-Droga5 is set to open up a London office in June. The leadership team will consist of 180 Amsterdam alum Kevin Dundas, who will serve as chief exec, ECD Nik Studzinki and head of account management, Olivia Legere. link

-New York-based mobile/tablet advertising company Medialets has hired Initiative/comScore alum Lynn Bolger to serve as SVP of agency relations.

-Apparently, one Jonah Berger knows how make your marketing campaigns go viral. link

-Social media startup Nestivity released an infographic listing 25 of the most engaged brands on Twitter. link

-Speaking of, with a little Stephen Colbert bump, Bill Clinton has now joined Twitter. link

-New York/Portland creative agency SET, which works with clients including Nike and NBC, has appointed Kirsten Ludwig as its first CCO.

-Hoffman Lewis and indie digital shop BKWLD teamed up to create “unexpected moments” in order to promote McDonald’s breakfast in St. Louis (above). View case study here.

Our monthly contributor and Huge client services director, Josh Seifert, returns post-SXSWi to pen this ditty to, as mentioned above, talk real-time marketing in the age of social media. Why bore you with the preamble, though, just read on.

As a marketing professional working in digital, brands like Oreo getting attention in social media is pretty exciting for the shift it represents. As a consumer, the notion that brands en masse should enter social media and begin tweeting, pinning and posting about everyday happenings is more like a dystopian nightmare. Individual brands that have committed themselves to exploring what’s possible in social media, tying it in with broader marketing programs and shifting their approach when necessary can be exciting and creative—the Old Spice YouTube response videos are a great example. Brands that perceive social media as free media with a low barrier to entry may actually be poisonous for everyone else.

A common theme that seems to reverberate from social media professionals advising brands is the need to “be human”  to be successful. Really, this is a polite way to say that every instinct towards managing brands in traditional communications will prove limited and transparent in social media. Basically, brand-controlling memos like this one from Wheat Thins that Stephen Colbert read on air are not human and won’t translate into social media success. What it doesn’t mean, as this short tumblr nicely illustrates, is to generate nonsense content that may be timely, but isn’t actually valuable.

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-DDB’s three-month internship program dubbed LaunchPad will begin expanding globally in January 2013, with 14 offices within the network set to participate including New York, San Francisco, Chicago Miami, Sao Paulo, Dubai, Finland, Berlin and Johannesburg.

-Hyper Marketing’s been all up in our radar this week as the marketing services firm follows up its Ashley Furniture and Frontier wins with some more news, mainly that it’s been acquired by Alliance Data’s Epsilon unit.

-The Barbarian Group and GE take us on a time-lapse trip aboard the Tropicana “Juice Train,” which traveled from Bradenton, FL to Jersey City, NJ (above).

-Volontaire and Visit Sweden, the parties behind the award-winning Twitter campaign, “Curators of Sweden,” are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Stephen Colbert. link

-Facebook is tinkering with a reply option for its Timeline comments. link

-Agency CEOs from Digitaria and Traffiq say 2013 planning is all about mobile integration. link

-PSFK takes a look into the Halo 4 launch. link

-In case you missed, here are last night’s One Show winners. link

-Jerry Stiller, aka Frank Costanza, continues his commercial career in a new spot for Mitsubishi Electric Cooling & Heating brought to you by Ames Scullin O’Haire (above).

-Seattle-based digital media firm Smashing Ideas hired Brian Marr as director of strategy.

-Rosetta celebrates Mothers Day by addressing the world water crisis for Water.org. link

-Car mag Hot Rod re-launched its entire brand across multiple media channels. link

-Bonin Bough, the PepsiCo alum and current Kraft Foods VP for global media and consumer engagement at Kraft Foods, reacts to being mocked by Stephen Colbert. link

-Landor Associates was tapped to develop a communication plan and design a sustainable waste receptacle for the Central Park Conservancy.

-Viral ad platform VirURL launched its public beta this week. link

-Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin has renounced his U.S. citizenship because, according to reports, he wants to avoid paying “hefty taxes” on his stake following the social network’s IPO. link

-We sincerely applaud Droga5 NY copywriter Graham Douglas. link

-And now, back to the flip side. What the hell did we just watch above?

