FOBIF vs Suzuki: ho hum, what’s ‘self regulation worth’?

Here’s a brief follow up to our very modest victory over moronic TV advertising last week.

The Ad Standards community panel found that that the Suzuki ad depicted unsafe driving in a positive light: ‘the Panel considered that the depiction of the vehicle going over the large bump at a speed which caused its’ wheels to leave the road was a depiction which would constitute unsafe driving if it were to take place or a road or road related area.’

The company protested its innocence, but undertook to change its ad,  as follows: ‘While it was never our intention to portray any unsafe driving at any point during production of this TVC, we acknowledge the Panel’s findings and propose to edit both the 30 and 15 second TVCs to remove the scenes highlighted as depicting unsafe driving.’

Viewers of the telecast of the North Melbourne St Kilda AFL game yesterday afternoon will have seen the Suzuki ad. It had not been edited, and depicted the same qualities criticised by the panel. 

We’ve written to Ad standards asking them what the value of self regulation is, if it brings zero results.