Dark humor that plays outlandishly comical rather than mean-spirited marks “Factory,” a :30 for Starburst candy directed by Matt Aselton of bicoastal Epoch Films for TBWA/Chiat/Day, New York.
We open on a curly haired factory worker asking a colleague for a Starburst. The coworker tosses the candy over, but it falls into a vat. The curly haired guy reaches deep into the vat to retrieve the pack of Starbursts. However, it turns out the vat is filled with acid, which eats away his entire arm.
“Whoa” is his deadpan verbal response. Undaunted, he then places his remaining arm in the vat, only to lose that limb as well.
Witnessing all this, the coworker then rolls up his sleeve as he prepares to immerse his arm. A tagline simply reads, “Starburst. Blame the juicy goodness.”
This bizarre tale of trial and error–with no one learning from the error–was devised by an agency creative ensemble consisting of executive creative director Gerry Graf, group creative directors Ian Reichenthal and Scott Vitrone, copywriter Ashley Davis, art director Craig Allen, and senior producer Lora Schulson.
Jerry Solomon executive produced for Epoch, with Anita Wetterstedt serving as line producer. The DP was Jo Willems.
Editor was Gavin Cutler of MacKenzie Cutler, New York. Colorist was Tim Masick of Company 3, New York. Audio post mixer was Philip Loeb of Sound Lounge, New York.
Visual effects house was Ring of Fire, West Hollywood. John Myers exec produced for Ring of Fire, with Jerry Spivack serving as creative director and Greg Anderson as visual effects supervisor/head of CGI.
Principal actors were Juan Carlos Camberos and Brian Schlesinger.
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