-A federal court judge issues a permanent injunction that blocks the FDA’s graphic tobacco product advertising. link

-Our old pal Rich Siegel weighs in on Stephen Colbert‘s weighing in on Wheat Thins. link

-NYC-based design/VFX/animation studio Nice Shoes promoted colorist Lenny Mastrandrea to head of color. link

-Apple tops Fortune/CNNMoney.com’s “World’s Most Admired Companies List.” Take a guess first as to who’s second. link

-Look who’s celebrating “convergence.” link

-Holy Q4 2011 profit, WPP. link

-Have you seen the new, crowdsourced Harley-Davidson’s Facebook app work that included input from Victors & Spoils, Digitas, VSA Partners and Sapient? link

This is a statement from a tipster regarding one of Stephen Colbert‘s latest rants from his Comedy Central show: “The definitive word on planners, planning and how little they contribute.” Choice line? “You think you know Wheat Thins? F*ck you. F*ck you and the cracker you rode in on.” We’re not sure if this is the product placement Nabisco was hoping for by placement on The Colbert Report, but here’s his reaction to a memo from the Wheat Thins brand itself. Enjoy.

Credit Stephen Colbert for bringing the term “Super PAC”  to the public’s attention during this election season. If you aren’t a regular viewer of the Colbert Report, see the work paid for by the Super PAC known as Americans for a Better Tomorrow Tomorrow by watching this political ad for Herman Cain, a man who’s such a Washington outsider that “he’s not even running for president.”

Of course, in reality (aka not the South Carolina Primary), big name Super PACs like the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) are in the midst of gussying themselves up for this election. As the AFL-CIO’s main focus is on workers’ rights, its new “Work Connects Us All” campaign from SS+K seeks to reach out to those in a variety industries where AFL-CIO’s work may not be readily apparent. For the slick new site, SS+K partnered with production co. B-Reel to make the project come to life, who’s NYC Executive Producer Max Ahlborn speaks favorably of AFL-CIO’s mission.

He says in a statement, “In Sweden, where I am from, unions have traditionally played a very prominent role building the society from ground up and are currently facing a lot of the same issues as unions of the 2000’s do in the US. They all are in need of changing the public perception of them from being just against policy to being for an equal, just, modern and progressive society. By adding some positivity and forward-thinking, this website is a strong step forward.”

Visit WorkConnectsUsAll.org, compare it to AFL-CIO’s current site for a laugh, and view credits after the jump.

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-Arnold Worldwide launched a Tri-State area social/location-based campaign for McDonald’s. link

-Night Agency’s Night Incubator unit launched a “social sketchpad” called Doodle.ly. link

-Josh Libitzky was promoted to executive producer at bi-coastal prodco, Stardust.

-Banana Republic is set to unveil a Mad Men-inspired clothing line. link

-Stephen Colbert and crew make a Summer’s Eve ad for guys (above-maybe NSFW). link

-Firstborn promoted senior producer Kristin Keefe to EP.

-In an attempt to “narrow the gap between bands and brands,” Coca-Cola signed a worldwide deal with a startup called Music Dealers. link

-Will Facebook become the next MySpace? link

-Apple’s “App Store” suit against Amazon: Destined to fail? link

-Speaking of mega-brands, Google has rolled out behavioral targeting to all AdWords advertisers. link

-IPG Media Lab is now awarding neuromarketing efforts. link

-Will.i.Am says advertising agencies are so passe. link

-Stephen Colbert is now officially on Jack White‘s Third Man Records roster. link

-Political ad spending on U.S. broadcast TV is set to go through the roof in 2012. link

-The Winklevoss twins will not let their gripe with Facebook go. link

-Boutique digital operation Neo-Pangea has created a “Titanic” effort for Nat Geo. link

-Here’s a compilation of Stephen Colbert’s classic product placements. link

-Y&R Chicago addresses house fires in a web campaign for the Red Cross. link

-A Lean Pockets spot from Publicis New York introduces us to milk pong (above).

-Sir Martin Sorrell‘s pay package skyrocketed more than 70 percent last year. link

-Barry Stilwell will be inducted into the AICE Hall of Fame on May 17. link

-Andrew Bell, MPC LA head of production (advertising), is stepping into the role of MD at the VFX/post house.

-Digital media agency Mediasmith promoted John Cate to EVP/COO.

-Ron Jeremy now has his own brand of rum. Your move, Jenna. link

-Bi-coastal prodco Washington Square Films signed commercial director/photographer Christian Witkin to its roster.