In a world where sentient Facebook ads control the darkest corners of the Internet and your life could depend on a re-tweet from someone with a high Klout score comes Inside , the first online film where social media matters (which is also not to be confused with the chilling French horror film of the same name).

Starring young starlet Emmy Rossum (who you may remember from Mystic River, The Phantom of the Opera and her stunning turn as Bulma in Dragonball: Evolution), Intel and Periera & O’Dell are looking to build on the giant amount of buzz received for the “Museum of Me” Facebook app, partnering with Disturbia director D.J. Caruso and Toshiba. According to the announce, the film’s premise is this: “Actress Emmy Rossum plays the starring role of Christina, a woman trapped in a room with only an Intel processor-powered Toshiba laptop and an untraceable Internet connection. Unable to determine where she is being held or what her fate might be, Christina uses the laptop to mobilize her social network, reaching out to friends, family and anyone else who can help her figure out where she’s being held and how to escape.”

Debuting online on July 25, viewers will communicate to Rossum’s character, giving tips, hints and clues that will help lead her to safety. Also, the film’s website is has a open casting call where one lucky viewer will actually appear in a credited role in the film, which will be released in its entirety in August. Will this be an online hit, or will it go largely ignored (except by the ad press)? Credits and Caruso’s casting call after the jump.

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Meet Aricio Fortes, Pereira & O’Dell’s “newest Brazilian” as the agency puts it. Fortes is joining up with the San Francisco shop as an ACD and is the first international employee to move to the US from Grupo ABC de Comunicação, which owns a majority stake in P&O’D. The new hire arrives from DM9/DDB Brazil, where he spent the last six years and was part of the team that won Agency of the Year honors at Cannes in 2009 (the same year said agency caused plenty of controversy). Prior to that, Fortes had stints at Y&R and Publicis Brazil and worked on a project basis for agencies including W+K London.

Sources familiar with the matter confirm that Pereira & O’Dell executive creative director Paul Stechschulte is out at the SF-based shop after only a few months.

Stechschulte joined P&O’D just before Thanksgiving from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, where he was a GCD and worked on Emmy-nominated campaigns for Sprint/Nextel among others. The creative also had stints at CP+B, 180 Amsterdam and W+K Amsterdam during his career. From what our spies are telling us, Pereira & O’Dell wasn’t the right environment for Stechschulte (meaning: it’s a smaller agency) and his behavior was becoming an issue there, which probably explains his rather brief stay.

With 2011 underway, San Francisco shop Pereira & O’Dell is setting a somewhat happy mood to begin the new year with this latest short film, “The Brick Thief,” which was created for Lego and promotes the brand’s idea hive called Click.  The title alone explains the short, which is a follow-up to the original introductory film and again features our mischievous, mustachioed protagonist indulging himself with Legos in his lab. At the very least, this whimsical, imaginative clip would make for a nice buffer within Adult Swim programming.

via Unnecessary Umlaut

San Francisco-based shop and fans of boating/Alaska, Pereira & O’Dell are now making a play in Sao Paulo (like everyone else apparently) with the launch of podSport in 2011. The unit will serve as a marketing consultant to brands seeking to invest in the plethora of opportunities in South America.  Brazil currently holds the title as the eighth largest economy in the world and growing fast.

Brazil will play host to the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, which obviously puts them in the spotlight and is now making ad agencies see green. Grupo ABC, Brazil’s largest advertising holding company and parent organization to podSport, will serve as the in-country partner in the initiative.

Wieden & Kennedy opened in Sao Paulo a few days ago, Arnold has picked a Brazilian shop to buy and Dentsu is browsing around. 2014 is right around the corner and anyone looking to venture south for work better get on it now before you wake up tomorrow and it’s 2020.

The man behind Sprint’s award-winning 2009 “Now Network” campain, Paul Stechschulte, is headed to Pereira O’Dell as ECD. Stechschulte was most recently at Goodby Silverstein and Partners, where he worked as Group Creative Director and nominated for an Emmy for a Nextel television spot.

Stechschulte’s career has included stints at W+K Amsterdam, 180 Amsterdam and Crispin, Porter and Bogusky. His past work includes a campaign re-introducing the MINI for BMW to the United States and helping prevent teen smoking with the “Truth” campaign for American Legacy Foundations.

Pereira O’Dell CCO and co-founder PJ Pereira says of Stechschulte,”He’s worked at both small and big agencies, ran small and huge accounts, created both serious and oddball work, with both high end or low budget resources… and in all these different situations, he manages to make great work happen.”

Now that they’re done with their Alaska experiment, San Fran-based shop Pereira & O’Dell is back to ramping up staff as they’ve announced that Jonathan Woytek is joining as interactive creative director. In the process, Woytek will be teaming up with Shu Lai, across all digital creative with a focus on “people-centric innovation”, whatever that means. His portfolio includes work from Microsoft, Intel, HP, Tom’s Shoes, and Boys and Girls Clubs of America. PJ Pereira, namesake and CCO of Pereira & O’Dell, has an interesting description of Woytek, saying in his statement, “Jonathan is a utilitopian. He envisions an idealistic world where design solves the problem for a client and a successful platform is driven by the customer.”

Here’s the thing, in all my years of working on the creative side, I have yet to have a positive experience when someone from a UX background makes the jump to CD. Most of the time, the new guy puts way too much focus on the logistical back end stuff vs. the big idea. From Woytek’s LinkedIn profile though, he seems to have many fans, so we hope for his sake that he really is legit when it comes to good work. It also helps that under his list of “professional goals” he cites “make great work” as his only goal. Whatevs, congratulations to P & O (ya like that acronym?) on scoring this UX veteran.