Looks like the ad sales team over at CBS sold more than one digital insertion ad slot on “How I Met Your Mother reruns.” Now here’s one with CGI television running a promo for the 2011 Country Strong injected into the background of a replay of a 2009 episode of “How I Met Your Mother.”

The episode is “Old King Clancy,” which first aired on March 23, 2009. Country Strong got wide release on January 7, 2011.

Flickr user maju6406 who spotted it elegantly sums up the appropriate reaction by superimposing the acronym “wtf” onto the altered shot.

The question is, are these actually effective? Aren’t they similar to subliminal messages, which have never been proven to have worked? Networks are desperate to counter “the Tivo effect” and this is the best they’ve come up with so far.

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