It all started yesterday when a simple, yet vague tip came in saying, “Tyler Whisnand to Apple,” and the road has been long and winding since. If you don’t know the name, Whisnand spent the last six years at W+K Portland, serving as creative director on Levi’s and Nike, helping lead efforts on the “Go Forth” campaign for the former brand and spots like Tiger vs. Rory for Nike Golf from the beginning of the year. Well, we checked with W+K, which told us that Whisnand, much to our surprise, actually left the agency earlier this year to assume a creative director position at TBWA\Media Arts Lab on, what else, Apple–though you wouldn’t know it judging from the bio on his site.

Anyhow, we’ve checked in with both Apple PR and \MAL on Whisnand’s status and are awaiting some clarification. During his time at W+K, meanwhile, the senior creative also served as co-director alongside Hal Curtis of W+K’s in-house ad school/”League of Shadows,” W+K12. The W+K camp tells us, “we [were] very sad to see him go—he was definitely beloved here.” During his career, Whisnand also held creative roles at the likes of KesselsKramer, Ground Zero and Y&R NY. Hopefully we’ll get some updates on this shortly and try to sort this out. Stay tuned.

I was just a kid when Charley Steiner yelled “Follow me! Follow me to freedom!” at the end of the “Y2K” This is Sportscenter ad. ESPN was a much simpler network then, before screaming heads led by Messers Bayless and A. Smith really damaged the reputation of everyone’s go-to sports network. Back then, the anchors of Sportscenter, like Steiner, were the stars, and the audience got to see anchor personalities shine through during these 30-second spots. Sometimes the spots featured professional athletes; sometimes they didn’t. But the spots were almost always funny and ripe with self-deprecation.

More than a decade later, Steiner is gone from the network. ESPN has chosen to count down the 50 greatest “This is Sportscenter” commercials from the past 18 years on August 1, with irrelevant host/SNL member Jason Sudeikis. As always, W+K New York ran point on this project with “the worldwide leader in sports.” I’m not sure why the network has chosen to unroll the countdown now, but we’re told that there will be bonus footage and interviews with the actors, athletes, and producers who helped shape the commercials. So for one last day, we can all follow Charley Steiner to freedom.

You can watch a few of the top spots after the jump, including a great bit featuring the entire Manning family from a few years ago.

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Suffice it to say that it’s been a busy day on the account front. We first started hearing about this last Friday and though the Wieden + Kennedy camp confirmed that its Portland HQ was still in the pitch for tax preparation/filing service TurboTax, the agency referred any other inquiries to the brand’s parent company, Intuit. Well, we didn’t hear back from the latter but it’s now hit the wire that W+K has indeed been named AOR for TurboTax following a three-month review. Beginning August 1, W+K will take over on creative and media planning duties for TT, which were previously handled by L.A.-based agency, Dailey. According to earlier reports, W+K beat out the likes of CP+B, goodness Mfg. and Campbell Ewald for the TurboTax business.

In a statement, TurboTax VP of marketing Greg Johnson says, “From our first meeting, the chemistry between our two teams was clear. The Wieden+Kennedy team understands that TurboTax is central to the financial lives of millions of Americans. They share our belief that TurboTax exists to empower people to do their taxes and get their biggest refund. With their long history of developing great work that transforms brands, we are thrilled about the prospects for this partnership.”

Now, one can only wonder if W+K continues with the tax prep ad war between TurboTax and H&R Block in their upcoming efforts.

In a cute take on motion controlled games, Stride Gum invites you to enter the world of Gumulon, where you’re represented by a “rebellious miner” named Ace. Ace, a strange green helmet-wearing thing, can only control the “intergalactic action” and ultimately vanquish the prehistoric cave beast if you concentrate on chewing while staring at your iPhone. When your jaw finally collapses after the strain of coercing Ace around the mine, the monster will eat Ace/you after seasoning you and taking a photo for posterity.

Watching the gameplay video makes this activity look like the dweebiest way to spend your day. I hope I never see someone sweating as they chew emphatically on the subway. This game should be played at home, if at all. Thankfully, Gumulon also comes in a touch version, should your mandibles tire of mining.

I will, however, give Stride’s effort points for novelty and its do-good nature. If we collectively achieve better breath through gamification, I can’t complain.

We’ve received confirmation that Carl Jannerfeldt, who has spent nearly the last three years at BBDO serving as a digital creative/copywriter on, perhaps most notably, AT&T’s now-ubiquitous “It’s Not Complicated” campaign, has joined Wieden+Kennedy New York as a senior creative. Sources familiar with the matter add that Stockholm native Jannerfeldt officially assumed his post yesterday and will work across a variety of accounts at the agency, which counts clients including ESPN, Heineken, Delta and Jordan Brand.

