Paddy Power seeks court order over banned London athletics ads - JCDecaux took down Paddy Powers posters after the organiser of the London Olympics told them to. "It’s a pity they didn’t put the same energy into the ticketing and security arrangements for the Games that they put into protecting their sponsorship revenue streams."

The subjects of the commercial were real people who were recruited on the street and led directly to a trailer for blindfolding. They were then taken to an apartment that a crew had spent hours stocking with foul-smelling objects treated with Febreze. (The couch prominently featured in the spot was found in a dump.) The responses of the subjects, as they examine their surroundings with their noses, were entirely spontaneous and unrehearsed, and recorded via hidden cameras from a remote site.

Gleie often employs real people in the ads he directs (notably in his acclaimed work for Pampers, Target and Hallmark), but the clever ruse incorporated into this spot gave it a novel twist.

Mantovani says he is eager to do more American ads and selected The Joneses after a year-long search for a U.S. home. “I wanted to find a company that was focused on a few directors and had a real interest in building my career,” he explains. “I liked Mel and the enthusiasm he has for my work. I was also impressed with the other directors on the staff and with the projects they have done. It’s a good fit.”

The retro-elegant Reformed Troglodyte short film, cut by jumP's Michael Saia, emerged from the award season with a Bronze CLIO and a Titanium and Integrated prize in Cannes. A reflective 4:00 piece that follows a former playboy discarding the mementoes of his hard-partying life as he prepares to propose to a woman, the film is one of three in the Art of Shaving campaign directed by The Institute's Ben Briand to celebrate the upscale shaving brand's 15th anniversary.

Fun Etsy product of the week, the "I'll use Arial when Helvetica freezes over" wallet - suitable for US green skinny bills & people who love puns.

“We need a fundamentally different way to create a brand: the way it talks, behaves and thinks and the way to leverage ALL touch points--especially those beyond the obvious “social” touch points like TV." Andrew Keller, CEO of agency CP+B sends out musings on the future of advertising.

In a bid to expand its digital color services for commercials, music videos, and long-form content, Pleasant Post has partnered with freelance colorist Tristan Kneschke. After collaborating exclusively with Kneschke for years on a multitude of projects - including recent campaigns for Royal Caribbean, Lenovo and GM - Pleasant Post is bringing him in on a more formal basis to offer its clients a cost-effective color correction solution to complement its full menu of postproduction services.

Santa Monica, Calif., June 26, 2012 - RPA, the independent West Coast advertising agency that continues to grow in size and billings, has elevated four talents in its creative department, promoting Tom Hamling to VP, Creative Director, Ken Pappanduros to Creative Director, and Hobart Birmingham and Perrin Anderson each to Associate Creative Director.

MPC LA is pleased to announce the addition of their second colorist, Ricky Gausis, to bolster a US color grading department headed by Creative Director Mark Gethin. Gausis, who has worked at MPC for 10 years, has developed an individual style influenced by Jean-Clément Soret in London.

DUCK is pleased to announce the addition of animator/director Ned Wenlock to its roster. Best known for a distinct, inventive and vibrant 2D animation style, Wenlock has worked across the advertising and music video worlds. His ad work, which has been featured at onedotzero, Annecy, Supertoon, and PromaxBDA, includes engaging spots for Honda and UBank. His music portfolio includes videos for CasioNova, MGMT, and Danger Beach's Apache, which was selected by IdN magazine for its best of 2011 roundup.

Following an extended run freelancing with the company, Erik Yang has joined HUSH's roster. The signing, which follows the recent additions of Head of Production Ryan McGrath and Designer Evan Anthony, adds a brand design specialist whose experience includes work with Syfy, ABC, MTV, Toyota, American Express, the New York Public Library and Art Directors Club.

Erik is out strong already working on a rapidly growing concept and installation project for Nike, environmental and digital design projects for two notable fashion brands, and concept development for digital experiences.

DUCK has sliced two birds with one stone, considerably escalating its presence in both the live-action and animation realms with the addition of versatile director Knife Party. The Sydney, Australia-based talent - also known as Simon Robson - will focus on ad campaigns, full-length feature films, and cause-based special projects.

jumP LA is delighted to announce the hiring of veteran editor Richard Cooperman. His recent work for L'Oreal, Lincoln and T-mobile, in collaboration with Jonas Akerlund and Emnet Mulugeta via top tier agencies, offers prime examples of the creative and technical spark he brings to jumP.

"We are so excited to continue building our LA office with a talent like Richard," noted jumP LA EP Betsy Beale. "He brings the exact combination of talent and experience that we were looking for to expand our roster."

