By Robert Goldrich
Under the awards season radar is one competition that richly deserves a much higher profile. Last month, the Ad Council bestowed its Gold, Silver and Bronze Bells at its 60th annual Public Service Award Dinner in New York. The Bells are in recognition of pro bono efforts created and crafted to benefit society at large.
Earning the Gold Bell For Creative Excellence, the evening’s highest honor, was the Ad Council and the American Institute of CPA’s Financial Literacy campaign created pro bono by New York ad agency kbs+. Silver and Bronze bells were awarded to Deutsch, Inc., and Y&R for their work on the Emergency Preparedness and Supporting Minority Education campaigns, respectively.
The Gold, Silver and Bronze Bell recipients were selected from all of the PSA campaigns created by the Ad Council’s volunteer agencies that launched this past year. The Bell winners were picked by the Ad Council’s Campaign Review Committee which consists of top creative and planning talent from the nation’s leading ad agencies.
The winning Financial Literacy public service spots by kbs+ demonstrate the significance of starting to save money earlier in life and the impact that saving can have on future plans and success. The PSAs direct audiences to www.feedthepig.org, where they can find helpful tips and information on planning finances and setting saving goals.
Deutsch, Inc. received the Silver Bell for their work on the Ready Kids campaign, in collaboration with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The creative work speaks primarily to parents, encouraging them to have the difficult conversation with their children about emergency preparedness in a way that is smart, playful and ultimately motivates families to action and make a plan.
And the Bronze Bell was awarded to Y&R for their work on the Supporting Minority Education campaign. The new campaign features the tagline “A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste But a Wonderful Thing to Invest In” and tells the stories of real students who have benefited from the United Negro College Fund, presenting their future education as an investment in society as a whole.
Y&R has been the pro bono advertising agency on the campaign for more than 40 years.
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