Advertising watchdog takes down ‘dangerous’ ute ads

Well, the nanny state has seemingly done it again.

Ford and Volkswagen have both been forced to revoke new adverts on their respective utility models this month after recent campaigns drew the ire of some members of the public.

Ford put itself in hot water recently over two separate advertising campaigns.

The first promotes the new Ranger Raptor, where a fully suited professional driver moves the vehicle from a facility along a dirt road, showing details of the car en route. The advertisement ends with the Ranger Raptor shown on screen.

The complaintant perceived the car as racing “out of a shed, tyres lifting of (sic) the road, doing burnouts in a paddock”, and said it promoted unsafe driving.

“This type of driving is very dangerous and should not be shown on a TV ad,” the complaint, lodged with the Ad Standards board, reads.

“Plus I thought car ads weren’t supposed to show idiots speeding behind the wheel. Certainly not an example to set depicting what appears to be ultra fast acceleration from inside a shed out on to dirt roads jumping over rises and then going off road and ripping up ground surface by spinning wheels under power only encourages unsafe and destructive driving by others.”

The advertising watchdog, Ad Standards, was required to determine whether the material breached the FCAI Voluntary Code of Practice.  It determined the advertisement did portray driving that would be unsafe if it occurred on a road or road-related area, and found it breached Clause 2(a) of the code.

In response, Ford Australia said it would immediately suspend all media programing of the advertisement and re-edit the clip to address the complaintant’s concerns.

“Ford Australia is committed to creating a Ranger Raptor TVC that complies with the FCAI Code while continuing to demonstrate the capability of our off-road performance flagship,” the company said.

In a separate complaint of Ford’s autonomous emergency braking functionality on the Ranger XLT utility advertisement, in which a man walks in front of a moving vehicle, a member of the public said “a child may look at the advert and thinkn all vehicles will be the same. Dangerous and misleading”.

The Ad Standards board dismissed the complaint.

In a separate case, Volkswagen was forced to pull 60 second and 30 second versions of its advert depicting the Amarok travelling across various landscapes before overtaking two trucks.

The complaintant said the commercial “could encourage road users to attempt dangerous overtaking actions, and in my opinion is a stupid and thoughtless advertisement”.

“Isn't there enough deaths of innocent people on our road from people trying to pass vehicles,” the complaintant stated. “This is irresponsible advertising on television by volkswagon (sic) It clearly encourages dangerous over taking!”

In its review, the panel found the advertisement breached Clause 2(a) of the FCAI code, causing Volkswagen Australia to respond accordingly.

“Volkswagen has considered the specific matters noted in the Case Report and accepts the Community Panel’s decision and are taking the following steps:

“Sixty-second advertisement has been discontinued immediately. Thirty-second advertisement will be modified with CAD approval to comply with the Community Panel’s findings, the modified advertisement will commence airing week commencing 5 November, 2018. All digital content will be modified to comply with the Community Panel’s findings within a reasonable timeframe.”

Do you perceive these ads as dangerous? We figured we'd supply a Youtube-sourced version of Holden's legendary 'Thunderstuck' ad as a sanity check.