Health And Safety Gone Mad

Tuesday, 30. November 2010

: Image via Wikipedia

Nissan ad execs must have been chuckling to themselves when they came up with the theme for their sports cars, the 370Z and the GT-R. They decided to take on the Germans, poking fun at their acceleration speeds, pointing out that the Z was faster than Audi, BMW and Porsche rivals. The posters read ‘Deutschland Deutschland Uber Rated’ while a blurred 370Z moved across the screen on Web ads. However, health and safety felt they would poke their nose into this bit of fun after eight people complained to the Advertising Standard Agency (ASA) that the adverts were racist. Yes, you read that correctly, 8 people complained. Whilst the ASA decided that the ads weren’t racist, they decided to look into the question as to whether the ads broke the rules on speed? Which incidentally no one had complained about. In the opinion of the ASA the message was that the Nissan had faster acceleration, they therefore concluded that the acceleration claim was in breach of their code. This means the advert cannot be run in the same format. Heard anything so ridiculous? Look you idiots – it’s a bit of fun. By Graham Hill