An advert produced by car company Toyota has been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), due to it "condoning and encouraging irresponsible driving".
ASA has ruled that people who watch the advert were able to infer that the Toyota GR Series were "capable of delivering a performance based on speed and an element of risk", reports STV. The advert originally appeared in The Guardian and 'i' newspapers between April and May 2022.
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The ad featured an image of three cars driving in a close pattern together, along a country road, with the headline "That GR Feeling". At the bottom, it read: “Precise. Balanced. Playful. It’s this elusive combination that delivers the heart-pumping excitement of the Toyota GR Series. Pure performance cars, born from Toyota Gazoo Racing. And now on a road near you.”
There were three main complainants that challenged the advertisement, including the Worthing Green Party, who believed the ad encouraged behaviour that was dangerous on the roads. Toyota defended their decision to release the ad, arguing that people would allude the "GR" in the headline phonetically, like the model of the engine, rather than a growling sound of the high performance engine.
The firm also stated that the phrase, "that feeling", was a common phrase in advertisements, referring to the feeling of enjoyment rather than driving at high speeds. They added that they did not mean for the cars to be interpreted as racing on a public road.
Toyota also disagreed that readers would see the words “playful” and “heart pumping excitement” as a reference to reckless driving. However, the ASA ruled that the poster must not appear in newspapers, and warned Toyota that future ads must not "condone or encourage unsafe or irresponsible driving”.
The Advertising Standards Authority said: "We considered that the overall impression created by the ad was a suggestion that the high performance nature of GR Series vehicles meant that drivers of those vehicles could push the boundaries of safe and responsible driving and that it was desirable and enjoyable to do so.
“We concluded that in so doing the ad condoned and encouraged unsafe or irresponsible driving.”
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