Customer experience agency DEFINITION 6 (D6) has brought Laura Schneider on board as sr. VP, group account director. Schneider is a senior marketing and brand executive with more than 20 years of experience leading business strategies for agencies like Barkley, Leo Burnett, Moroch, and most notably, 15 years overseeing marketing at The Home Depot. Schneider began at The Home Depot in merchandise marketing, where she led retail event and product marketing. Over the next several years, she worked her way up as sr. manager of product and trend insights, to director of customer acquisition for home services, and finally, as the company’s director and lead brand strategist in its enterprise marketing division. Schneider discovered her passion for marketing and advertising at the University of Florida. She landed her first agency job at Texas-based Moroch, where she handled media planning and buying for 20th Century Fox, Midas, and McDonald’s. She soon graduated from media to accounts, overseeing local marketing and advertising for McDonald’s fast-food cooperatives throughout North and South Carolina. She next split her time between Chicago and Atlanta, working with Leo Burnett to help set up regional marketing recruitment for the U.S. Army. Schneider is based in Atlanta. D6 is based in Atlanta and NYC, with satellite offices in L.A. and San Francisco. D6 is behind experiences and campaigns for brands like Nextdoor, LL Flooring, Paramount+, HBO, CBS Sports, and Barnes & Noble College….
Disney Invests $1B In OpenAI; Deal Will Bring Characters Like Mickey Mouse To Sora AI Video Tool
Disney is investing $1 billion in OpenAI and will bring characters such as Mickey Mouse, Cinderella and Luke Skywalker to the AI company's Sora video generation tool, in a licensing deal that the two companies announced on Thursday. At the same time, Disney went after Google, demanding the tech company stop exploiting its copyrighted characters to train its AI systems. The OpenAI agreement makes the Walt Disney Co. the first major content licensing partner for Sora, which uses generative artificial intelligence to create short videos. Under the three-year licensing deal, fans will be able to use Sora to generate and share videos based on more than 200 Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars characters. AI video generators like Sora have wowed with their ability to quickly create realistic clips based merely on text prompts. But a flood of such videos on social media, including clips depicting celebrities and deceased public figures, has raised worries about "AI slop" crowding out human-created work alongside concerns about misinformation, deepfakes and copyright. Disney and OpenAI said they are committed to responsible use of AI that protects the safety of users and the rights of creators. "This agreement shows how AI companies and creative leaders can work together responsibly to promote innovation that benefits society, respect the importance of creativity, and help works reach vast new audiences," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said. Disney CEO Robert Iger said the deal will "extend the reach of our storytelling through generative AI, while respecting and protecting creators and their works." As part of the deal, some user-generated Sora videos will be made available on the Disney+ streaming service. Disney will also become a "major customer" of... Read More