Here's an interesting viewpoint on the NO vote

"... but pressure the manufacturers to make 4x4s tough enough to do what they advertise for extended periods.
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But they arent, they are all becoming plastic.... Lots more issues with computers than there ever were before... bleep ty Diffs, gearboxes, computers, IFS, etc.. its all good for bush travelling? Maybe for what 99% of them end up as - Taxis its all good...

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... most people don't realise that these vehicles are completely different to their off-the-shelf model and a few million dollars more expensive...
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Sad fact isnt it...

The point remains that they may well encourage irresponsible driving and then it comes back and bites us all on the bum.
What we don't need is the "do-gooder" lobby getting areas closed off.
Maybe less 4WDs on the road will be good for us in the future. Less crowding off-road as well?? I can't wait for the 4WD fashion to end or at least level out.
Tuckster is probably correct about the "softness" of future 4WDs.
So I vote yes.
Oskar
The real oskar

Safety first , sorry but I find the statment 'there would be less business for us all'
with less 4x4 on the road shocking is he putting the $ before human life ? why not some kind of warning at least in the add regarding footage shown is under controled conditions and all drivers in ads are trained test drivers I know its not much but it may make someone think before they try some of the stunts shownBorn to drive a 4x4 , not a keyboard
Peter York 4x4

Robs' reasoning for the NO vote is less than 2 bobs worth.

I wonder wether the ads really sell that many more 4x4's?

The main concern here is it the ads portray some kind of recklessness and that this is the way you are a able to drive your vehicle without any repercussions. Like the stupid Nissan X-trail ad. Or the Ford Explorer ad from a while back or for that matter the Mitsubishi ads. Comparing the ads using rally cars in a controlled environment against reckless driving in 4x4's is not an acceptable premise.

Willem

Always going somewhere

robs excuse would have to be one of the stupidest things ive seen in a while.
its going to be bad for buisness. why dosnt he open a funeral parlor so when people see theese cars doing unreal things and go try it because they seen the happy family doing it on the add then get killed because there car really cant climb up the side of a mountain.i dont think his two bob is worth 2cents.
ps i can get hold of some tyres no speed rating or load rating but i can make $60 profit each instead of $30 for legal ones.
im only joking about the tyres just showing about putting money in front of safety.
any fourby owner that buys maps from hema ect usually know what a vehicle is capable of doing any way and are going to but them maps/bull bars/tow bars ect any way
pretty bad buisness when profit comes before lifes.
can any one recomend another company who make maps

Hey guys - don't shoot down everyone that doesn't agree with this. However, keep their reasoning in mind for how differently the same thing is seen by different people and think about constructive ways in which we can suggest to the ad agencies that they should be promoting vehicles.

Don't for a minute think that you can't have your own opinion here - why else do you think I would post Rob's idea here, certainly not to set him up for a flogging.

I thought that in posting this it would show how other people might see it from the NO vote, but don't abuse them or their businesses for their right to an opinion please, else we run the risk of not being able to run fair polls that genuinely get thought stimulation on the FOR/AGAINST debate.ExplorOz

Michelle

Cigarette advertising was designed to attract the widest audience possible by making it cool, despite all the downside of smoking. After all, who said the manufacturer or advertising company had to have a conscience?

This forum appears to attract a very responsible group of four-wheel drivers who are concerned that we are portrayed as such. The poll you conducted shouts that out loud and clear.

These ads do no more than confirm the suspiscions of those dead against for-wheel drivers, and equally attract an element that will know no better that these vehicles should be treated with respect; not run through the surf at speed, seemingly with little regard for the vehicle, environment or others.

Lets not kid ourselves, this advertsing is designed to appeal and bears little resemblance to the reality of four-wheel driving.

I'm dissppointed by the Hema man's viewpoint, as it appears to have been driven by little more than the almighty dollar, but such is his entitlement to make it.

Landie

bugger

It seems to me that the major problem is the fact that the manufacturers who use this form of advertising are mostly selling "soft roaders" and passing them off as legitimate 4x4's. True 4wdrivers know that these vehicles are not designed for the torture that is shown on the ads, but the sucker in the city who buys them thinks he has bought a bomb-proof tank! I don't want to name names, but we have all seen ads with awd's passed off as 4x4's and seen the same vehicles up to their necks in sand or mud, or hanging high and dry on a rocky outcrop because some poor soul has tried to do what he saw on the ad for his "4x4".
I think it's about time the manufacturers were made to differentiate between the soft roaders (north shore holdens) and the legitimate 4x4's.
Perhaps the government could do it for them by only allowing the reduced import duty to apply to legitimate 4x4's instead of anything the manufacturer decided to make all wheel drive. The reduction was introduced to benefit people who needed the additional capacities provided by a legitimate 4x4, but the manufacturers have used it as a back door to get their luxury vehicles into the country cheaply. I wonder what the sales figures would be for the ML320 or the X5 if people had to pay the normal import duty on them! I recently saw the ML320 in a showroom in Paris and the price was dearer than the E320. According to the red book the 4x4 is $50,000 cheaper in Australia!!

