Perhaps absence really does make the heart grow fonder. After two-and-a-half years away from McCann, the place where she spent 16 years of her career and last served as CCO of the New York office, Joyce King Thomas has returned to the agency to take on a new role as president of McCann XBC (or “ExtraBoldCondensed”–sorta like a hair care product). The new, peculiarly titled unit will focus on McCann’s MasterCard biz and thus King Thomas should feel right at home considering she co-created the “Priceless” campaign for the brand some 15 years ago while at the agency.

McCann XBC (thank heavens there’s no “Team” moniker) will work in tandem with all other IPG agencies currently serving MasterCard in 112 markets including  R/GA, Octagon, UM and MRM. Along with King Thomas, the new division’s leadership includes Richard O’Leary, currently global account director for MasterCard, who will serve as managing director, and Devika Bulchandani, who will assume the title of global strategy director.

Newly installed McCann Worldgroup CEO/chairman Harris Diamond says of the returning King Thomas, who will take on her new role in January, “I am excited that Joyce will be leading McCann XBC. Her ideas, creativity and strategic understanding of the MasterCard brand are unparalleled.”

In between her two stints at McCann, King Thomas served as a creative consultant, traveled to India, worked on efforts including the Passion Project and most recently worked as a partner at long-form journo site, Longreads.

Following a review process that was conducted by Pile and Company, Ignite Restaurant Group has tapped McCann Erickson New York to serve as agency of record for its restaurant chain, Joe’s Crab Shack, while also appointing McCann sister agency UM to handle media buying and planning duties. McCann takes over for Dallas-based agency agency Slingshot, which handled creative as well as media planning. Ignite previously worked with Southwest Media Group on the buying portion for Joe’s.

Regarding Ignite’s decision, the company’s CMO Robin Ahearn says in a statement, “We believe the new partnership with McCann and UM will allow us to build upon our brand recognition by highlighting our unique menu items at Joe’s Crab Shack. We want to use this next phase of advertising and marketing to drive frequency with our current guests and introduce Joe’s Crab Shack to new guests across the country.” We had no idea, but there are reportedly 130 Joe’s locations in 31 states, go figure.

Sources familiar add that McCann beat out the likes of Arnold and Euro–sorry, Havas–for the Joe’s Crab Shack biz. McCann and Ignite will begin working together immediately with the first campaign expected to launch in spring 2013.

Update: The Arnold camp is telling us that it did NOT, I repeat, did NOT, partake in the review. Hmm.

From McCann London comes this insanely sappy spot for British home improvement retailer, B&Q.

I don’t know about you guys, but I only made Christmas decorations for my parents when my school forced me to. So, I’m always a little put off my these spots that show generous children working hard to give their parents something. I mean, really, what child do you know who actually thinks that whole “it’s better to give than receive” adage isn’t full of shit? I get that advertising is generally pretty deceptive, but this is just crossing a line.

Also, are they trying to suggest that, if the little girl shopped at B&Q, her little angel thing wouldn’t suck and fall apart? Or, is that narrative of this entirely unrelated to the idea that you can do your Christmas decorating at B&Q, and we’re just supposed to get that warm and fuzzy feeling inside? Advertisers: Show me a child behaving like a child, and I’ll be a little more inclined to buy your product. The whole overly unselfish kid thing has already been done to perfection, and we don’t need to see it again. Credits after the jump.

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Well, Noreen at Adweek‘s trigger-finger was admittedly faster than ours at day’s end as she is indeed reporting what tipsters have been telling us since around 5-ish, that McCann Worldgroup CEO Nick Brien is no longer with the agency. As Adweek, George Parker and others have been buzzing about, Brien’s job status (along with Draftfcb boss Laurence Boschetto‘s) has been in doubt as of late, and recent comments made by Michael Roth, chairman/CEO of parent company IPG, didn’t really soothe matters. Brien had held his title as Worldgroup chairman/chief exec since April 2010 after serving as CEO of IPG’s Mediabrands.

Replacing Brien as McCann Worldgroup’s CEO is Harris Diamond, who most recently served as chairman/CEO of IPG’s Constituency Management Group. Says Roth in a statement, “Harris understands the business needs of global CEOs, across a range of industries. He has a proven track record of effectively managing a portfolio of agencies and growing the top line. He has created a strong culture of collaboration, which is increasingly key in a marketing landscape that requires integration of services. And he brings a deep knowledge of McCann in light of the alignment between Worldgroup and a number of the agencies within CMG, such as Weber Shandwick and FutureBrand.”