Fluid is pleased to announce the addition of award-winning editor John Piccolo (JP) to its lineup. JP recently teamed up with @radical's Dave Meyers and BBDO on the ADDY Award-winning Exploded spot, as part of the visually extraordinary Never Stop Improving campaign for Lowe's. He has also recently collaborated with a few of the industry's top directors such Hungry Man's Hank Perlman, O Positive's Kenny Herzog and HSI's Ryan Ebner. His agency relationships include DDB NY, BBDO, Mullen, Fallon and Y+R to name a few.

On the heels of hiring Misha Louy as EP and Partner, Decon continues its steady ramp-up in the advertising space with the addition of Creative Director and Director Wyatt Neumann, who joins the studio from R/GA. Neumann brings a solid resume on both the production and agency sides of the business, with experience leading accounts for Verizon and shooting campaigns for clients like Nokia and Frontier Airlines (including Super Bowl spots). He has also contributed to countless campaigns for major brands, including work for HP, Nike, Ameriprise Financial, Microsoft, Adobe, Yahoo!, Virgin, Target and Starbucks.

On the left we have Tendril in Toronto, Canada, the director-driven workshop where designers and artists from diverse backgrounds craft visual experiences. They just joined the Blacklist family.

“We're delighted that Tendril had decided to join the Blacklist family,” says Andrew Linsk, Executive Producer, Blacklist. “They're an amazingly talented group of folks, and are quite perfect for capturing many of the high end design driven projects that we see on a regular basis. Also, because Tendril is based in Toronto, they are very accessible for agency collaboration in either New York or LA.”

Five hours ago I managed somehow to record Bob Knorp's the Beancast together with the excellent ad-critics Ken Wheaton ( @kenwheaton ), Managing Editor Ad Age, David Burn ( @davidburn ) Editor/Publisher of Adpulp and Bill Green ( @mtlb ), cofounder of Adverve Blog and Podcast.

Cliff notes: we hated the super bowl ads. So much that Bob had to delete all the "shit" we said. I'm sorry for being a pottymouth, Bob. My bad. I still reckon that Madonna won the super bowl.

I was on the Beancast last night, sans caffeine which apparently makes me extra sarcastic, in the episode called A picture with Guy. Yes, that was the Kodak moment. Had a grand old time with Natalie Zmuda, ( @nzmuda ) reporter at AdAge , Ian Sohn, Group Director at SVP ( @iansohn ) and Dave Haan, the Executive Director at the Creative Circus. We talked about Cause Marketing, crowd-sourced beer, The death of Kodak and Paula Deen's diabetes spin. All in all, a pretty chatty episode, tune in now via this link or subscribe via iTunes.

We've raised $1,287.15 for the $2,658.50 so far, but that's not even the best news here. The best news is that so many of you care enough to retweet and donate and post blog posts and tell your friends. I honestly wasn't expecting this much love, and I am humbled by it.

@Adfreak asked everyone to please help save us, @agencyspy put a link in their tuesday morning stir to longtime adgrunt Purplesimon's appeal post. I didn't ask @purplesime to do that, and I didn't ask @imperica to post this appeal post either. I'm grateful they both did. Turns out that Imperica have a good grasp of how much I do here (read: everything), and some readers revealed they had no idea. Thus came the tweets showing me building hardware (acme, apex and acme again) which was quite fun for a bit. At least for me. :)

Even the End days of advertising joined in making a special sarcastic toon just for adland. Sweet.

And to top it all off, my ex-ex hosting place Memset contacted me over twitter to see if they can help. They must have forgiven me for almost taking down their network a few superbowls ago.

And today, Amazon in Ireland phoned us up, they've not just extended the deadline, they're going to help figure out how to make a better setup that won't cost a fortune each month.

LOS ANGELES Director/cameraman Eric Saarinen, a winner of five Clios, a Cannes Grand Prix and numerous other awards for excellence in advertising, has joined Bully Pictures for exclusive national representation. Saarinen is widely considered one of the industry’s top directors of automotive advertising, with recent credits including Chevy, Fiat, BMW and Jeep. Many have credited him with having redefined the car genre through his use of unique visuals and engaging stories. His work, in fact, extends far beyond cars, touching virtually every product category and advertising genre, and also includes feature films and documentaries.

Continuing its long tradition of signing top feature directing talent, Crossroads has added filmmaker Dennis Dugan to its impressive roster. Long considered one of the industry's top comedy feature directors, with classics such as Happy Gilmore and Big Daddy to his name, Dugan now brings his talents to commercial film production for his work with Crossroads.

"Everyone at Crossroads is delighted to be working with Dennis," noted Crossroads owner/EP Cami Taylor. "He's extremely well-known and accomplished in the comedy features space, yet is perfect for commercials. We're looking forward to establishing such a talented director in our arena and to spending time with such a smart and funny guy."