Land Rover Defender advert BANNED – because it won’t stop you falling off a cliff

The Advertising Standards Authority has banned an advert for the Land Rover Defender after two complaints about its reversing sensors.

Car makers love to deliver cinematic standard adverts for their cars, showcasing their abilities in a compelling and appealing way. But they often fall foul in the UK of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) which seems willing to ban them after minimal complaints.

We’ve seen a BMW xDrive advert banned after a single complaint about dangerous driving, an advertising feature in the Telegraph for the BMW 760iL xDrive was also banned because it ‘promoted’ speed and acceleration, and the Jaguar XE in the dock with Guardian readers (two of them) for Jaguar’s ‘encouragement of unsafe driving practices’. And that’s just the tip of the ‘banned advert’ list.

Now, it’s the turn of the Land Rover Defender to be in the ASA dock after just two complaints, two complaints which have seen JLR’s Defender advert also banned.

The advert, which you can see below (for now), extolls the abilities of the Defender and includes a shot of a trio of Defenders backing up to a cliff edge with sensors beeping to indicate when to stop.

Two complaints to the ASA say the sensors won’t see a cliff edge, which is true, but Land Rover says the parking sensors are reacting to boulder. But it seems that’s good enough.

The ASA said:

Because we understood the car’s parking sensors reacted to objects behind the vehicle, rather than to empty space such as a drop, and the rocks were not sufficiently prominent to counter that interpretation, we concluded that the ads misleadingly represented the parking sensor feature.

The ASA ruled the ad must not be shown again.

Land Rover Defender Banned Advert