-Mother has appointed Brazilian-based creative director Gustavo Sousa, as partner. As a result, Sousa has relocated to
Mother New York where he continues as the CD leading the Stella Artois brand globally.

-WPP-owned, Kansas-City-based VML has teamed up with educational non-profit Minddrive to launch the “Social Fuel” tour (above).

-Barker/DZP has promoted Patrice Caracci to account supervisor.

-Newly formed marketing agency Avocados from Mexico, Inc. (AFM) has allocated $36 million to grow the category and appointed Arnold Worldwide as its integrated agency of record. Arnold WW beat two other N.Y. finalists, Grey and BBDO, for the integrated assignment.

-Regular The Office director Jeff Blitz is now available again for commercials via Anonymous Content.

-Charles Ramsey‘s heroics in Cleveland have earned him a free year of food from McDonald’s. link

-Rolls-Royce has launched a global creative pitch. link

-Leagas Delaney has hired creative duo and Saatchi/BMB alums David Fitzsimons and Peter Crothers.

Consider this your odds and sods image of the day. Louisville-based digital agency Oohology threw a party to honor its launch of a new sorbet for client, Comfy Cow. What this has to do with body art is another story, but as someone who is fairly inked, it’s not such a bad incentive to get free tattoos for attending the usual agency soiree. Not sure if they did sleeve art, but here’s the full array of images from Oohology’s throwdown. Maybe we’ll consider this for the next AgencySpy party. Louisville Biz-Journal has more blanks to fill in, peep it here.

We’ve received confirmation that JWT New York has brought in Bajibot alum Jeffrey Castellano, who specializes in artificial intelligence and works on facial recognition technology, as its creative technology director. No word if this is a newly created position or if Castellano is replacing anyone as of yet, but we’ll let you know. Anyhow, Castellano’s new role at JWT NY calls for him to oversee emerging technology projects as well as digital studio output from its Big Apple hub.

Along with his 15 months as director of  creative technology at Bajibot Media, Castellano has worked with a variety of brands during his career including Pepsi, Tommy Hilfiger, Armani, Chanel, Gap, Banana Republic, J.Crew, GE, Exxon, Budweiser, Coach, Louis Vuitton, State Farm, Foot Locker, Kraft and Victoria’s Secret.

Now that the dust has settled around the overplayed Windows smartphone wedding commercial directed by Roman Coppola, there’s a void in Windows-bashing-Apple negative campaign ad territory. Well, with some help from CP+B, the brand is back to tackle a new comparative subject: tablets.

There are actually two new spots, first covered over at Mashable, both taking not-so-subtle digs at iPad products. The spot above even goes as far as to use Siri against Apple – in short, iPads can’t do as much as Windows 8 tablets. But you can play chopsticks on an iPad for whatever that’s worth. And if you watch the commercial, it’s apparently not worth much. You have to respect the brash stance Windows is taking here. They are clearly playing catch-up in the publicity game, and going after Apple in such a direct fashion could be the right way to make up the distance. And the best part is, since both companies are so rich, suing each other over copyright infringement and/or libel won’t even make a difference. Ding, ding. Time for the next round to begin. You can watch the more informational attack ad after the jump.

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This week, Draftfcb is hiring an SVP director of mobile, as well as a user experience strategic planner. Meanwhile, Mullen needs a copywriter, and Cablevision is on the hunt for a lead copywriter. Get the scoop on these openings and more below, and find additional just-posted gigs on Mediabistro.

• SVP, Director of Mobile Draftfcb (Chicago, IL)
• User Experience Strategic Planner Draftfcb (Chicago, IL)
• Copywriter Mullen (Boston, MA)
• Lead Copywriter Cablevision (Bethpage, NY)
• Director of Social Media Moosylvania (St. Louis, MO)

Find more great advertising jobs on the AgencySpy job board. Looking to hire? Tap into our network of talented AgencySpy pros and post a risk-free job listing. For real-time openings and employment news, follow @MBJobPost.

When DraftFCB and Kmart released their spot “Ship My Pants” last month, it was lauded far and wide as shot of adrenaline for both the retail brand and the Chicago office of the agency. Sure, it was silly, considering the spot’s entire charm rested on the fact that “ship” can sound like “shit,” but it was still a funny and delightfully unexpected execution for brand not known for taking risks.

