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Every country handles what is and isn’t allowed in advertising differently. A quick YouTube search for banned advertisements will net you hours of footage that you’ll never believe was even considered for TV. However, in the case of these Toyota ads (one print and one video), the punishment doesn’t really seem to fit the crime. To be fair, though, it doesn’t seem like there’s much of a crime being committed in the first place.
In the U.K., two Toyota ads for the Hilux pickup showing a fleet of the models adventuring across various off-road obstacles were removed from publication. The ads seem pretty harmless on the surface — after all, the Toyota Hilux is a rugged off-road capable truck. The advertisement’s slogan was even “Born to Roam.” So, it’s a bit surprising, then, that the off-road trucks going off-road are the reason these advertisements were banned. No hidden imagery, nothing obscene, and nothing that managed to accidentally slip by the ad creators at Toyota: it’s solely the fact that they were off-roading.
Is this a fair case for removal or an overcorrection?
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As is true in most cases, the removal of these advertisements came from a complaint. Adfree Cities, a handful of groups attempting to remove advertising from cities altogether, partnered with the U.K. campaign group Badvertising to issue a complaint against the Toyota ads in question. Their accusations state that Toyota is endorsing the use of vehicles in a way that disregards their harmful effect on the environment.
“These adverts epitomize Toyota’s total disregard for nature and the climate, by featuring enormous, highly polluting vehicles driving at speed through rivers and wild grasslands,” said Veronica Wignall, a co-director at Adfree Cities, according to The Guardian.
Wignall also alleges that, since most vehicles are driven in urban circumstances and rarely see much off-road use day-to-day, the ads are disconnected from reality and unnecessarily promote the destruction of the environment. Over 75% of SUV and small truck registrations in the U.K. are in urban areas, so it seems this argument does have some basis in reality. It seems that was good enough for the U.K.’s Advertising Standards Agency to remove the ads from publication.
Is Toyota in the wrong?
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The ASA did previously draft a ruling for the removal of Land Rover Discovery ads but never went through with the ban as it did with these Toyota examples. The ASA says that Toyota did not prepare these ads with a sense of responsibility for society. However, as you might imagine, Toyota does not see it the same way.
“Toyota does not condone behavior that is harmful to the environment. In fact, over the course of the past three decades, not only has Toyota been one of the leaders in the automotive field in terms of carbon emissions reduction across its vehicle offering, it has shared hundreds of royalty-free licenses, allowing others to use its electrification technology,” said a Toyota spokesperson in response to the accusations.
The spokesperson also stated that the advertisement used computer-generated imagery and was shot on private “non-ecologically sensitive” land with permission from the owners, thus having no negative impact on the environment. While that seems a little nitpicky, so does the initial complaint that led to the removal of the ads in the first place. Either way, Toyota is likely to be more careful about U.K. ad choices in the future.
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