The commercial takes the viewer along the busy life of the mother and her partner juggling young children through a frenetic domestic day culminating in the woman behind the wheel of her Volvo.
She looks tired and appears to be falling asleep at the wheel. As the car edges towards the oncoming lane the Volvo’s lane keeping assist kicks in and takes the car back on the correct side of the road with the woman suddenly aware of the onrushing of a car in a near miss.
Text on the screen says: “ The car that looks after you, like you look after others.”
The complaint on which Ad Standards acted said: “This is disturbing and will lead to people driving when tired and relying on technology to save them.
“Driving tired is as bad as driving drunk – this ad does not meet community standards. It goes against the TAC warnings of not driving when tired or having a power nap if you are tired.
“The commercial is telling people they can rely on a technical feature of a car to help them stay in their lane if they drift while falling asleep… The ad infers it is OK to drive tired (there is a small written disclaimer on the screen). Statistically tired drivers make up 20 per cent of all fatal crashes.”
Volvo Car Australia replied in part: “The advertisement’s focus is not to depict fatigue driving or any in any way condone it. Volvo Cars places safety at its core and has built a worldwide reputation for so doing.
“The focus is rather to illustrate by depicting everyday scenes of the realities of caring for a young family, that the XC60 is a safe vehicle which looks after them and their family and is for everybody’s safety. The advertisement in fact shows how dangerous it can be to drive when you are tired, or for some other reason drop your gaze from the roadway for a short time, and how easily an accident can occur.
“This is also precisely why the warning, which is shown in the context of the sequence, emphasises that the driver is always responsible for driving the vehicle.”
The Ad Standards report said that its panel “considered that the woman is seen to be displaying a level of fatigue which would inhibit safe driving.
“The panel considered that the depiction of the woman was consistent with the depiction of people in community awareness commercials aimed to highlight the dangers of driving while fatigued and it would be a depiction of a substantial degree of exhaustion.
“The panel considered that the advertisement depicted the woman losing focus and steering to the wrong side of the road, and that the features of the vehicle were what prevented an accident from occurring.
“The panel noted that it is reasonable for the advertisement to highlight an important safety feature of the vehicle, however considered that there are ways this could have been advertised without depicting someone driving while being apparently fatigued.
“The panel determined that the advertisement did portray a person driving while being apparently fatigued.”
Volvo Car was ordered to remove or modify the offending segment of the commercial.
However the panel, while viewing the TVC, also spotted that in the scenes depicting the hectic family life there was a scene in which the mother appears to turn her back on a baby on a changing table and Volvo Car was pinged for that as well even though no member of the public had complained about it.
Ad Standards said: “The panel noted the scene near the start of the advertisement where there is a baby crying on the change table, with the parents standing away from it while the mother hands another baby to the father.
“The panel noted that the Child Accident Prevention Foundation of Australia recommends constant supervision for infants while on change tables, noting that ‘injuries usually occur when a carer turns or moves away from the table to get something. Babies can fall when you least expect it. Shocked carers often report that the baby usually lies quietly and has never rolled over before the accident.’
“The panel noted that the father’s back is turned away from the baby, and that he is distracted by taking the other child. The panel considered that while this may be reflective of everyday practice in busy households, advertisers should take care to demonstrate best practice when it comes to infant safety.
“The panel noted that although the infant is quite young and may not be capable of rolling over yet, leaving a baby unsupervised on a change table would be considered unsafe by most members of the community and contrary to advice on the safe use of change tables.”
The panel considered “that the advertisement contained material contrary to prevailing community standards on health and safety”.
Volvo Car said it would remove the TVC from broadcast and modify the offending scenes.
By John Mellor
