Watchdog warns JLR over ad focused on speed and acceleration

Luxury car maker, Jaguar Land Rover, has been censured by advertising watchdog, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for making speed and acceleration the main message of its promotion.

The complaint followed a tweet by Land Rover, seen on May 31, 2023, stated: “Fashionably late is out of fashion. Because 0-60mph in 3.6 seconds can look like this. #RangeRoverSportSV” alongside an image of an individual wearing sunglasses in a barren landscape, standing in front of a blurred image of the rear of a car, that had made a dust trail.

Three complainants challenged whether the ad was irresponsible because it focused on the vehicle’s speed and acceleration.

In response, JLR, which has production plants at Halewood in Merseyside and Solihull and Castle Bromwich in the West Midlands, said the ad’s primary focus was on the style of the brand, rather than the speed of the vehicle.

It said the image had been taken on a closed track on private land and the vehicle had been travelling at 20mph.

It also argued that the dust cloud was created because the surface of the track was extremely dusty, and did not believe the cloud indicated the vehicle was travelling at speed.

And the motor manufacturer told the ASA that “fashionably late is out of fashion” was intended to suggest that consumers should avoid being late to avoid speeding, saying the text “because 0-60mph in 3.6 seconds can look like this” referred to the look and attitude of the model, the focus of the image, who looked calm and sophisticated because she had arrived on time.

The company said the overall message of the ad was the model having been dropped off on time, and that arriving in a timely fashion without speeding would allow consumers to remain calm and “cool”.

However, the ASA upheld the complaints, saying advertisers must not make speed or acceleration the main message of their ads.

The ASA said: “We understood that 0-60mph was a prominent metric used as a performance measure for acceleration and considered that reaching this speed in under 4 seconds would be considered fast by consumers.

“We acknowledged Jaguar Land Rover’s comments that the car had been travelling at 20mph when the ad was shot and that their intention was to focus on the model’s demeanour rather than the speed of the car.

“Notwithstanding that, we considered, within the context of the ad and the car travelling at apparent speed in the background, consumers would understand the text to mean that punctuality could be achieved by accelerating quickly. Furthermore, we considered the text, alongside the image of the model, portrayed accelerating quickly as fashionable, and therefore, promoted it in a positive light.

“Because the ad suggested that drivers could rapidly accelerate and travel at speed to ensure they would not be late, we concluded that the ad made speed and acceleration the main message of the ad.”

JLR was told that the ad must not appear again in its current form, and to ensure its ads did not make speed and acceleration the main message in future.