We welcome the return of our monthly contributor Simon Mathews, currently chief strategy officer at West Coast shop, Extractable, who’ s also worked on the strategy side at the likes of Isobar and Molecular during his career. As per usual, we’re not really sure how to preface Mathews’ entry, so let’s just let him do the talking. Take it away, sir.

For the last few days, I’ve been buried deep in a stack of spreadsheets analyzing an annual website user satisfaction survey for one of our clients. The client is a large business-to-business technology firm, primarily targeting engineers, and hence the survey is rich in specific questions around product interests, content consumption and ability to achieve key tasks. This rich data is augmented by connecting reported behavior (the survey) to actual behavior via web analytics to build an all-round picture of their audiences.

When deep in data I have a tendency to sometimes become somewhat (very?) distracted. This week, a particular weakness of mine, geographic trivia, got me sidetracked.  Did you know that, for example, since the revolution / war in Libya there is now no sovereign country in the world with a national flag that is a single solid color with no other markings on it?  So, obviously I love challenges such as the “View from your window” completion on the Daily Dish, where you have to guess a location based just on a photo taken from a hotel window, or Geo Guessr, where the challenge is based off a random Google street view.

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-Mondelez has shifted its global Halls account from JWT to W+K London. link

-Staying across the pond for a moment, WPP/GroupM media agency Maxus has appointed PHD alum Jenny Smith as planning director for its London team.

-Mother New York’s interactive fundraising project, “Repair the Rockaways,” is now live. link

-72andSunny has created yet another epic clip for Activision, this time directed by Jon Favreau and promoting the new game, Destiny (above).

- San Francisco-based Anthony Lye and Paris-based Stephan Beringer have taken on expanded roles within Publicis Groupe’s Digital Technologies (which includes DigitasLBi and Razorfish), with the former assuming the post of global president of digital products and platforms and the latter, chief growth/strategy officer.

-comScore is reporting that over 13 billion online video ads were viewed in April, setting yet another all-time high. link

Grey New York wants to tell you that “It’s Never Not a Good Time for a Refreshing Mike’s.” Excuse the double negative (what about “It’s Always a Good Time…?), but to draw your attention away from the grammatical errors, they included some very, very random celebrity cameos from actor Martin Landau and rapper Coolio. The 30-second spots include some random rhyming that leads to a series of non-sequitors, hence the random celebrities. Random is the only way to describe this campaign.

Before watching these spots, I hadn’t thought of Landau and Coolio in years. Both are stored away firmly in the Club for G-List Celebrities Who Will Never Be Famous Again. In Landau’s defense, he’s 84 and had a memorable run of “Entourage” a few years back (not to mention his Oscar-winning turn as Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood). Coolio is Coolio. They both picked up paychecks in return for a loss of dignity. That’s advertising for you. Check out the Coolio spot and credits after the jump.

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-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.