Two Land Rovers ads have been banned by the Advertising Standards Agency.
The ads were deemed misleading as they gave the impression that the vehicle’s parking sensors could alert drivers to a cliff edge.
The ASA said: “We considered the ads focused on the reversing feature and included a scene with an in-car camera view. The camera was shown in “on-road” mode and the sensor beeped as the vehicle approached the edge of the cliff over which the car would fall if the brakes were not applied. Although some small rocks were visible as the vehicle reversed, they appeared to be incidental to the scene and we considered it was not obvious that the parking sensor was reacting to the rocks rather than the edge of the cliff. We considered some viewers would therefore interpret that to mean that the car’s parking sensors could recognise when drivers might be reversing near a drop, which might include a smaller hill edge or a drop before water found in “on-road” areas, both in urban and more rural settings.
“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.”