Land Rover Defender Ad Banned For Lying To Consumers

We're guessing you probably missed it, given that the whole ad is full of strange scenes, including a traffic light in the middle of a desert and a waterfall being used as a car wash. Don't forget about the police officer directing traffic on the dunes.

Nope, the two eagle-eyed viewers had a problem with the reverse parking sensors. In the video, you can see the driver using the reverse camera, and it starts beeping once the driver gets too close to the cliff.

The eagle-eyed Karens noted that the Land Rover would not beep in this instance as there isn't physically anything behind the vehicle. Therefore, the car should have rightfully reversed right off the cliff.

Nope, this is not a poorly-timeApril Fool's Day joke. Commercials regularly get banned for stupid reasons. A BMW ad was pulled last year due toirresponsible engine soundsand a GR Yaris ad got banned forpromoting dangerous driving.

The ASA acknowledged some small rocks behind the car but said the stones were incidental, and it wasn't made clear whether the car was beeping due to the rocks or the sheer drop.

"We considered some viewers would therefore interpret that to mean that the car's parking sensors could recognize when drivers might be reversing near a drop, which might include a smaller hill edge or a drop before water found in 'on-road' areas, both in urban and more rural settings. Because we understood the car's parking sensors reacted to objects behind the vehicle, rather than to empty space such as a drop, and the rocks were not sufficiently prominent to counter that interpretation, we concluded that the ad misleadingly represented the parking sensor feature," the ASA said in a statement.

The ad has therefore been banned, which is good news for Land Rover. If you want people to see something, ban it.

Also, the reverse camera is a visual and auditory aid. We're reasonably sure that the average Defender driver can identify a sheer drop. And even if they don't, it's nothing more than Darwin doing his finest work.