Polo's Illegal Advert
14th of October 2009
New VW car advert for Polo breaks UK law
The new Polo Advert breaks the rules
Followers of We Are Futureproof
will know that we’re keen for car manufacturers to have CO2 and fuel
economy information on their car advertisements. The rules regarding
billboards state that the information is meant to be easy to read from
the other side of the street. Our recent video shows that advertisers cheat
and you can hardly see the text with a pair of binoculars (What's wrong with billboard car adverts?).
But the new Polo ad has really
taken the biscuit. Perhaps with a magnifying glass (a strong one) you
might – just might – be able to make it out if you got very,
very close to the ad. We have all been a bit taken aback by the audacity
of Volkswagen on this one. They should know the rules. (To be fair, they also
know that the VCA are unlikely to do much except perhaps a light rap
on the knuckles).
It's the continuing tale of overseas agencies not swatting up on UK guidance notes
According to Alex Brownsell from Marketing Magazine, "I had a chat with one of the agencies that works on VW and they say the campaign came out of Germany, and will have been produced by creatives at either DBB Germany or DBB Spain. It's the continuing tale of overseas agencies not swatting up on UK guidance notes, like we saw with BMW."
The problem with this is that
if Volkswagen is seen to be getting away with this, other car ads may
follow suit. Why should we stick to the rules and ruin our beautiful
ads if Volkswagen did this? they might ask.
We’ll be looking out for
more rule breakers, and, for what it’s worth, continuing to report them to
the VCA. And we’ll be ordering up our high-powered magnifying glasses
right away.
Sarah Cope for We Are Futureproof
