Moron of the century–new nomination in!

Readers will remember FOBIF’s occasional tilt at one of Australia’s weirdest windmills: the car commercial. We doubt whether the advertising industry will ever invent a more cretinous TV ad than AAMI’s attempt to persuade us that children should prefer to be driven to school rather than scoot along under their own power. Even so, we thought we’d offer Toyota Hilux as a genuine contender for the crown of worst commercial ever. You can find it here. It’s getting a good run in sports TV programs currently.

If you can struggle past the twee and rather queasy joke about the car being a beloved child, you’ll notice the usual images—the car being driven recklessly at the sea’s edge, for example:

Dumb and dumber: the current Hilux ad.

Many people will see this and think…Hang on: isn’t sea water pretty corrosive? Yes, it is. In fact, there’s a line in fine print below the image: ‘Pre-production model shown. Wash with fresh water immediately after salt water exposure.’ In other words: ‘Charge along the beach—then, rush home and spend a happy time washing the salt off your car!’

Such ads are completely at odds with the supposed advertising standards, but the Code of Practice and the Ad Standards Bureau are useless in controlling  them.Our reader Greg Jacobs, responding to this issue in 2019, summed it up pretty well:

‘The car ads are stupid in many ways -smashing thru the areas you have supposedly come to explore –you don’t camp on riverbanks re flood, mosquitoes, cold off the water. You don’t smash your way up a mountainside -proper 4 wheel drive clubs hate these types (RACV doesn’t answer to rolled vehicles on hillsides). You don’t drive to or park on the edges of cliffs–something to do with health and safety? You don’t drive beyond your capability nor your car’s capability –some vehicles promoted are heavy ,oversized tubs. You don’t speed thru forests on dirt roads– other suckers may be coming the other way and you may hit a tree or two when you hit the gravel.’