Advertisement of new Land Rover Defender banned due to misleading inaccuracies

TWO ads for the new Land Rover Defender have been banned after misleading viewers about reversing.

After various off-road driving shots, a segment shows the Defender backing up towards a cliff edge and the driver using his rear view camera and guidance to estimate the distance.

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The ad, which aired in February, drew criticism from two viewers.

They argued that parking sensors could help with objects behind the vehicle, but not empty space.

So it was dangerous to claim that reversing to a cliff edge with parking assist was safe.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said the ads showed the Defender’s reversing function and included a scene with a camera view inside the car and the sensor beeping as the vehicle neared the edge of the cliff.

Jaguar Land Rover argued that in side shots of the reverse maneuver there were boulders behind which the system would have picked up.

However, the ASA responded: “We thought some viewers would therefore interpret this to mean that the car’s parking sensors could detect when drivers were potentially reversing near a drop-off, which could include a minor ridge of a hill or a drop-off in front of water.” Street areas in both urban and more rural settings.

“Because we understood that the car’s parking sensors were responding to objects behind the vehicle and not empty space like a chasm, and because the rocks weren’t strong enough to counteract this interpretation, we concluded that the gauges were interfering with the parking sensor function presented misleadingly.

“We have instructed Jaguar Land Rover Ltd to ensure their displays do not mislead as to the functionality of their parking sensor feature.”

Jaguar Land Rover said: “We are very disappointed with the ASA’s decision to uphold this complaint in the UK as the vehicle, the technology and the scene portrayed are factual, but we will of course stand by their decision which was based on just two complaints was based. ”