Bicoastal/international Moxie Pictures has signed director Graeme Joyce for exclusive global spot representation and the directorial duo Big Red Button (Johnny Burns and Pier van Tijn) for TV commercials and digital content worldwide.
Among Joyce’s previous roosts are HSI and Untitled. He began his directing career creating music videos for high profile bands and recording artists. His music video for The Stone Temple Pilots’ “Wicked Garden” received the prestigious Best Director Debut at the MVPA Awards. Some of his more recent commercial work is for Chase with McGarry Bowen, New York, and Zales through The Richards Group, Dallas. Joyce has helmed innovative work for clients such as Target, Mercedes and British Airways.
Meanwhile Burns and van Tijn have been working together for six years since meeting on a film set in Oxford. They have written and directed viral series, short films and music videos combining animation and live action; always with a cheeky sense of humor and irreverence.
Big Red Button made an auspicious ad campaign debut for FRANK featuring Pablo the Drug Mule Dog, which received a BTAA Award. In addition the directing team’s short film Perrington Stud was a finalist in the Getty Images/Short & Sweet competition.
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