Land Rover has released a humorous new advertisement of its Defender SUV in Great Britain, but some individuals were concerned about it misrepresenting some ground truths about the vehicle and its assist systems.
Specifically, the local regulatory authorities received complaints that the car is, in fact, unable to halt before a cliff edge automatically upon reaching it, as the ad seems to imply. The clip has rather original visuals with urban infrastructure objects like traffic lights, signs and controllers popping up from nowhere in natural environments. The idea is to convey that smart electronic aids turn every off-road drive into a predictable and safe experience. However, the metaphor backfires towards the end of the video, where a Defender reaches a cliff edge backwards and halts just before the fall thanks to a parking sensor.
The video was pulled after two complaints came in accusing it of misleading customers. As most of us are aware, rear parking sensors cannot sense pitfalls and will not stop the car if no vertical obstacles, like walls or poles, are detected behind it.
For some reason, Land Rover chose to retaliate and opined that the parking scene clearly shows a boulder lying on the ground behind the car, arguing that this was the obstacle the sensor chose to stop in front of.
The complaining party reasonably declined this explanation, arguing that the boulder was probably too small for the sensor to react too, and should in no way have been used for that purpose in any scenario. As a result, the UK Advertising Standards Authority decided to ban the ad, arguing that the explanation provided by Land Rover was counterintuitive.