The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced yesterday that Randall Rothenberg will become the new president/CEO, effective Jan. 8, 2007. Rothenberg replaces Greg Stuart, who resigned in August.
Rothenberg comes to the IAB from Booz Allen Hamilton, the strategy consulting firm, where he has been Senior Director of Intellectual Capital. Rothenberg was an editor-at-large for Advertising Age magazine and spent six years at The New York Times as a daily advertising columnist, media and marketing reporter, technology editor and politics editor of the Sunday magazine.
“I couldn’t imagine a more exciting time to be joining the IAB and the Interactive industry,” Rothenberg said. “Media consumption online continues to increase and it is inevitable that advertising dollars will follow. Interactive platforms such as video, search, mobile and others offer marketers unparalleled opportunities to create deeper and broader relationships with their customers. I’m incredibly enthusiastic about building on the IAB’s and our members’ success during the next stage of growth.”
Sheryl Draizen, the IAB’s senior vice president/general manager, said “Randy is ideal for the position because he’s been in the media business for a long time and he’s well positioned to build on the momentum we’ve created and take us to the next level.”
She said the issues he’ll be focusing on include measurement, creative and public policy. Broadband video will also be a key issue. “It’s one of our biggest priorities,” she said. “We’ve created measurement guidelines and we’ll start to investigate what are the best formats, lengths and messaging and how marketers can leverage the interactivity. We think the biggest difference between TV and broadband video is when you’re online you have the ability to engage the consumer in a much deeper and broader way. It’s an opportunity that has never existed before and it’s the next phenomenon online that’s as big as search. We intend to take a leadership position in helping marketers and publishers best leverage it and it will be one of Randy’s biggest challenges.”
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