Manufacturers of off-roaders love to show off their vehicles doing what they do best. Whether it’s blasting through the desert sands or clambering over rocky outcrops, it’s all fair game when it comes to advertising. However, a Land Rover ad hoped to do just that but ended up being banned for a dangerous lack of realism. The ad kicks off in a fairly straightforward manner, with Land Rover Defenders coming off a ship, driving through town, and tearing around the desert. It was the end of the ad that drew criticism. The final shots showed two Defenders parked up against a cliff edge, with a third reversing into place. As the driver backed up to the edge, the parking sensors beeped to indicate to the driver to stop. The Defender comes to rest, parked near the drop to the valley below. Two complaints were submitted, calling out the ad for the dangerous misleading content within. The concern was that parking sensors on modern vehicles can’t detect empty space — or a cliff edge — as shown in the video. Their ultrasonic transducers can only detect hard objects behind the vehicle. If a driver was to rely on the parking sensors when backing up to a cliff drop, they would simply reverse right over the edge without the parking sensors making so much as a peep. Jaguar Land Rover noted the concern around the parking sensor function, but countered that the shots in the ad “clearly showed it was reversing toward a boulder” which could have triggered the sensors. The decision was made to ban the commercial, based on the fact the ads "misleadingly represented the parking sensor feature.” Misrepresentation is always looked down upon by advertising regulators, but in this case, there’s a significant safety factor to consider as well. A driver who casually watched the ad and tried to use the parking sensors on a cliff would be at risk of great injury or even death if the worst was to occur. While Jaguar Land Rover disagreed, they conceded that rules are rules and they would abide by the ruling.
