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A Volkswagen advertisement, highlighting the new Polo's safety features, has been banned in England for encouraging irresponsible driving, reports the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA).
The ASA said: "Six complainants challenged whether the ads were irresponsible, because they encouraged dangerous driving by exaggerating the benefit of the vehicle’s safety features."
The ad shows a boy experiencing crashes on bikes and go-karts, before showing him as an adult, driving the new Polo with his nervous father in the passenger seat.
The advert demonstrates the Polo's blind-spot monitoring system with a near crash involving a truck. The car's autonomous emergency braking system also helps the driver narrowly avoid hitting a pedestrian.
VW responds
Volkswagen UK said that its Polo "was not shown to be driven dangerously and there was nothing that condoned or encouraged dangerous, competitive, inconsiderate or irresponsible driving.
"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 in safety."
The automaker added that there was no suggestion that the driver "drove in a way which was dangerous, competitive, inconsiderate or irresponsible at any time. He was a competent driver, though obviously not as experienced as his father."
ASA ruling
The ASA disagreed with VW: “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 ads must not appear in their current form. We told Volkswagen not to encourage irresponsible driving by exaggerating the benefits of the vehicle’s safety features."
Read the full ruling here.
