National CineMedia (NCM) has named Rick Butler to the role of chief digital officer. Butler will lead the company’s digital products and data initiatives to deliver both innovative consumer experiences and new ways for brands to connect with movie audiences.
Prior to this, Butler had been working with the NCM Digital team as a consultant as president of Playa Vista Consulting, serving as the visionary behind NCM’s new Noovie.com movie search and discovery destination.
Butler has extensive experience in the digital entertainment space and is perhaps best known as the executive behind Fandango, building that $500 million e-commerce revenue channel both as chief operating officer, and later as EVO (NBCU) & general manager, Fandango following the company’s acquisition by Comcast.
Butler will be based in Los Angeles and will report to NCM CEO Andy England, who noted that, “Rick is an expert in B2B and B2C products and platforms and has a terrific track record of building award winning web and mobile applications. He’s the right man for the job of taking our Noovie digital ecosystem and data initiatives to the next level, creating exciting new content, commerce and gaming products like Noovie ARcade, and Fantasy Movie League designed to reach movie audiences.”
Butler also previously served as CEO of Outbox Enterprises, an AEG/Cirque du Soleil joint venture that provides web and mobile box office solutions as well as back office systems for some of the largest concert and sporting venues in the world.
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