After “Ship My Pants” racked up a whopping 17 million+  YouTube views, it would be foolish to switch up a formula that’s proven itself on such a grand scale. So, we now have “Big Gas Savings,” a new spot which tries to recreate the lightning-in-a-bottle success of its predecessor. Now first off,  it lacks the unexpectedness of “Ship My Pants,” not to mention that “gas” and “ass” is a bit further of a reach than “ship” and “shit.” And, of course, “shit” is a far funnier word than “ass.” Also, advertising discounts on gas might not be the best way to get people into your store. In other words, no, this doesn’t live up to “Ship My Pants,” but really could it?

Kmart was left with two options here when it became clear that they had to stick to an execution they knew would bring in viewers. The first, which they went with, was to use a different swear word. The second, which may have worked better, was to continue going with “shit” and come up with new jokes. This isn’t to say that “Big Gas Savings,” isn’t better than 90 percent of ads out there. In fact, it’s still a very enjoyable watch. It’s impossible to hit it out of the park with every swing, and a single sure isn’t anything to be ashamed of. Credits after the jump.

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We’re sure some sort of bubbly is flowing in the offices of Cramer-Krasselt’s various offices as the agency follows up retaining the Porsche creative biz by nabbing ad duties for tequila brand, Patron. The spirits brand previously worked with Dallas-based The Richards Group on its ad work, but it’s now turned its focus to C-K’s New York office.

In a statement,  Patron VP of marketing Jennifer Pisciotta says, “As we look to build on the brand’s premium positioning within the tequila and ultra-premium white spirits categories, we must ignite the unique passion people have for Patrón. Our product is different than the rest of our category, right down to each individual bottle, and Cramer-Krasselt has demonstrated they are the ideal partner to help us show off this truly special product.” From what the parties involved say, Patron was inspired by C-K NY’s holiday work for the brand. We’re awaiting links on this one.

So, we’ll let the conversation roll in a regular series we dub, “Is it Racist,” which is essentially the brainchild of Gitamba Saila-Ngita, a multidisciplinary designer and innovation strategist, living, working, and playing between CT / NYC / SF. He is the founder and chief innovation strategist of DEFT COLLECTIVE, a creative innovation agency based in Hartford, Connecticut.

My name is Gitamba Saila-Ngita and I once helped an agency sell sugar water to children. I’ve also helped them sell new technologies, ideas, and other people’s culture. But what I’ve always found funniest is when I’ve been hired to make things more, “urban” and by “urban” they meant “black”. Race is a topic that in the United States at times feels like we’re trying to seriously look at it with a fine lens and other times completely turning a blind eye to avoid it because it might make for a lack of a better word a few folks, butt hurt.

Recently in the last few months I’ve found that for advertising folks and almost always on this blog we’re hashing over if something is, “racist or not”. Mainly under the pretense that a group of people were offended by the subject matter in the ad and have used the internet to voice their opinion. I reached out to Kiran because I wanted to hopefully start a casual dialogue about the matter from the perspective of ad folks who clearly make these communications for their respective clients.

First let’s define some things so we can look at this objectively.

Racism is defined by most dictionaries as “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities     and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular  race” and a racist as “a person who believes in racism, the doctrine that a certain human race is     superior to any or all others. For fun, let’s throw in offensive as “causing resentful displeasure; highly irritating, angering, or annoying”

With those thoughts in mind, I wanted  to find an ad each time I or anyone else writes for this series and put it through those quantifying factors with understanding that the third one is purely subjective to an individual or group.

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-Aaaand, here are your 2013 Effie Awards winners (.pdf). link

-JWT worldwide chairman/CEO Bob Jeffrey is set to host  the ‘Worldmakers’ digital talk show that’s debuting on the LinkedIn Influencer Platform. link

- DraftFCB and Rivet Networks alum Joe Popa has joined Chicago-based Plan B as its first-ever group creative director.

-In case you were wondering, the personal assistant for hire at Cannes is Eszter Kazinczy, a Miami Ad School student.

-Yes, beer does pair well with people and Denver-based Cultivator Advertising & Design emphasizes it in a new campaign for New Belgium Brewing (above).

-OgilvyOne alum David S. Coppock will join G2 USA, effective June 4, as executive director of said agency’s data & analytics practice.

-BBDO NY and LatinWorks have teamed up with Autism Speaks and the Ad Council for a new PSA campaign that addresses, yes, autism (above, second spot here).

-Jersey-based marketing agency Oxford Communications has been appointed by home-builder Mignatti Companies as its agency of record for the latter’s Waterside project in Bucks County, PA.

-And now, an infographic on the “massive mobile media ecosystem” courtesy of Business Insider. link

-Cinematographer/photographer Joseph Labisi has joined the roster of Cali-based talent management firm colleen.