The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned two Volkswagen (VW) television adverts that promoted an advanced safety feature on the VW Polo.
The adverts – a long and short version of the same story – showed a boy having accidents at several stages of his life; from falling off his tricycle to breaking his arm after falling off his bike as an adolescent. The boy was also shown as a young adult after a moped incident then as an adult, narrowly avoiding collisions with the help of the car’s technology.
Six complaints challenged whether the adverts were responsible because they “encouraged dangerous driving by exaggerating the benefit of the vehicle’s safety features”.
VW responded that the car was not shown to be driven dangerously and there was nothing that condoned or encouraged dangerous, competitive, inconsiderate or irresponsible driving. It said the purpose of the ad was to promote safe and responsible driving and to highlight how the car’s Advanced Safety Systems could help drivers to manage certain hazards.
VW said that the Polo driver was shown to be someone who had been clumsy, unlucky and to some extent accident-prone on various occasions while growing up. It referenced scenes from the ads that indicated the car was not being driven at excessive speed; for example being overtaken by a truck and being driven at 23 mph in an urban setting.
Despite this, the ASA said that certain aspects of the ads “contributed to the impression that the driver was irresponsible”.
“We therefore considered that the overall message of the ad was of reliance on the vehicle’s safety features to aid those who were likely to drive irresponsibly,” the ASA stated. “We concluded that the dependency on the Advanced Safety Systems exaggerated the vehicle’s safety features and the overall tone of the ad encouraged irresponsible driving and was in breach of the Code.”
The UK Code of Broadcast Advertising (BCAP Code) applies to all advertisements and programme sponsorship credits on radio and television services licensed by Ofcom, the communications regulator in the UK.