Jannerfeldt’s most recent AT&T work, run out of both BBDO New York and Atlanta, featured some NBA legends, though the videos appear to have now been taken private. Ah well, we always our charming efforts featuring the roundtable moderator and the kids, which the new W+K staffer was involved with (one example below).

During his career, Jannerfeldt has also worked as a copywriter for a couple of years the now-defunct, Stockholm-based Farfar.

Update: Got some clarification from the man himself. Jannerfeldt tells us that he was mainly involved in the AT&T “Brackets by Six-Year-Olds” digital campaign that launched during March Madness, the concept of which inspired the spots above, hence why his name was included in the credits. Thanks for the clarification, sir.

In case you were wondering, the domain name www.superimportanttest.com is no longer available, thanks to W+K and Oreo, who bring us, yes, a “Super Important Test,” which as we imagine was the intention is hardly a test. You have two options (cookie or cream) and you’re correct either way. Get it?

“Super Important Test” marks not only the conclusion of W+K’s Oreo’s “Cookie vs. Creme” campaign that began with the buzzed-about “Whisper Fight” spot from the Super Bowl and the subsequent “Separator Machine” clips, but the relationship between W+K and the Mondelez brand itself. As you may know, Draftfcb and now the Martin Agency work primarily on the Oreo account.

Anyhow, W+K curated quite a bit of content for the website–more than 30 different videos may play after you click cookie or creme–but this type of limited platform really begs the question: What’s the point? How does this sort of advertising advance the OREO brand in any meaningful way? I’m asking a serious question, not just trying to be glib, so if there is an answer, please post a comment.

Virality for the sake of virality is turning into a common approach for most creatives, and a website full of 30 unrelated internet videos that may or may not be funny seems like a great way to waste an advertising budget. Oreo was never going to choose cookie over cream or vice versa, but it didn’t have to choose. This is a case of a clever idea that simply ran out of ingredients.

Stills and credits after the jump.

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And thus, W+K Portland and P&G bid farewell to Old Spice’s “Wolfdog,” who in the past week has garnered over 4 million views via videos such as this and this and who’s even produced a Tumblr as well as  a record. But alas, all good things must come to an end, and Wolfdog is now out as Old Spice’s director of marketing and you can see his resignation clip above. Some people, though, have told us that this campaign is fairly similar to the one from Atmosphere Proximity to promote “The Big Ad Gig.” What do you think? Check out one more clip from the week-long campaign if interested as well as credits after the jump.

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Kevin Durant used to be nice, but not anymore. At some point this season, the second-best player in the NBA stopped being the silent choirboy fans respected, and Nike and Wieden+Kennedy anticipated the change for their recent “KD Is Not Nice” campaign. Call it truth in advertising, because for whatever reason, Durant has really started to embrace the roll of edgy superstar.

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As Emma Carmichael at Deadspin told us yesterday, the internet is doing it all wrong when it comes to the “Harlem Shake,” which actually originated over 30 years ago but has now been transmogrified (and pretty much diluted) into an unstoppable meme. The Deadspin scolding, though, hasn’t stopped the agency world (and world at large) from producing their own interpretations of the “shake,” and the latest to follow suit is Rokkan, which purposely waited until Valentine’s Day to release their entry. See above.

Of course, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the submissions from Wieden+Kennedy, which hit the internet with Shake showings from both its Portland and New York offices. The one from Portland HQ (below) was actually posted less than a week ago but has already racked up nearly three-million views. If you haven’t totally tuned out yet, tune in after the jump to the W+K NY edition, which seems like a rather fitting entry to the Harlem hullabaloo. As mentioned, we will now do our best to cease coverage of this meme moving forward. Amen.

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W+K vet Jordi Martinez has headed to Richmond, VA to assume a creative director position at the Martin Agency. Martinez, who just started in his new role this week, will be “ applying his knowledge of the digital space” to various accounts and helping out with new business efforts at Martin, which of course currently boasts a client roster that includes Geico, Pizza Hut, Mentos, the JFK Presidential Library, etc..

During his five-plus years at W+K, Martinez worked out of both the agency’s Portland HQ and the Amsterdam office. While he was at the latter serving as creative technology director, Martinez spearheaded W+K’s Dam Armada unit, which was launched in 2011 and focused on digital solutions, programming and product development. Along with Dam Armada, Martinez worked on the Honda Insight “Let it Shine” Vimeo takeover from 2009 as well as the digital component of Nike’s multi-award-winning “Write the Future” campaign. Martinez’s new boss at Martin, CCO Joe Alexander, says of his new hire, “Jordi’s the complete package—a great talent and an even better dude. He immediately gives us deeper depth across multiple disciplines, especially creative tech.”