How does Boston Market offer such cheap meals to its sad customers, aside from through atrociously poor food quality? By skimping on TV commercials! Agency Spy caught the fast food chain overdubbing the advertisement at left, in which one guy's voice says "five new meal-size deals for $4.99" but his lips betray the original boom-time price of $5.99. Because, hey, who wants to pay for another take?? Whatever, just keep the stuff cheap. Subprime mortgage holders, ex Bear Stearns traders and eventually everyone will thank Boston Market for its frugality when the still-unfolding economic depression turns us into hobos.

Nothing makes us prouder to be Americans than knowing, at least, that we are free. Free specifically to post insane allegations against any media or political figure accusing them of conspiratorial scurrility on YouTube, where it will be viewed by millions of our fellow crazies and followed up by response videos even less grounded in any sort of observable reality. So you can imagine how thrilled we are that this post-modern citizen campaign work can now be showed on real tv right next to T. Boon Pickens windfarm fantasia and Obama clubbing with Paris Hilton or whatever. It's all thanks to Saysme.tv, a new service that allows your average man-on-the-street the chance to have his 25-second commercial aired in various local cable markets for a tiny, tiny fee. Listen to Saysme.tv's chief executive on how this is all about freedom:

Seth MacFarlane's plan to take over the internet is even grander than we thought. In June we told you about the Family Guy creator's new project, Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, which will be an internet show syndicated through Google AdSense. Each episode will only be two minutes plus an ad, and he gets a cut of ad revenue, so he looked to be positioned to make a boatload of cash. But one single boatload obviously wasn't enough for the intermittently cool MacFarlane; he's going to do all the freaking ads himself: Burger King is the chief advertiser, and-in a cartoon marketing move the likes of which have not been seen since Homer Simpson started eating Butterfingers-MacFarlane will be creating the ads, like so:

The glow from Olympic victory is notoriously short-lived. Prudent, then, that champion swimmer Michael Phelps is moving quickly to convert his Olympic buzz into sweet endorsement cash. Over the next week, Phelps will promote his existing sponsors. Then he's off to London and, several days later, New York, reports the Wall Street Journal. The athlete is estimated worth upwards of $40 million to Nike alone, assuming he switches to their swimwear from Speedo, and his agent estimates he can take in $100 million over the course of his lifetime. That aggressive number still values each of Phelps' 14 gold medals (eight this Olympiad alone) well below the going rate for top celebrity babies. And reaching the payday has been infinitely harder for Phelps, not to mention more tricky. Look at all the sometimes wacky and ill-considered endorsement possibilities he'll have to carefully navigate, lest he tarnish his brand:

Usually you think of cultural standards becoming more relaxed over time. Like, we tolerate media allusions to kinky sex better today than we would 30 years ago. But was there really ever a time when pedophilia was an acceptable advertising technique? Apparently yes, in 1970's cosmetics!:

You think you're clever with your Tivo, skipping over all the ads so you can greedily drink in the networks' hard work for free? You selfish, selfish person. Now that you freeloaders have succeeded in avoiding ads coming into your home, the marketing industry has pledged to bomb you with commercial messages every time you set foot outside your home. "We're digital, we're interactive, we're speaking the language of that 21-to-34-year-old," says one ad exec. That's why the real world at large is now just one more ad-supported medium! And, just how 21-to-34-year-olds like it, they're "right in your face." The term: "Place-based media." The meaning: Ads RIGHT IN YOUR FACE, everywhere-security kiosks, bus stops, the Duane Reade checkout line, jukeboxes in bars. Learn to love it. You gave them your permission for all this, after all:

Lots of fashion advertising is "artistic," in the sense of being executed by a highly-paid photographer who, at some point in their lives, produced actual art, and is able to form an advertisement into a reasonable simulacrum thereof. But at least if, say, Vincent Gallo is pimping Belvedere, you get some sense of parity between the "artist" and the product. Not so in the new Wrangler (say with Southern accent) campaign shot by naked hipster photographer Ryan McGinley, which is plagued by the fundamental disconnect of trying to sell workaday Wranglers (again, Southern: "Rayun-guhlurr") with what seem to be outtake photos from the world's shittiest cult family vacation:

Wacky Packages were the Consumerist.com of the 1970s (minus the journalism). They were sold in packs like baseball cards, but each card was some spoof of a consumer product, with Mad Magazine-style humor. Crest Toothpaste? Make that Creep Toothpaste, ha. They are simply mesmerizing. Every product imaginable, from deodorant to tuna fish to magazines, was subject to a vicious, wacky remixing. Now a book telling the Wacky Packages story has come out; making this an opportune time for a 20-part Wacky Packages Gallery Blowout! Click through for 20 of our favorites, which have been helpfully preserved on the internet. Ad criticism this sharp wouldn't be seen again for 30 years:

The anonymous American Apparel ad remixer has consistently shown-along with a love for pornography and a belief in the dildo-ness of AA boss Dov Charney-a marked devotion to actual "art." We're not dealing with just another vandal here; we're dealing with a vandal who may have gone to art school at some point. This valuable education enables not only the clean, porny line drawings on the ads, but now, a new frontier: a reference to pop artist Jeff Koons. And a nude woman! I don't think it's exaggerating the case to call this fake postermaker an educator. The seminal work: Jeff Koons' "Equilibrium":

