How To Advertise A Bogus Green Product

Just came across this little gem of a commercial for Castrol GTX EcoFlex, an oil that is designed for your flex vehicle (how it is catered exactly, is left unexplained). I’d like to link to the Castrol site where you could learn more about the product, but there appears to be no such page.

It seems only logical that companies begin to market specialty oils (and other automotive necessities) to the hybrid or flex-fuel car market. The only problem I see with this is that Prius owners aren’t likely to be jacking up the car and changing the oil themselves. Even if they do, it’s highly unlikely that the EcoFlex oil line is any better for their car or the environment than the manufacturer suggested oil. Hybrids and flex-fuel cars have the same kind of internal combustion engines as any other car.

So the ad (from Brazil), while being unfunny, unclear and confusing, is a creative failure, it also seems to frontier a different kind of greenwashing. It doesn’t quite go as far as misleading us about the product’s properties because we don’t get enough information to be misled. However, the ad’s mere existence causes us to question the product’s need in the marketplace. The whole idea of marketing an oil for flex or hybrid vehicles seems ironic to me.

If there’s an auto audience out there who will scrutinize your product claims, it will be these car owners. Why even try?