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.

Pfizer, the pharmaceuticals megacorp, is jumping on the latest Web bandwagon with a "partnership" with Sermo, a social network for doctors. Lovely. From what we recall of our last physical, doctors are really into poking, but I'm not sure they want to be "friends" with drug sales reps. What Sermo isn't saying: This shows that their earlier business model of selling market research based on doctors' conversations isn't working out that well. Dr. Daniel Palestrant, Sermo's founder and CEO, came up with that business model in order to avoid having to take advertising. "In my mind, I saw advertising and credibility as mutually exclusive to doctors," he said. Still true, despite the arrival of Pfizer's ad budget. A suggestion, Daniel: Limit Pfizer's use of Sermo to invitations to those popular free dinners its sales reps like to throw.

Want to read a review of a gadget you first heard about three months ago? Why, then, turn to the back of just about any print magazine. There you'll find the obligatory page or two covering gear. The ostensible reason? So-called "reader service," of course, the notion that electronics are part of the full spectrum of readers' interests, and editors would be remiss in not filling that need. The real reason, of course, is that ad salespeople need to show pages covering gizmos in order to attract tech advertisers. But the painfully slow publication cycle of monthly magazines is crashing into the ever-faster world of gadgets — with embarrassing results, as seen in the October issue of Entrepreneur.

Magazine and newspaper advertising folks just don't know what they're missing! While they may have invented the advertorial ad, wherein, say, Washington Post articles get reprinted in ad space, print folks have none of the boundless freedom of online ad folks, who aren't restrained by the physical facts of editorial vs. ad space. Online ad sales is now the most creative editorial job going! Some folks call the online campaigns that get integrated into the full space of the web page a "complete takeover." That's quite an evocative phrase! This morning, this very website is in the hands of the ad department; completely taken over. We need your advice about what to do. Should the editorial department take a stand?

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.

After wooing San Francisco at its hub airport, Virgin America has enlisted seven Internet heroes to pitch the new airline. Seen here are Xeni Jardin, Cory Doctorow, David Pescovitz, and Mark Frauenfelder of Boing Boing; Peter Rojas of Engadget; and Alex Albrecht and Kevin Rose of Diggnation. You can see them in these Virgin cartoon spots, which are like C-minus episodes of Sealab 2021.

Why is Apple's advertising so successful? Because, one could argue, it doesn't let its engineers design its advertising. Apple is running new iPhone ads which apparently puzzle nerdly sorts like TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington. The ads feature "regular people" talking about how their lives have been improved by the iPhone. Of the three ads, the phone itself makes just one two-second appearance, when a businessman touts its "visual voicemail" feature. The rest of the time, it's just some guy telling a story about how the iPhone makes his life better. Arrington doesn't like the ads, asking "where's the phone?" Michael, don't quit your day job. These ads are brilliant. After the jump, an analysis of why — and a clip so you can judge for yourself.

TiVo, you see, has tapped Pay Per Post, the controversial startup that pays bloggers to shill for advertisers' products, to help boost a YouTube contest accompanying the campaign, The contest purportedly called on TiVo users to post video testimonials to TiVo. The problem is that their testimonials are fake, generated by TiVo's cash, not customers' passion. The move was revealed when Sarah Hendrix opted to disclose she was being paid through Pay Per Post for her video. TiVo, we thought, already had a substantial community of fanatically loyal users. One would think the contest's prize, a free TiVo HD and lifetime subscription, would be motivation enough. No matter what you think of Pay Per Post as an advertising platform, the fact that TiVo is employing them to gin up fake interest speaks loudly to the fall of the TiVo brand.

How hard can it really be to sell a luxury condominium these days? We would have gone with "If you lived here, you'd be face to face with some whore's snatch by now." [Copyranter]

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.

As much as we'd liked to believe the 800-GOOG-411 billboards are Google's bid to take over another part of the advertising world, its sudden advertising blast is more benign. Google simply wants drivers to dial GOOG-411. Since it can't beam the message straight into your brain, and the Web, Google's home turf, isn't the best way to spread word of a toll-free number, Google is plastering the countryside. That's a lot of cash being pumped out for marketing a free service. Google, no doubt, is trying to drum up a user base before rolling out some sort of advertising scheme. Perhaps it'll be based on ThePudding's spooky audio version of AdSense, targeting callers based on their spoken words. (Photo by Nick Starr)

"A provocative advertising poster by Oliviero Toscani, the Italian photographer, depicting an emaciated anorexic woman posing naked has caused shock in Italy and around the world. The campaign, which coincides with the start of Milan Fashion Week, is intended to alert not only the fashion industry but also young women to the dangers of anorexia. The woman on the poster is Isabelle Caro, a French model who, at 27, weighs only 31kg (4st 12lb)." The dangers of anorexia apparently include being shot by a famous Italian photographer for an ad campaign that will be seen worldwide. [Times (U.K.)]

Soooooo, not to belabor the point, but, since we can't stop staring at it, what was the thinking behind the Page Six Magazine again? The market isn't exactly screaming for another comic-book weight celebeauty title, especially one as confused about its target audience as its ads indicate. (Are we upmarket? Jaguar! Coach! Maybe we're downmarket? H&M! Marshall's!)

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.

MacLife has put together a list of the 10 worst Apple commercials of all time — but with the exception of the infamous Ellen Feis, who became an Internet celebrity with her bleary-eyed exhortation to switch to a Mac, none of the ads seem to date from the current Steve Jobs era. Could this really be the case? Are all of Apple's recent ads uniformly brilliant? Take, for example, the first-ever ad for the iPod, which features actor Jeff Goldblum a Jeff Goldblum look-alike, um, moonwalking. The clip, after the jump. Any other nominations? Leave a comment.

From the mailbag: "Could you run some kind of item (or even just this email) that could serve as a clearinghouse for all the things commenters have to say about those retarded ads that have been running in the stalker section?" Yes! Yes we could. Oops we're so fired!

The New York Times Book Review is expanding its bestseller lists as of next week; now there'll be 110 bestsellers all told. Paperback listings will be broken out into mass market and trade paperback categories. The expansion comes at the cost of an editorial page. Why the change? "'It's completely ad driven,' says a top executive at one of the major houses. 'People want to buy a position next to the lists.' Publishers are also more likely to buy ads—whether in the weekday books pages of the Times or in the Book Review—when their titles are New York Times best sellers." [New York Business]

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.

Steph Jespersen, the "director of advertising acceptability" for the New York Times, is being forced to answer questions from readers during the worst possible week—while some small crazy percentage of BlogAmerica™ is still exercised about how MoveOn got a 'cheap rate' for their ad about Iraq. So the poor guy has to respond to idiots writing questions like "Is the NYTimes anti-labor? Or is advertising just another kind of editorial?" and, super-nuttily, "Let's say I would like to purchase a full page ad in your newspaper and beat the #@*& out of Hillary Clinton. All proper and no foul language. Would you allow that?" These he handles with dignity and patience (the ad rate MoveOn got is a standby rate, and the conspiracy the conservative cranks were digging for was not, like, real). But then he stumbles and falls on a question from an actual non-crazy.

It's another superfun 9/11-themed ad! We bet Modern Love 'artist' David Chelsea is fuming right now! [Copyranter]