Luissandro Del Gobbo has been appointed chief creative officer of Havas in Italy. He will be in charge of managing the creative department, which comprises over 80 talents based in the two head offices in Milan and Rome.
During his 20-year career, Del Gobbo has worked in Europe and America for some of the most renowned and iconic global brands. He most recently served as global executive creative director for Heineken at Publicis. Previously he was partner, group creative director at Ogilvy Chicago, with clients from the Unilever and SC Johnson portfolios.
He has won more than 100 awards at the world’s major advertising festivals, picking up 24 Cannes Lions (including a Grand Prix for Copywriting), a Grand Clio, a Yellow Pencil at the D&AD and five golds at the One Show.
“Luissandro is an extraordinary creative and a person of great culture and sound principles; over the years, he has successfully proved that he can lead complex organizations and manage international clients on a global scale,” said CEO Manfredi Calabro who leads Havas Milan.
Stéphane Xiberras, head of the Havas Global Creative Council and CCO and president of BETC, added: “Luissandro’s decision to join our Italian agency is extremely good news for the entire network; his talent and expertise will help our group reach new levels of creative excellence and strengthen Havas’ global positioning based on meaningfulness, in order to provide strong business solutions for our clients through the power of creativity.”
“I am thrilled to become part of Italy’s biggest agency and team up with Manfredi to lead it into the future with even more resolution. Stephane and the whole network’s belief in the central role of ideas and their immense transformative power played a crucial role in my decision; it’s definitely the right move at this point in my career,” said Del Gobbo.
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