ASA upholds complaints against Lexus over climate claims
Thu 25 September 2008
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The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ordered that press advertisements for the Lexus RX 400h were misleading and should not appear again. The Lexus advertisement stated that the vehicle was "Perfect for today's climate (and tomorrow's)...Driving the world's first luxury hybrid SUV makes environmental, and economic, sense." The Lexus RX 400h has CO2 emissions of 192g/km.
Four people had submitted challenges to the ASA over the Lexus advert. The complainants said that the adverts were misleading, because they implied that the car caused little or no harm to the environment and gave a misleading impression of the car's CO2 emissions in comparison with other vehicles.
Lexus said the headline was intended to operate on two levels and the word 'climate' was used to convey that the RX 400h was appropriate for the current economic market and suitable for today's environment. To support the economic claim, Lexus said that they were offering attractive finance packages on the RX400h.
Lexus argued that nowhere in the headline or body copy was there a claim stating that the vehicle caused little or no harm to the environment. They said the purpose of the ad was to educate readers that the Lexus RX400h was a hybrid SUV car that was more environmentally friendly than standard premium SUVs.
On receipt of the complaints Lexus said they had removed environmental claims from the advert.
The ASA ruled that Lexus' headline claim implied the vehicle's emissions were low regardless of category, and readers were likely to understand from it that the car caused little or no harm to the environment which was not the case. The ASA concluded that the ad was likely to mislead and said that it must not appear again in its current form.
Earlier this year, the ASA published a report detailing the findings of a stakeholder consultation seminar entitled ‘Environmental Claims in Advertising: Is Green a Grey Area?’. The ASA used the seminar to engage with industry, environmental and consumer groups in establishing where problems arise and setting parameters for environmental and ethical claims. The event was held in response to rising concern over what consumers and campaigners see as ‘greenwash’.
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