Rupert Murdoch's plan to turn the Wall Street Journal into slightly more high-brow version of the New York Post is complete! Kendra Wilkinson, the "Playboy cover model, television star and one of Hugh Hefner's three live-in girlfriends" earns front-page treatment today in the paper. Why? Because it seems she's too much of an Olive Garden fan: "To the consternation of Olive Garden's marketers, who have spent millions crafting the franchise's family-friendly image, the 23-year-old adult-entertainment star and aspiring real-estate mogul repeatedly uses her spotlight to rave about its midprice eateries." [WSJ]

Please, sit down and remove your Peterbilt hat: there's something you should know about the upcoming long-haul trucker documentary Drive and Deliver. Sure, the movie is heart-wrenching portrayal of the ups and downs of the trucking life-the long nights, the long days, the lengthy amount of time spent in a sitting position. But all those truck-porn shots of "the behemoth LoneStars, their chrome and oversize grilles gleaming brightly"? Bought and paid for, my friend. The movie is an ad. And maybe the most efficient product placement of all time! Drive and Deliver is directed by Brett Morgen, who also did The Kid Stays In The Picture. But the entire thing is a $5 million marketing scheme by truck maker Navistar International. So while there's a rich history of companies sponsoring their own shows (the "Colgate Variety Hour"), and a rich history of product placement in movies, the idea of bankrolling an entire documentary starring your own company's product gives twice the impact, in a more subtle fashion. First we got previews at the movies. Then we got ads at the movies. Then we got ads in the movies. Now we have movies that are ads. Well, at least our precious TV shows are safe from ads running during the show. No, they're not. [NYT, B&C. Related: I have a shiny nickel for anyone willing to go through NYT ad reporter Stuart Elliott's stories for the past year and see how many times he uses the phrase "branded entertainment." I bet the answer is "many."]

Olympic sponsors spent $150 million setting up flashy pavilions on the pedestrian-friendly Olympic Green. But China made security so strict that barely anyone can get onto the Green to see them. As the old saying goes, "China is a paranoid police state." [WSJ]

It was quite an embarrassment for the nation of Spain yesterday when an ad surfaced showing their entire national Olympic basketball team posing in the "Slanty-eyed Asian" position, pulling their eyelids back. We imagine the photo shoot was followed by several minutes of mimed karate moves and Enter The Dragon reenactments, only adding to the awkwardness. So the entire nation of China has been waiting expectantly for an apology. And today they got...outrage that anyone would think Spain is racist! Why, some of their closest friends are from China or somewhere like that!

Once upon a time, media bulletin board site Mediabistro had a talented, anonymous ad blogger called Agency Spy, who got good dirt and the occasional undeserved murder rap. The original Agency Spy left to start her own blog a couple months ago, but earlier today she put up a post saying the site was grinding to a temporary halt. Why? Because, Mediabistro multimillionaire founder Laurel Touby said, MB was enforcing a noncompete agreement against her! Seems pretty petty, Laurel, considering you're the second-richest internet media woman in New York now. The $23 million Mediabistro machine can't compete with one little alumnus? Tisk tisk. [Adscam, The Brief]

Perhaps we need a "Text-only" law for condom advertising. Leaving prophylactic communications in the hands of human art directors is just too risky-particularly when you're dealing with the strange sexual mores of foreigners. Because while the result might come off nice and cute (like the Chinese Olympic condom ads), there's an equal chance that it will be grotesque. This Belgian ad campaign for super-thin condoms has Photoshopped a man and a woman together into a terrifying image of a conjoined connubial monstrosity. I know Europeans have different ideas of "personal space," but really. Click through for two full (freaky but SFW) ads:

NBC has billions riding on the Olympics, and no amount of whining from sports fans is going to make them screw it up. Many fans are-not outraged, but mildly peeved-that some premier events at the '04 games were shown on tape delay, after everybody had a chance to find out who won on the nifty internet. So NBC made the Olympic Committee schedule too-popular swimmer Michael Phelps' races when they could be shown during prime time. Oh, the things that hundreds of millions of dollars can buy. And, deep down, we all sympathize with NBC: destroy whatever is necessary to fulfill America's greedy need for live-action gold, we say!

The Olympics, we're told, is a delicate dance of geopolitical maneuvering dressed up as an athletic contest. In reality, it's the world's largest assembly of dumb jocks. All of whom are now in a position to cause international incidents! Spain and China may have poisoned their diplomatic relationship because the entire Spanish national basketball team thought it would be cute to make an ad for some courier company posing with the "Slanty-eyed Asian" gesture: fingers pulling the eyelids to make them slits. I imagine they were all saying "Ah, soooo" at the time and laughing uproariously. The full photo is bad enough that someone should have realized it was mistake:

This, my friends, is what a 1978 widescreen television should look like. GE's Widescreen 1000 projection TV featured "the 'chairside convenience' of random access remote control," and "computer-like circuitry" to keep the color just right. Flat screens are for Communists. Click to enlarge. [Retro Thing via Coudal]

Who says that advertising is a cynical business? Not me. When I saw this spot from the Foundation For A Better Life (who can argue with that?), I must admit I cracked a smile. And you will too! I haven't been this choked up since the last Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints public service campaign. Click through to watch the clip; maybe you are the greatest!

Kinda spooky crane shots through futuristic windfarms are the new adorable little girls sleeping at 3 a.m.. Or puppies, maybe. Both Barack Obama and John McCain used the same damn shot in recent ads, suggesting that their energy policies are both based on pissing off Ted Kennedy and his neighbors. They really ought to have someone vet stock footage, right? Our own Richard Blakeley spotted the matching footage and put together the damning clip that will swing this election to Ron Paul. Paul only uses fiercely independent stock footage the mainstream media are too scared to show you.