Two television ads for Volkswagen promoting a safety feature on one of its cars have been banned for encouraging irresponsible driving.
The ads, seen in February, promoted the Advanced Safety Systems feature on the VW Polo and showed a man and his father driving when an icon appeared in the wing mirror and the car was shown to narrowly miss colliding with a lorry, followed later by an alert flashing on the dashboard when they braked suddenly to avoid a pedestrian.
The father appeared to be relieved and tapped the dashboard, with on-screen text stating: “For life’s adventurers … We make the future real.”
Six viewers complained that the ads were irresponsible because they encouraged dangerous driving by exaggerating the benefit of the vehicle’s safety features.
Volkswagen Group UK said 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 father’s nervousness was not due to the manner in which his son was driving the vehicle but the natural worry of a protective parent.
Ad clearance agency Clearcast said both scenes showed the driver in control of his vehicle, driving responsibly with the potential dangers caused by other people.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said the father’s visibly nervous disposition when sitting in the car as a passenger and the loud indie rock soundtrack played throughout the ads contributed to the impression that the driver was irresponsible.
The ASA said the driver was not clearly shown to check his mirrors before indicating and almost turning into the overtaking lorry, while the second instance showed the vehicle abruptly halting after a pedestrian suddenly stepped out into the road.
It said: “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.
“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.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here