From the Worldwatch Institute blog:

On opening day of the 2006 Geneva Auto Show, I happened to see special sections on the auto show in two local newspapers. Each special section had a prominent article about how the auto show was reflecting trends towards environmentally-friendly cars and technologies. Intrigued, I also browsed through two French language auto magazines that were highlighting the auto show, one of which also had a prominent article about how the auto show was reflecting the "greening" of the industry.

But when I paged through the publications, I found that gas-saving models or those using new technologies either didn't get much exposure, or they were relegated to the back pages. The kind of vehicles getting star billing were more likely to be luxury cars, high-performance sports cars and SUVs.

I then looked at the official Geneva Auto Show Web site, reasoning that the best way to try to detect a trend was by looking at the proportion of green cars among the new models being introduced.

One of the unfortunate consequences of technological progress is that as a technology matures, advances come at an ever-slower pace, which means longer product cycles, lower sales volumes and therefore lower profits.

When this happens, marketing departments and product designers are called upon to use their imagination to dream up new features that are only indirectly related to the mature technology, but that supposedly add value nonetheless. These features can then be used to justify the introduction of a new model, so that we consumers will be tempted to replace our existing models that are still functioning perfectly well.

Advertisers love to remind us that they work for us, the consumer. They say that by informing us about what goods and services are available, we can make better purchasing decisions.

But sometimes advertisers appear to be acting more in the interests of the client that hired them to "inform" us. For example, what should an advertiser do with information that would lead to lower sales for its client if we were to receive that information? In theory, it's the advertiser's duty to inform us, since we consumers can make better decisions if we have access to negative as well as positive information. Unfortunately, advertisers don't always see it that way. They typically prefer to give us only the good news about their client.

One technique for side-stepping the bad news is demonstrated by Today's Advertising Tip: Bend the truth. An example of "truth bending" can be found in a recent advertising campaign in the Swiss media for the Swiss Heating Oil Union. On behalf of its client, the advertising agency attempts to reassure consumers who may be worried about expensive oil and the long-term supply of oil. The following excerpt is translated from an advertisement in German:

I'm not always very good at noticing the nuances in life. My friends kid me when I say a glass of wine is fine, while they all insist it smells of cork. Similarly, whenever I see a label that says "New & Improved" or "Great New Taste," whether it be for chewing gum or toothpaste or shampoo, I can never tell the difference between the old version and the "New & Improved" one. It's kind of embarrassing, really. If I wasn't such a trusting consumer, I might suspect that the only thing that's new is the packaging.

But I don't want to cast doubt on the dedicated researchers in the chewing gum laboratory who work year-in and year-out so that I can always look forward to an even better chewing experience. It must be terribly challenging and stressful to have to come up with an improved formula every year. Funny... I've never met anyone who works in "chewing gum flavor retention research." Have you?

Of course, some things -- like mobile phones -- are advancing so rapidly that they really do seem to change every six months. Therefore mobile phone advertisers have an easy job; the phones practically sell themselves. But shampoo? How many improvements can you make to shampoo?