Award-Winning Ad Taken Off Air In Australia

bol_kernal writes "An award-winning advertisement on Australian TV for the new Hyundai 4WD has been pulled from being broadcast after stations received 80 complaints from concerned parents. The ad consists of a small child, age around 2 years, cruising down the road, window down, arm out the window, in his new Hyundai 4WD. He sees a girl of the same age standing on the side of the road, pulls over picks her up, and they go to the beach together. All in all it's cute, funny, and very well done. The ad aired late in the evening (8:30 pm or later), but it was pulled due to concern from parents about the copycat risk. What I want to know is, where has the responsibility of parents gone? Is the world becoming so serious — or so frightened — that fantasy is no longer allowed?"

Irony...

[debest]

... that the article is accompanied by a Flash ad for Hyundai, featuring the exact same kid from the ad that was pulled.

Obvious flaw

[mainform]

How on earth is a toddler going to reach the accelerator and brake pedals in any regular car, let alone a 4WD, whilst being strapped in to the driver's seat, especially given there's no way he could have been able to see over the dash board without sitting on a cushion or something?

Re:Obvious flaw

[skelly33]

All it takes is a toddler with the idea that "releasing the parking brake would be fun" to cause a problem. But paranoia will not make the world "safe" for children. The world, and Universe on whole, is a hostile place and parents need to come to grips with that and, as a previous poster mentioned, take responsibility for teaching common sense themselves. I say down with the easily offended.

Re:I for one am glad it's gone...

[AGMW]

What if more people now complained that the Ad had been removed? Would they have to start running it again?

Re:I am deeply concerned about those ads ...

[ACDChook]

Personally I think that they should have tracked down every one of those 80 complainants and removed their children from their care. If they feel that they are unable to prevent their kids from copying something like that off tv, then they are obviously not providing a safe environment in the home, and should not be allowed to continue raising their children.

Re:Things are way out of hand

[Gordonjcp]

Why don't other people get this? Don't want to see it? Turn it off. Don't want the kids to see it? Turn it off.

That's a very good point, and the line that I take with stuff on TV I find offensive. However, it's not that this is offensive - what we have is the *exact opposite* of all those public safety films that we grew up with saying "Don't get into cars with strangers". You remember this [youtube.com] don't you?

Having actually seen the add..

[node159]

Having actually seen the add I can tell you that the presentation made me want to go shoot some babies, honestly, I'm glad its off the air, pity it wasn't for the right reasons (Cute enough to want to make me scratch your eyes out obscenity). As for the actual reason, there was something in the presentation that made it not right, and yes I can just see some 4 year old grabbing mumies keys while she is topping up the Prozac, and attempting to have some 4 wheel fun.

Pity they don't let evolution run its course now days...

This never got complaints in NZ

[Anonymous Coward]

This advertisment never got any complaints in New Zealand. It was designed for NZ and I would assume they started playinng it in australia after it won the NZ Fair Go Top Advertisment award.

Here the only complaint we ever got was the fact that it got boring after you saw it for the first time and they wouldnt stop playing it.

There is truth in The Onion

[myowntrueself]

Its high time that the sterling advice to be found on The Onion were taken more seriously by parents:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/child_safety_ experts_call_for [theonion.com]

Kenneth McMillan is a hero of the American People!!!

There IS actually a risk . . .

[brain_not_ticking]

Everyone laughs that parents are concerned about a copycat risk, but let me be the first to say that this risk is real. At the age of two I managed to get a hold of my mother's car keys. I decided I would do her a favor and start the car for her. Lucky for me, the car had a manual transmission and happened to be in gear. So as soon as I started the car, it slowly began to drive down the street. I wasn't quite strong enough to turn the wheel, so I soon found myself headed straight for a telephone pole. I got scared so I tried to stand on the pedals (at the time I didn't know which was which). After a couple of tries, I managed to find the brake. The car stalled about a yard away from the telephone pole. Oh, and did I mention, my baby sister was in the back of the car, in her car seat? Well, she was. Anyway, neither I nor my sister were hurt, but we easily could have been. Some children are already a handful; they don't need any more ideas. NB: this is a true story.

Re:hmmmm - correction

[steveoc]

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,21170425-421, 00.html?from=public_rss [news.com.au]

The incident is pretty recent - 22 days ago. Sorry, it wasnt her dad - it was a bunch of way-too-young kids who persuaded some local bloke (bit of a slow character by the sounds of it), to let everyone jump in the hilux and go for a yippe ride round the dirt roads.

We are talking about a 14yo driver and other kids aged as young as 13.

Very similar to what happens in the advert - except without the slow bloke, and the kids in the story have 10 years on the kids in the advert.

This story was graphically posted all over the news for several days running, so it was probably really bad timing on Hyundai's part to play this advert at this time.

Other than that, our advertising standards in Australia are delightfully liberal, and I dont think this story really reflects that reality. Just take the headline in some context and you'll be right mate.

Re:Explain to a two year old?

[MrHops]

I know you this was meant to be funny, but it hits a little close to home. For all of you who think you have your kids under control, I offer this true story:

Our 2 1/2 year old, in the space of about five minutes (or less) managed to get the keys from the hook where we keep them (about 5' from the floor), crawl through the doggie door into the garage, chirp the car open (keyless entry), get into the car and start it up. Our first warning was the engine starting, at which point we ran into the garage to see him extremely happy, with hazard lights and windshield wipers going to beat the band.

Very unsettling.

Luckily for us, he understands and obeys us when we absolutely forbid something. (Playing with power tools, going near the road, starting the car, starting the tractor, etc)

For those of you ready to flame me for my lack of preparedness, I keep the circuit breaker for the power tools off, the keys to the car and tractor are on hooks (in different places) at least 5' from the ground, I have put up a 4' no-climb fence around our yard, and generally keep the house reasonably safe. The main problem is that the use of stools and ladders present little difficulty to this adventurous inquisitive child. :-)