The ASA and philosophy- defining the duration of eternity!

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

I stumbled across a brochure for the new Micra the other day, and it said that the new Micra "is lighter and more agile than ever". Of course, we all know that this is bollocks. Since I was quite bored and had nothing to do, I found the K11 stats and compared them to the current model and, sure enough, the new one is much heavier. I e-mailed the Advertising Standards Authority (yes, you already know that I had been bored!) saying something along the lines of "alright, this may not exactly be the end of the world, but these people seem to be lying just for the fun of it".

 

Here is their reply- apparently, they have resolved a major philosophical question by defining eternity as a period lasting approximately 7 years.

Says a lot about our society...In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people actually agreed with that definition.

 

 

Dear Mr Luxo,

We have assessed the ad and your complaint but consider that there are insufficient grounds for ASA intervention on this occasion. We assess the content of ads and can act if they are, amongst other things, likely to cause significant harm, to mislead or to provoke serious or widespread offence. I understand you believe that the claim “lighter and more agile than ever†is misleading, because some previous models weighed less. While I appreciate your concern, we consider that most readers are likely to interpret the claim as creating a comparison with the previous model rather than Micras historically; as these are unlikely to be used as a comparison when buying a new car. Furthermore, we considered that in conjunction with the claim â€Âagileâ€Â, readers may interpret the claim as relating to the handling of vehicle, rather than weight alone. With this in mind we considered the ad unlikely to mislead most viewers to their detriment and for the ad to be in breach of the Code. For these reasons, we shall not be taking any further action.

[dollywobbler]

That made me laugh, though I don't agree with them!

[Richard]

The ASA are twats.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Someone less lazy than me post the SniffPetrol "fuck the ASA" spoof. It was from that period where MG's ads appeared to be actively provoking people into complaining about them. The highlight was after being chastised repeatedly for suggesting excessive speed using blur, putting out another ad where the car is speeding past a 'school' roadsign.

[Guest]

'Yet', not 'ever'!

 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

"It's lighter and more agile than yet" sounds even more wrong than the misleading statement.