Hasta La Creative!

French tennis star Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is preparing to play against a robot. Surprisingly, it's not Roger Federer, renowned for his robotically stiff commercial acting and machine-like winning ways (including those 17 Grand Slam singles titles). Today at 11 a.m. ET, at a practice session for the French Open, Tsonga will take on an actual automaton, which will try to hit shots past the world's eighth-ranked player based on tweets supplied by fans as part of a promotion for banking giant BNP Paribas (and agency We Are Social).

Fans visiting the Tweet & Shoot site can log in with Twitter and drag and drop tennis-ball icons to set up virtual shots, which are then encoded as hashtagged tweets which the on-court bionic Borg will decipher—and then spit out a real ball for Tsonga to hit. Users are also encouraged to include messages of encouragement to Jo-Wilfried, who has never won a Grand Slam event. Forty fans chosen by BNP's social communities are guaranteed to have their shots included at Tsonga's session with the robot. The rest will be picked at random from among the tweets. Folks with no lives whatsoever can check out Tweet & Shoot's streaming coverage of the event at the link above. Maybe the bot will blow a fuse, leap over the net and swat Tsonga like a fly.

This week, Draftfcb is hiring an SVP director of mobile, as well as a user experience strategic planner. Meanwhile, Mullen needs a copywriter, and Cablevision is on the hunt for a lead copywriter. Get the scoop on these openings and more below, and find additional just-posted gigs on Mediabistro.

• SVP, Director of Mobile Draftfcb (Chicago, IL)
• User Experience Strategic Planner Draftfcb (Chicago, IL)
• Copywriter Mullen (Boston, MA)
• Lead Copywriter Cablevision (Bethpage, NY)
• Director of Social Media Moosylvania (St. Louis, MO)

Find more great advertising jobs on the AgencySpy job board. Looking to hire? Tap into our network of talented AgencySpy pros and post a risk-free job listing. For real-time openings and employment news, follow @MBJobPost.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

(TrendHunter.com) It is hard to avoid being drawn to the glowing neon innovations that we see on the marketplace. There is something about the bright colors of lively glowing neon that seem to be simply irresistible….

Letty Edwards, the former lead UK marketer at Dulux, has been appointed marketing director at Fox’s Biscuits, as the manufacturer moves its commercial team from Slough to Birmingham.

When DraftFCB and Kmart released their spot “Ship My Pants” last month, it was lauded far and wide as shot of adrenaline for both the retail brand and the Chicago office of the agency. Sure, it was silly, considering the spot’s entire charm rested on the fact that “ship” can sound like “shit,” but it was still a funny and delightfully unexpected execution for brand not known for taking risks.

After “Ship My Pants” racked up a whopping 17 million+  YouTube views, it would be foolish to switch up a formula that’s proven itself on such a grand scale. So, we now have “Big Gas Savings,” a new spot which tries to recreate the lightning-in-a-bottle success of its predecessor. Now first off,  it lacks the unexpectedness of “Ship My Pants,” not to mention that “gas” and “ass” is a bit further of a reach than “ship” and “shit.” And, of course, “shit” is a far funnier word than “ass.” Also, advertising discounts on gas might not be the best way to get people into your store. In other words, no, this doesn’t live up to “Ship My Pants,” but really could it?

Kmart was left with two options here when it became clear that they had to stick to an execution they knew would bring in viewers. The first, which they went with, was to use a different swear word. The second, which may have worked better, was to continue going with “shit” and come up with new jokes. This isn’t to say that “Big Gas Savings,” isn’t better than 90 percent of ads out there. In fact, it’s still a very enjoyable watch. It’s impossible to hit it out of the park with every swing, and a single sure isn’t anything to be ashamed of. Credits after the jump.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

(TrendHunter.com) A tribute to the 20s and 40s, turban headpieces are the latest recharged fashion accessory for the summer season. Under the motto ‘the thicker the better’ these turbans will make a hip,…

We’re sure some sort of bubbly is flowing in the offices of Cramer-Krasselt’s various offices as the agency follows up retaining the Porsche creative biz by nabbing ad duties for tequila brand, Patron. The spirits brand previously worked with Dallas-based The Richards Group on its ad work, but it’s now turned its focus to C-K’s New York office.

In a statement,  Patron VP of marketing Jennifer Pisciotta says, “As we look to build on the brand’s premium positioning within the tequila and ultra-premium white spirits categories, we must ignite the unique passion people have for Patrón. Our product is different than the rest of our category, right down to each individual bottle, and Cramer-Krasselt has demonstrated they are the ideal partner to help us show off this truly special product.” From what the parties involved say, Patron was inspired by C-K NY’s holiday work for the brand. We’re awaiting links on this one.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Ford is using what it claims is Europe’s “Super Bowl” moment to kick off a new brand campaign to promote the range of technologies available with its vehicles.

So, we’ll let the conversation roll in a regular series we dub, “Is it Racist,” which is essentially the brainchild of Gitamba Saila-Ngita, a multidisciplinary designer and innovation strategist, living, working, and playing between CT / NYC / SF. He is the founder and chief innovation strategist of DEFT COLLECTIVE, a creative innovation agency based in Hartford, Connecticut.

My name is Gitamba Saila-Ngita and I once helped an agency sell sugar water to children. I’ve also helped them sell new technologies, ideas, and other people’s culture. But what I’ve always found funniest is when I’ve been hired to make things more, “urban” and by “urban” they meant “black”. Race is a topic that in the United States at times feels like we’re trying to seriously look at it with a fine lens and other times completely turning a blind eye to avoid it because it might make for a lack of a better word a few folks, butt hurt.

Recently in the last few months I’ve found that for advertising folks and almost always on this blog we’re hashing over if something is, “racist or not”. Mainly under the pretense that a group of people were offended by the subject matter in the ad and have used the internet to voice their opinion. I reached out to Kiran because I wanted to hopefully start a casual dialogue about the matter from the perspective of ad folks who clearly make these communications for their respective clients.

First let’s define some things so we can look at this objectively.

Racism is defined by most dictionaries as “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities     and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular  race” and a racist as “a person who believes in racism, the doctrine that a certain human race is     superior to any or all others. For fun, let’s throw in offensive as “causing resentful displeasure; highly irritating, angering, or annoying”

With those thoughts in mind, I wanted  to find an ad each time I or anyone else writes for this series and put it through those quantifying factors with understanding that the third one is purely subjective to an individual or group.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Sage by Heston Blumenthal, a new range of appliances from the celebrity chef, has appointed MBA to handle its UK advertising account.