There were 44 complaints filed with the Jury on Ethical Practices in Advertising (JEP) following a February anti-speeding campaign from Brussels Mobility.
The complaints are in regards to a promotional video the campaign used, Bruzz reports, which showed three different drivers transforming into monsters while behind the wheel of a car.
“Driving fast can take on monstrous forms. Stay true to yourself. Drive slower,” was the campaign’s slogan, and people who filed complaints say it “stigmatises” motorists.
"Driving fast can take on monstrous forms." Credit: Bruxelles Mobilité
“In the video, motorists are depicted as dangerous monsters, blatantly violating speed limits, causing their passengers to panic. This is clearly outrageous stigmatisation of motorists,” said one complainant.
Complaints compared “stigmatising” of drivers to Nazi propaganda
Another complaint alleged that the video “makes motorists look like 'killers' who 'want harm and kill on the road'” and said they found “the language offensive, discriminatory, hateful.”
“The video is demeaning to motorists and an attack on my freedom to drive and my image as a wife and mother because it is portrayed by 'murder monsters',” one woman wrote in her complaint.
Another drew comparisons to Nazi propaganda: “This video is clearly intended to stigmatise motorists in a scandalous way, not unlike the anti-Semitic propaganda of the Nazis in the last century, and comes from an official organisation whose mission is to improve mobility in Brussels and treat all users equally.”
JEP rejected the complaints
The JEP rejected the argument that people who drive cars were discriminated against by the anti-speeding video in a similar way to Jewish people living under Nazi rule.
“It is legitimate, in these messages of prevention and awareness of excessive or inappropriate speed, to tackle the speed of motorists and to insist on the safety of children, who, as occupants of a car, are often victims of accidents,” reads the opinion published by the advertising watchdog.
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The jury found that the exceeding of the speed limit in the video is very clearly the reason for the comparison to “monsters,” rather than the fact that they are motorists, and the slogan indicates this.
According to the JEP, the campaign does not equate motorists with monsters, but simply denounces illegal behaviour.
“The campaign does not condemn the car in general, nor does it stigmatise motorists in relation to other road users, nor does it pit them against each other,” the JEP concluded.
