Motoring

The advertisement was a television advertisement for a Dacia Sandero. The advertisement featured scenes of people using the car in various day to day settings. For example, a woman was seen putting birthday presents in the back of the car, in another scene people were shown putting dogs in the car, amongst other similar scenes.

These scenes were intercut with scenes of the car being driven. They included scenes of the car driving on roads and going around corners; a scene in which one car passed another at an intersection; and a scene in which a car appeared to have been spinning.

Overlaid titles appeared in succession that read: –

A Car Doesn’t define you/

You define the car/

Dacia Sandero the bestselling car in Europe since 2017/

For Real People

The complainant believed the advertisement depicted a series of examples of careless driving. They said that the advertisement depicted cars taking corners at speed and that the drivers in the advertisement appeared in some cases to be distracted (e.g. singing loudly) and therefore not exercising due care and attention. The complainant conceded that while it was likely the advertisement was filmed in a controlled environment, they did not find it acceptable to depict unsafe driving styles and behaviours. They believed this to be especially inappropriate in the context of recent deaths on our roads.

The advertisers supplied documents from ARPP (the national advertisement authority in France) and Clearcast . They said it could be seen from these documents that the television commercial was approved by both authorities. On the strength of this, the advertisers believed that the ASA should not find issue with the advertisement.

Clearcast is a non-governmental organisation in the UK which pre-approves most British television advertising

Complaint Upheld
The Complaints Council considered the detail of the complaint and the advertisers’ response.

The Council noted that the complaint issues related to car driving in a city and concerning not exercising due care and attention and depicting unsafe driving styles and behaviours. Having viewed all scenes, the Council noted that in the scene where the driver was singing, she was not moving in time to the music, her attention was on the road in front of her, and her two hands were on the steering wheel. They did not consider that the depiction encouraged or condoned dangerous or unsafe behaviour.

The Council noted that in one scene where the car was being driven, the car appeared to spin at speed. They considered the impression given was that the car was spinning at speed, and that this could be imitable action.

The Council considered that scenes of the cars taking corners had portrayed driving taking corners tightly and at speed. Two cars in one scene had passed each other at an intersection in a manner that could have reasonably been considered dangerous. Further, scenes shown from the driver’s point of view depicted two shots where no hands were visible on the steering wheel and one shot which depicted one-handed steering.

The Complaints Council considered the advertisement had depicted dangerous driving and unsafe practices as such was in breach of sections 3.3 and 3.24(a) of the Code.

Action Required:
The advertisement must not reappear in its current form.