By Leftlane Staff
Tuesday, Aug 8th, 2006 @ 9:45 pm

Remember that wacky Mercedes GL-Class TV ad we told you about back in May? It turns out the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus isn’t too happy about it. More to the point, the Council doesn’t like a scene in which a crash test sled is repelled after slamming into the side of the big SUV. While the ad features fine text that explains a real crash would result in significant damage, that isn’t good enough for the NAD. “NAD appreciates that humor can be an effective and creative means for an advertiser to highlight its product attributes and performance capabilities. However, humor does not relieve an advertiser of its obligation to support implied performance messages reasonably implied from humorous depictions,” the Council said in a statement. Mercedes, of course, disagrees. “It is farcical, and anyone seeing the spots can tell that it’s hyperbole,” said Donna Boland of Mercedes. “The typical consumer is smart enough to know that this is not a serious ad. We have received no customer calls on this ad.” In case you haven’t seen the ad, we have it after the jump for your viewing pleasure…

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