Authorities in Australia have found the 30-second Toyota GR Yaris advertisement too dangerous for the impressionable minds of the youth, and pulled it from the program.
The ad features three Yaris models: a standard hatchback, an off-road-going Cross version, and the performance-laden GR Yaris. It follows two daughters who drive their cars to their parents for their wedding anniversary. They call their brother, who forgot about the arrangement and is busy repairing his elderly Celica. He then gets into his brand-new GR Yaris and drives fast to catch up with the rest – perhaps too fast for Australia, as it now turns out.
The government found the ad in violation of traffic safety laws because it shows the hot hatch doing a mild drift stunt upon leaving garage. Not only that, but the man ends up arriving at his parents’ home sooner than his sisters do, which implies that he likely had to speed past safe limits.
If you think the above sounds contrived and overprotective, Toyota is with you on this one. Furthermore, a regional bureau for evaluating advertisement standards found no issue with the speed shown in the video, only asking for the second-long drift moment to be edited out. Even so, the automaker will not be able to show the ad until edited or re-filmed in a “responsible” fashion.