade comes from varied production experiences in advertising and entertainment, including stints at Saatchi & Saatchi, The Webby Awards and Ogilvy. At Ogilvy he helped usher in the careers of songwriters and producers through facilitating syncs for Ikea and Xfinity, as well as the 2020 IBM x Grammy’s spot.
A Brooklyn native who’s always been inspired by connecting people through music, Ade has consistently championed brilliant creative voices that are often overlooked. A musical artist himself, he spends free time performing and collaborating with local artists. Last year, one of his tracks was featured in TIME Magazine’s “Top 5 Songs to Listen To” list, amongst superstar company Solange Knowles, The Jonas Brothers and Zara Larsson.
Heavy Duty is capping a busy summer with some high profile projects. Tapping an ominous remix of “Get Free” by Major Lazer, it scored the trailer for the much-anticipated new HBO series The Vow, which recounts the scandals surrounding the cult NXIVM.
And in a truly excellent endeavor, Heavy Duty composed the six-minute, head-banging epic at the heart of Bill & Ted Face the Music, in which the time-traveling stoners return as middle-aged dads, tasked with cranking out a hit song to save the universe.
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 โ 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