The ASA has banned an advert for the Toyota Hilux because it’s shown driving across a river without regard for environmental impact.
We’ve seen a BMW xDrive advert banned after one complaint, slapped BMW for an i3 advert and banned another for the 760iL xDrive, and a Ford Mustang advert getting a ban too.
Now it’s time for Toyota to incur the wrath of the ASA with an advert for the Toyota Hilux which has the temerity to show a bunch of Hilux models going off-road. It appears to have been banned after a single complaint from a campaign outfit called Adfree Cities which complained that the advert “condones behaviour that was harmful to the environment”
The advert show a bunch of Hilux driving like a herd across open countryside, then through a shallow river and finally back on tarmac and ending with a Hilux backing up a private driveway.
Toyota says, quite reasonably, that the advert demonstrates the capabilities of the Hilux, is fantastical in showing a ‘Herd’ of Hilux and “believed no reasonable viewer would have understood the ad as encouraging UK consumers to drive irresponsibly in the UK countryside and cause environmental harm”.
But the complaint was upheld by the ASA, saying:
The ads presented and condoned the use of vehicles in a manner that disregarded their impact on nature and the environment. As a result, they had not been prepared with a sense of responsibility to society. The ads breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.3 (Compliance).
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