Jaguar Land Rover defense falls flat as ASA upholds cliff-edge ad complaint
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld a complaint about an ad for Jaguar Land Rover Ltd, stating that the creative falsely suggested its collision detection technology would prevent people driving off cliffs.
The ad prominently featured a Land Rover perilously close to a cliff edge / Jaguar Land Rover/PA
Two viewers complained about the two ads, which saw a Land Rover driver stop on a cliff edge using the car’s collision detection sensors. Their complaint, which the ASA ultimately agreed with, was that the collision detection software cannot detect empty space, of which there was problematic amount off the edge of the cliff.
Jaguar Land Rover’s defense argued that the software was in fact detecting a boulder behind the vehicle, and that said boulder was obvious from the side shots of the car reversing.
Clearcast also noted it had advised that all sequences shown needed to be accurate demonstrations of how the vehicle and the features worked, and that rocks were shown behind the vehicle and that the technology alerted the driver to them.
However, the ASA noted that in the context of the rest of the ad that explanation fell flat: “The camera was shown in ‘on-road’ mode and the sensor beeped as the vehicle approached the edge of the cliff over which the car would fall if the brakes were not applied.”
It said that, given that the ads implied the sensors were of equal use in urban and more extreme environments, viewers might reasonably believe the sensors would warn them of smaller drops in urban environments. The ruling cited “a smaller hill edge or a drop before water found in ‘on-road’ areas” as examples of those urban cliff-like hazards.
It also stated that since “the rocks were not sufficiently prominent to counter that interpretation, we concluded that the ads misleadingly represented the parking sensor feature.”
So while the image of a vehicle approaching a cliff edge was a striking one, the ASA has ruled that the ads cannot be shown again in their current form. Its ruling states that the ads breached BCAP Code rules 3.1 relating to misleading advertising, and 20.5 relating to motoring.