Jaguar ads banned for ‘condoning dangerous driving’
Four Jaguar Land Rover ads have been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) after garnering complaints that they glorified speed and encouraged dangerous driving.
The online adverts, which were displayed on the Jaguar website, showed cars being driven at high speed, with engines being revved and were accompanied by high tempo background music.
All of the ads ended with the slogan, ‘Jaguar how alive are you’.
Jaguar said that it had “mistakenly” omitted a caption within the ads to specify that the roads featured were closed during filming. It said that the emphasis of the ads was the technical features and abilities of the cars and that at no time did they demonstrate any dangerous driving.
Jaguar said it had since added in a caption which stated: ‘Filmed on closed roads with a professional driver. Do not attempt. Always obey local speed limits'.
The ASA said in its ruling that although the ads did not demonstrate any dangerous driving it considered that the cars were depicted driving in a dangerous manner, “namely crossing over the single white lines in the middle of the road”.
The watchdog said it considered that speed was the main message of the ads and the ads portrayed the cars being driven in a dangerous manner, and as such it concluded the ads were irresponsible and condoned dangerous driving.
The ads must not appear again in their current form and Jaguar was told not to portray driving behaviour that might encourage motorists to drive irresponsibly in future.