Flowers and pearls: how good is "new"?

Have you ever used "New!" in a jammer? If you work in the advertising industry: You probably have. You've probably done so with mixed feelings - because for many concept developers and creatives, new is nice, but not particularly relevant. Really?

Isn't "new" relevance par excellence? (Ok, maybe right after "sale"). Sure, that's really uncreative and trite and simple. But we're talking about selling and not art. After all, we're all constantly falling for some kind of novelty - the new collection, the "latest shit", some kind of hype or trend.

Treat yourself

Because new also means "treat yourself". When in doubt, new is better. New is exciting. New may be a bit clumsy, but it's also a bit cool. New is a sweet promise. New raises expectations. New is short and concise. New is as white, pure, untouched and surprising as freshly fallen snow on a freezing cold morning in early December in the lowlands. New makes eyes sparkle and credit cards glow. And the next day? Exactly: yesterday's snow! Out of my eyes! Out of my mind!

That's why skepticism about the little word is justified, because it's the memento mori among advertising messages: If "new" is your best argument, then you quickly look old. Or to put it another way: never just be new.

New and good

New and good are two different words. They do not mean the same thing. New only suggests something like good - but it is not automatically good. New can even be really bad and extremely annoying. Those applications, for example, that are constantly changing features and the UX or design because you can? Annoying. But at least you don't get bored and that seems to be half the battle. At the very least, it increases usage time because users have to search for everything again.

New can also mean "the packaging looks nicer, but I'm actually just making the opening of the tube bigger so that you use more and buy more quickly" or "the packaging looks nicer but has less inside for the same price because someone has to pay for the new packaging design". The suggestive power of "new" is also blithely blinded, precisely because it is so strong. It's a bit like making snow on a toxic waste dump so that the kids have something to slide down. Yay!

And sometimes, but only very sometimes, "old" is already so damn good that new can hardly be better: If your old wine in the same old wine skins is just what the world needs, then stick with it.

How new is "new"?

So as long as something is new, "new" is a legitimate sales argument, at least from a legal perspective. Sometimes, however, the question arises as to how long something new can be sold as new. As with new snow, it naturally depends on the conditions: How warm is it, will it rain in, how many cars have already driven through, how many children have already rummaged through the snow cover, how many dogs have already ..., how much dirt from the chimneys is settling - and so on.

The best answer is: From a legal point of view, fresh snow can probably be called fresh snow for longer than from a well-meaning point of view - what do you use as a guide?

For almost a decade, Benno Maggi analyzed industry-related terms in his column "What does it actually mean" and commented on them with a personal touch. Since 2025, his colleague Sarah Pally continues this tradition in her column "Blossoms and pearls" - with new impetus and her usual precise view of developments in the industry. She brings her own, more linguistic perspective to the table and sets new thematic priorities. Pally is a partner in the Partner & Partner agency in Winterthur. She has been working in the fields of content marketing, text/concept and storytelling in the communications and marketing sector for 15 years.