ASA upholds complaints over 'green' claims for Citroen C4
Fri 02 November 2007
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The Advertising Standards Authority has ruled that an advertisement for the Citroen C4 should not appear again in its current form. Viewers had challenged the advertisement's claim that the C4 was the lowest CO2 producer 'in its class' at 120g CO2/km.
Viewers contacted the ASA to complain that the Citroen C4 was of a similar class to other vehicles - including the Toyota Prius, Renault Megane Hatchback and the BMW1 - but, in fact, produced slightly higher CO2 emissions than the 'best in class'.
In response, an agency working on behalf of Citroen said that in order to determine class in a meaningful and valid way, it was essential to include not only size but also gearbox type and fuel type.
In upholding the complaints, the ASA noted that the DfT's 'Act On CO2' website, used by both the advertiser and by complainants, stated that they were adopting the car classification system used by the 'What Car?' website. This divides cars into classes such as 'supermini', 'estate', 'family' and 'executive'. The Citroen C4 was classed as a 'small family' car on that site. The Citroen C4 ranked fifth for CO2 emissions in this category.
The ASA had upheld an earlier complaint against Citroen for a national press advertisement for a Citroen C5 VTX which claimed it produced "ultra low 142g CO2/km". The ASA ruled that the advert should not appear again in its current form. (See news link) Other companies, including Toyota, have also recently had complaints against their advertising upheld by the ASA.
The ASA acknowledged that if the search was refined by gearbox and fuel type, the Citroen C4 did rank lowest for CO2 emissions when compared only with other small automatic diesel family cars. Overall, however, the ASA considered that viewers would understand the claim 'the lowest in its class' to refer to a comparison with all vehicles in the 'small family' car class, not only those vehicles with automatic gearboxes and diesel engines, and concluded that the advert could mislead.
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