Toyota SUV ads banned in UK for disregard of ‘impact on nature’

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Veronica Wignall, a co-director at Adfree Cities, said: “These adverts epitomise Toyota’s total disregard for nature and the climate, by featuring enormous, highly polluting vehicles driving at speed through rivers and wild grasslands.”

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The UK advertising watchdog has banned two Toyota adverts for condoning driving that disregards its environmental impact in a landmark ruling, stating that the SUV ads had been created without “a sense of responsibility to society”. It is the first time the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has blocked an SUV advert on the grounds of breaching social responsibility in an environmental context. The regulator barred two ads, first released in a 2020 campaign: a poster and a video shown on social media, where dozens of Toyota Hilux cars drive across off-road terrain, including a river, while a voiceover describes the scene as “one of nature’s true spectacles”. The vehicles then join a road and drive through an urban area, before a lone car enters a driveway, with the voiceover continuing: “Toyota Hilux. Born to roam.” The poster shows two SUVs in the foreground, followed by a swarm of others traversing a rocky terrain over a cloud of dust. The complaint was lodged by Adfree Cities, a network of groups trying to get advertising out of public spaces. They argued, in partnership with the UK campaign group Badvertising, that the adverts condoned environmentally harmful behaviour, and are calling for an end to advertising of high-carbon products and services. The ASA ruled that the adverts “condoned the use of vehicles in a manner that disregarded their impact on nature and the environment … they had not been prepared with a sense of responsibility to society”.

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