94 years ago, liar H.K. McCann launched his NYC ad agency with the slogan "Truth Well Told." That was a big fat lie. Advertising copywriter Copyranter brings you instances of advertising lies and the lying liars who sell them.
Starting with the ANDY Awards this Thursday and ending with the Cannes International Advertising Festival in June, ad awards season is the most wonderful time of the year for the t-shirt-wearing "creative" half of the industry. All those all-nighters and lost weekends will have been worth it, if you can just get your hands on one of those statuettes.

Pathetic? OMG yes. Back in 1991 when the CLIO awards show ended in disarray,a young me watched middle-aged men in tuxes storm the stage and bump and fight each other to steal awards.

In this week's AdWeek piece previewing this year's festivities, ad Boy Wonder Andrew Keller of Crispin Porter + Bogusky pontificates about his criteria for award-winning work.

"[Work that's] pushing boundaries and challenging what the industry does...I like it when the product gets engaged and it's hard to tell the difference between the product and advertising."

Yeah, marketers also like it when their products get engaged/lost in the advertising. Millions well spent—to put shiny happy pieces of metal on Keller's shelves. Andrew's hoping his agency's cheap-trick spots for VW rake in the hardware. VW sales flat? Who gives a shit!

Who, exactly, judges these brands? Why, people just like me! I've judged ANDY, CLIO and One Show stuff. What are my qualifications? 1) I work in advertising. 2? I showed up when they asked. And I enjoyed killing every single ad and TV spot that was put in front on me. I never got invited back.

But let's not quibble over who killed what. Let the analingus begin!

Previously: Donny Deutsch's Makeover