To paraphrase Ferris Bueller, "Life moves pretty fast, but social media moves faster."

Think of the Harlem Shake phenomenon: one minute it was an obscure YouTube meme, the next, it was being performed by a bunch of Today show employees. If marketers want to jump on a trend, they have to move at light speed because those trends wear out so quickly. Even grandmothers in Boca are becoming fond of saying, "Ugh, that's so yesterday."

The folks at Citroën have taken this message to heart with a new ad poking fun at the recent global fixation on black smoke and white smoke.

As you probably know, Catholic bigwigs from around the globe gathered in Vatican City this week to elect a new pope. The sign of black smoke emerging from the Vatican chimney was a sign that the cardinals' votes had failed to produce a clear winner. White smoke meant that the deed was done, and the new pope's wardrobe was being tailored for his first public appearance.

Citroën's marketing team clearly thought that the whole black smoke/white smoke thing was a great metaphor for clean diesel. And so, they quickly cobbled together the clip embedded above. 

Like our colleagues at Autoblog, we're not so sure that white smoke looks much healthier than the black variety. But like the cardinals themselves, Citroën didn't ask for our opinion.

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