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.

Four major ad agencies are currently putting pretty green bows on their world-saving ideas promoting the Alliance for Climate Protection—the organization founded by former vice president Al Gore. The agencies will be presenting proposals to Gore himself early this month, maybe even this week. I've got some ideas. I'm sure you do, too.

"The world probably doesn't need much more meek communication on the issues of climate change," said David Hessekiel, founder and president of the Cause Marketing Forum in last week's AdAge.

I agree. That's why I spent exactly 90 minutes of my precious Labor Day thinking up some, um, ideas. All are TV spots/Web videos.

First choice: Al Gore, dressed as a penguin, on a white seamless soundstage. The floor is covered with stacked blocks of visibly melting ice/pools of water. Gore performs a lip-synching strip-tease to "I Melt With You" by Modern English, slowly disrobing down to green briefs. He then turns around as the camera zooms into climateprotect.org in white letters on his underwear.

If Gore wants traffic, this would drive more visitors to his fancy website than the gravitas-y tripe that's probably going to end up airing—after 100 different eggheads all put in their two cents.

OK, here's a few less-thought-out ideas...

  • A group of bright, spunky pre-teens sitting around a campfire discussing global warming while toasting marshmallows made to look like mini-Earths.
  • To the chorus of the song "Sixteen Tons," factory workers shovel dead penguins, baby harp seals, ermine, etc. into furnace fires.
  • Backed by a full orchestra playing "Hail to the Chief," Gore, dressed in his best blue suit, white shirt and red tie, spends 60 seconds tongue-kissing a globe.
  • All of the above, copyranter©2007.
  • Can you do better? Probably! Give it a whirl, so that when the real, staid commercials start airing later this fall, we can look back here and see what might have been.
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    Beautiful Anti-Gun Ad Makes Ya Want To Shoot Stuff!