Advertising cars in the Netherlands?

Although in advertising many car manufacturers nowadays focus more on a certain lifestyle around a car and less on specs, elements such as engine power, acceleration and speed remain appealing and popular with marketeers. 

In the Netherlands, there is the special (self-regulation based) Advertising Code for Passenger Cars in place, which pertains to advertising for new passenger cars. The purpose of this Code is to align car advertising with government policies on road safety, environment and energy-saving. 

We want to highlight Article 1 of this Code, as in decisions of the Advertising Code Committee we see that the obligations following from this Article are often not complied with.
 

Article 1 provides the following:

1) If engine power is communicated in advertising, this always needs to be done in kilowatts (kW). 

So only mentioning horsepower (hp) and/or torque (Nm) is insufficient and thus non-compliant with the Code. Mentioning both kW and hp/Nm is fine.

2) In advertising, speed, acceleration and engine power may not be used as arguments for promoting a car.

This implies that these elements of speed, acceleration and engine power must be used in a mere factual and neutral manner. 

In numerous decisions, the Committee has ruled that car manufacturers and other car advertisers are in violation with their advertising. For example, the Committee ruled that the following advertising claims from Opel violated the Code, because speed, acceleration and engine power are used here as arguments to promote the car:

• “When you step on the gas pedal and feel the instant torque under your right foot, it's like you're flying”
• “That equates to 150 horsepower, allowing the Ampera to accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in about nine seconds and reaches a top speed of 160 km/h”
• “The acceleration of the Ampera's 150 hp electric motor is comparable to that of a powerful 6-cylinder 250-hp turbodiesel.”

And regarding Lexus, the following expressions also violated the Code according to the Committee:

• “The hybrid combination of a 3.5-liter V6 gasoline engine and a powerful electric motor produces a whopping 345 horsepower.”
• “345 hp that lets you accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in 5.9 seconds”

Claims regarding speed, acceleration and engine power appear to be widespread and market practice. And, although the rationale of the Code is understandable, we consider that the rule on speed, acceleration and engine power goes rather far and that a too strict application of the Code is undesirable, and could potentially conflict with freedom of speech. The Code may need an update to better reflect the current automotive landscape, because in some cases the mere mentioning of speed, acceleration and engine power can in itself potentially qualify as sales argument. 

Until any update happens, it is important - in order to avoid issues in this regard - to keep these rules in mind. Because not complying with the Code can have real consequences, for instance taking down an expensive marketing campaign, in order to be compliant.