Along with Diamond’s appointment, IPG has given Luca Lindner and Gustavo Martinez, McCann Worldgroup president, Americas and Worldgroup president, Europe, respectively, more responsibilities with the former adding Middle East and Africa responsibilities (something he’s familiar with)and the latter, Asia-Pacific.

Speaking of McCann Detroit, we received a couple of tips that Matt Canzano, who has spent the last nine years at said agency and currently serves as chief creative officer, has been been tapped to run Commonwealth, the Chevrolet-focused agency that unites Goodby and McCann and lives on despite the shitcanning of mastermind/former GM CMO, Joel Ewanick.

Anyhow, we’ve received some clarification from the McCann camp on Canzano’s status. Yes, he will be aligning himself with Commonwealth (no new or added title, though), but will not be running day to day at the agency. Instead, Canzano will be “lending his expertise” and serving as a “hands-on presence and resource” to help serve Commonwealth’s “massive” global activity on behalf of Chevy. We’ve been told, though, that Canzano will stay on as McCann Detroit CCO and be available to clients including Pure Michigan and Aldi. But to help a brother out, McCann will be bringing on someone in the near future who will be charged with day to day oversight of the Detroit creative department.

Canzano initially joined McCann as EVP/executive creative director in May 2003 after spending three years as a group creative director at JWT Chicago.

In McCann Erickson Barcelona’s latest ad for Pokerstars, Rafael Nadal pretends to be a Mallorca golf club receptionist, wearing adorable orange glasses and flashing his white teeth every three seconds. It’s a bluffing lesson, one part of his Pokerstars “training course.” Hidden cameras film unsuspecting golfers as they approach the counter for a fresh set of spikes or some clubs. Stuttering and giggling ensues.

An old Brit is the best character: he slyly asks Nadal, “So are you having a rest?” (Nadal’s currently struggling with an injured knee.) I also appreciate the woman who asked to see Nadal’s biceps. For those of you who have yet to experience heart palpitations at the sight of Rafa, I direct you to Shakira’s video for “Gypsy,” in which he is topless and sweaty.

He’s hot, but the ad only works because he’s got something resembling a sense of humor. The last customer interaction: “Do you play tennis?” “Sometimes.”

Well, there is no epic warfare or movie tie-ins (thankfully) with this latest Sony Xperia ad from McCann NY, which eschews the bombast in favor of some visual trickery. Why? Well, the agency and brand are now getting down to brass tacks and letting us know what the hell the Xperia tablet actually does. The live-action effort, which was directed this time around by Augustus Punch, shows that, yes, you can indulge your social media addiction, watch movies and engage in game play on this certain device (though doctors recommend, not all at one time). We can safely say it’s not as epic as Sony and McCann’s last tryout, but it is certainly more inviting. Credits for the campaign dubbed “Frames” along with its print assets after the jump.

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As they say (wait, who says?), if you’re gonna go out, go out in style. With the London Olympics now in the books, so obviously are McCann’s marketing duties for the Games (they’ll still be working on the Paralympics, though).  If you didn’t know, the Worldgroup won the responsibilities of official marketing services agency for the 2012 London Olympics and Paralympics back in May 2009. As a result, the agency network, led by McCann London, was tasked with all advertising (tv, press, radio, outdoor, online and mobile), direct marketing and digital marketing and also helped shape the overall look and feel of the Games in conjunction with LOCOG.

Anyhow, McCann put out this ad today, which proudly proclaims that the agency “just lost a client.” If we had to sum this up in a word, maybe we’ll go with, um, “cute.” Check out larger image after the jump.

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This memo from McCann North America president Hank Summy to staff dropped in the inbox a little while ago. Among other things, the exec, who joined from SapientNitro last fall appears to be saying that it’s all good when it comes to retail clients including Staples and Kohl’s (the latter of which has begun scouring the agency landscape for a new shop to handle strategy work). Without further ado, we bring you Summy’s memo , which provides a sunny outlook and a quick update on what’s happening at his agency.

“Given that one of the categories hardest hit by the economy is retail, it’s not surprising that leading retailers – including Kohl’s and Staples – are looking for ideas and initiatives from a number of sources. But I am delighted to report that these retailers continue to turn to McCann NY.  A few very recent examples….

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Blink and you might have missed it, but IPG vet Scott Tegethoff has left vacated his executive vice-president/managing partner role at Universal McCann to join Omnicom’s OMD as, wait for it, executive director/global accounts, managing partner transformation. Tegethoff initially joined UM as executive on its L’Oreal business back in 2004, eventually working as CMO on its global Coca-Cola and ExxonMobil business. During his career, Tegethoff has worked on the planning/comms side at the likes of Leo Burnett, Starcom MediaVest Group and Saatchi & Saatchi.