'Are you VXR enough?' is OK
Vauxhall ad escapes nannyish intervention
Vauxhall Astra VXR
Well, that was enough for some saddos to complain to the Advertising Standards Authority that the reference to the power and acceleration of the car encouraged speeding.
However, in a surprising ruling, the ASA did not uphold the complaint. Here's the full ruling:
Vauxhall said the ad complained about was run in error in two publications, appearing once in each; the ad should have included a headline that said "VXRed Blooded". They said the predominant message of the ad was that the Astra VXR was a high performance vehicle; it was not about speed or acceleration. Vauxhall said the shot of the car under the walls of the Colesium was intended to reflect that the car was quite muscular looking and to give it a gladiatorial image. They said the statistics about the power of the car were quoted to reinforce this image and pointed out that the CAP Code allowed advertisers to give general information about a vehicle's performance. Vauxhall said the text which likened the car to a chariot made a connection between the car and another type of vehicle that was challenging but fun to drive. They believed there was nothing in the ad that encouraged or condoned irresponsible driving or anti-social behaviour.
The ASA noted the ad had appeared without the intended headline "VXRed Blooded". We noted, although the ad created an association with a chariot, the car was stationary and it did not directly link the performance statistics mentioned with speeding or irresponsible driving. We considered that the overall impression of both the ad that had appeared and the intended ad was that of a robustly built car. We considered that readers would not see the main theme of the ad as that of power or speed. We considered that it did not encourage irresponsible or dangerous driving.
Well anyone who is encouraged to be irresponsible or drive dangerously is going to get more from a film like The fast and the furious than any paper based advert ffs!
Arghhh, this country drives me mad. I really hope I don't in some way pay for the ASA to actually look into complaints like this so anally!
Should just slap the whingers with a big kipper and tell them to p*ss off!
Dave
to you
What a bunch of soulless, joyless, timewasting morons.
If they don't like it, they don't have to buy the car.
If they are ever, ever successful in identifying any instance whereby a mere advert in a magazine has directly caused any 'dangerous speeding' I will eat my hat. And shoes.
A VXR Astra is supposed to be a performance car. This is why the car is expensive.
It is the selling point of the car, which differentiates it from the 1.6.
To pretend that the primary selling point is anything else (it's 'robust') is tip-toeing around political crap that is a restrictive and unnatural element of our present society and which is pushing us as a people further and further down the road towards a communist state, where the mere suggestion of 'fun' or 'individuality' or 'thrill' becomes a taboo.
It will make ridiculous claims about speed and accelerration but will be headed "It's all cobblers" because that makes it OK. In fairness, they couldn't ban this ad without banning the advertising of any high power derivative. It would all be subterfuge and lies:
FOCUS ST - for women with the painters in.
After all, the BBC have just told their usual crowd of whingers off in no uncertain terms with a fantastic, "Yes, Top Gear's offensive, you know it, we know it, nobody takes Clarkson seriously, where's the problem?" response and civilisation as we know it seems to still be standing.
I'd like to know, though - how many of the people complaining could actually afford a new Astra VXR, MX-5, or whatever the latest controversial vehicle that has more brake horsepower than airbags and runs on something other than split lentil and peace bead biodiesel is? I've often found the root cause of this kind of behaviour to be related to a childish, "I can't have one, so you can't too" complex.
One can't help but wonder whether MG Rover just might have held on if they'd been allowed to advertise the shocking and culture-destroying revelation that MG vehicles were actually a bit quick. But then again, I suppose aiding and abetting the slow destruction of our manufacturing heartland is par for the course if it keeps you isolated from the soul-destroying boredom of your life for that awkward time between reading the Daily Mail and shouting at your neighbour for parking two inches over the "boundary line" again.
Would we get a static shot of a bloke kneeling by a wheel with the legend "So good, little scrotes will steal your valvecaps!" or call the acceleration a "permissive legal speed limit encroachment factor"?
In fact, the disclaimers to avoid this kind of stupid pettiness would be longer than the advert and have to be speeded up like American TV programme credits.
One can't help but wonder whether MG Rover just might have held on if they'd been allowed to advertise the shocking and culture-destroying revelation that MG vehicles were actually a bit quick. .
In some kind of wonderful parallel universe they'd have been allowed to run the sniffpetrol ones.
It does annoy me, it's a quick car, everyone knows it's a quick car, it will be bought by people in the full knowledge that it's a 240bhp quick car. So why can't they say it> It would be about the only truthful advert on TV.
umm what's the Mail got to do with this?
would have thought the Guardian was more appropriate
umm what's the Mail got to do with this?
It's strange actually; all the people I know who complain about petty things like this tend to read the Mail. That might be experience bias though; as I've never really been bothered enough with one-track, single-issue (environ)mentalists to get as far as what newspaper they read.
Actually I only know one real environmentalist these days, and he's a pretty decent sort - actually thinks about real issues rather than the latest headline-grabbing inflammation.
If there was some PH club-together to run one of those as a full-page spread in a national publication, I'd chip in.
Naturally the only one that could be run now is the shot of all of the Rovers / MG's in the field with the tagline "F*** You. F*** You All."
Gassing Station | General Gassing [Archive] | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff