When I'm walking in the city or reading a magazine, I don't pay much attention to the advertisements I see. But they nonetheless slyly work their way into my consciousness, which is exactly what the advertisers want. I see the ads from this oil company or that financial institute and their "altruistic" projects to protect the environment or help developing countries, for example. The problem is that I am seeing only one small part of a much bigger picture.

That's one reason why I enjoy working with the folks at the Berne Declaration for their annual Public Eye Awards that take place in Davos, Switzerland, on Opening Day of the World Economic Forum (WEF). The awards remind us that corporate advertising shows us only the side of the corporation that it wants us to see, many times hiding activities that help it maximize profits, with the often unfortunate (although apparently acceptable to the corporation) side effects of human rights violations or environmental destruction.

My involvement is translating documents from German to English, and helping out with computer support during the awards ceremony. Here's the beginning of the (translated) press release:

On Opening Day of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Berne Declaration and Greenpeace will present the Public Eye Awards 2010 in Davos. Screen star Julia Jentsch will moderate the WEF-critical event on January 27th, joined by keynote speakers Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate in Economics, and Jürgen Trittin, former German Environment Minister and current parliamentary leader of The Greens. Six corporations are once again nominated for the (in)famous awards, including Arcelor Mittal, Roche, the Royal Bank of Canada and the IOC. Online voting for the People's Award is possible at www.publiceye.ch, and for the first time a Greenwash Award will expose the most implausible social and eco labels.

Descriptions of all nominees are available on www.publiceye.ch, where you can also cast your vote for the People's Award until January 26. Tell your friends!

A recent article in the Swiss Beobachter magazine called The Auto of the Future (in German) reviewed four examples of research in Switzerland to make lighter and more fuel-efficient autos. It's an example of technologists concentrating on one isolated problem (how to propel cars more efficiently) instead of taking the longer view (how does the steadily growing number of automobiles affect our quality of life). I wrote the following Letter to the Editor in response:

Since 2000, the Berne Declaration and ProNatura have organized the Public Eye on Davos, which takes a critical look at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, every January.

On January 24, 2007, the next installment of the Public Eye Awards will take place, on the opening day of the WEF. Not only will it shine a critical light on the sometimes unsavory activities of the multinational firms that attend the WEF, but it will also spotlight a company that "gets it" regarding corporate social responsibility (CSR) and that is setting an example for others.

I recently came across a "call for participation" from an author who is writing a book on happiness: what it is, and where it is. The author has a hypothesis based on a "geography of happiness, [...] that place matters, that where we live has an impact on our life's bliss gradation."

According to the World Database of Happiness, Switzerland ties with Denmark and Malta as the happiest countries on Earth. The author plans to visit a number of countries, including the happiest as well as the unhappiest (Moldova) to test his hypothesis. A Swiss friend of his has invited Swiss (or people living in Switzerland) to contribute their own opinions. The original "call" is here. My own response follows.

A friend invited me to go to a demonstration against the WTO in Geneva last week. Negotiators for a small group of countries were holding closed-door sessions, trying to save the Doha Round. Farmers and fishermen and NGOs had come from around the world to protest. Then on Monday, July 24th, the talks collapsed. The demonstration had been scheduled for the following Thursday, and in light of the new circumstances it was converted from a protest into a celebration.

The demonstrators assembled at the edge of Lake Geneva, and then marched along the lake to the WTO building. A small flotilla of boats, with banners flying, accompanied us from just off-shore. As we were approaching the building, a Dutch journalist and cameraman wanted to ask us a question. Actually, they wanted to ask my friend a question, and at first I was secretly envious. The journalist asked her, "The Doha Round of talks is also referred to as the 'development round.' Why are you happy that it failed, if the development round is good for developing countries?" As I watched my friend remain cool and calm I realized that I probably wouldn't have done the same in front of the camera, and I suddenly switched from envious to being secretly thankful that they hadn't chosen me. And it gave me an opportunity, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, to think about what I would have said.

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.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) for 2006 comes to Davos, Switzerland once again this week. What I once viewed as just another boring get-together of businessmen and world leaders I now see as something far less benign.

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:

To what extent is it the media's responsibility to assist in the dissemination of information about sustainable development (SD)? This rather provocative question became the main topic of a round-table discussion entitled The Role of the Media from the Perspective of Sustainable Development, which took place during the National Forum on Education for Sustainable Development on 29 January 2005 at the University of Geneva.

Dr. Jacques Mirenowicz, co-editor of the Swiss-French magazine La Revue Durable, began by saying that the subject of sustainability is a complex one, and the media is needed to simplify the subject for public consumption. This is, after all, what the media does every day: They take possibly complex subjects and present them in a simpler form. Dr. Mirenowicz went on to say that not only is SD complex, but it doesn't fit in the "time frame" that the media typically work with. That is, the media deal best with the present: It is much easier to describe what happened in Iraq today than to explain how global warming and lifestyles of over-consumption will affect the planet over the coming decades.