Tessa

Careless people in 4 wheel drives, drive carelessly the ads dont drive the cars or make people drive like that. Really how many people see the ad and say im going to go out now and do that i dont know of anyone. Im not saying dumb stuff doesnt get done by the "careless" 4x4 driver it does but its definatly not the blame of the ads. People are to quick to shift the blame maybe they should just accept responsibility for there own actions. Plus they will only do it once and after they get the repair bill for flying over bumps theyll be too broke to go out for the next 6 months.
Thats my less than 2 bobs worth.
Guy

Well at the risk of being the odd one out, I haven't yet voted because I'm still undecided on this issue. Firstly, television advertising has been around so long now that viewers are generally considered to be fairly "sophisticated" and somewhat "innured" to over-the-top claims made by advertisers. This applies not only to TV but other forms of advertising. This is precisely the reason that advertisers make the type of ads that are the subject of this debate...they have to visually exciting to attract our attention.

I mean honestly, how often do you believe an ad that says something like "the best XXX around" etc??? Take Mitsubishi for instance...as pointed out above, many of their Pajero ads have for years revolved around the slogan "X time winner of the Dakar(?) rally" with a bit of footage thrown in. But if you believe my first example about a manufacturer claiming their product is the "best" or you believe that you can buy an off-the-shelf Paj and head outback at rally pace without damaging your vehicle then I'd say you're a bloody idiot. Sure we've all heard stories about someone who got into strife because they DID believe what they've heard so obviously there are a lot of dills out there. But at the end of the day, these folk obviously failed to do their homework. At what point do people begin to take responsibility for themselves and their actions instead of pointing the finger of blame at someone else??? Personally I'm sick to death of this "it's everyone else's fault but mine" mentality that seems to be creeping into our society.

The only issue that I can give credence to against these type of ads is that they do promote the wrong perception of 4WDrivers. Most of us here know that rather than being weekend warrior, bush bashing, environmental vandals, those of us who love the freedom our 4WD's give us to get out into the bush are in fact quite the opposite. We're out there because we truly love and care for the environment and no way would we in anyway damage what we consider to be our backyard.

Having said that though, if you take away the greenies who are anti-anything but completely locking away our natural wonders except maybe to hikers, from what I've seen the average non-4WD owner man on the street's dislike of 4WD's seems to stem from them being used as "shopping trolleys". I personally have been tackled a few times by people making this very accusation. Once I point out that we do actually use our 4WD for getting out bush, most people seem to respect that.

I believe that the real problem lies with 4WD owners who never take their 4WD off the bitumen. If they opted instead for a nice family sedan I suspect the anti-4WD brigade would fade away because the number of 4WD's on the road would drop dramatically. There is no question that 4WD's are big and expensive both to buy and run so why anyone would buy one unless they intended to use it beats the heck out of me but they do. (I personally know 3 people driving 4WD's who have never and have no intention of ever taking them off-the-road! They just drive 'em around the city.)

Since those people I refer to above don't plan on ever going off-road, they obviously aren't purchasing their 4WD's because they believe advertisers claims about climbing mountains or racing across the Simpson...So I sincerely doubt that changing the type of advertising is going to have any effect on the numbers of 4WD's on the road and hence, the anti-4WD feeling out there among many non-4WD owners.

No doubt others will disagree with me but that is my view.

:o) Melissa
Petrol 4.5L GU Patrol &
Camprite TL8 offroad camper
http://members.westnet.com.au/flatdog

gday all
just to add more fuel to the fire,what rob say has a small amount of truth in that if you want some thing to last along time you have to give it a $$$ value the bigger the $$ value the harder it is to get rid of (ie Smoking, drugs ect.) so to follow this to its logical conclusion the more people driving 4wd vehicles the harder it will be to send us into extinction, the down side of this is that we must then grab all these people that buy 4wd based on this advertising type campain & re-educate them to the right way of doing it, so the true question should be how do we ballance the benifits of high proflie advertising against the negitive impact they have on peoples behavour. as to accountabilty of the motor companies to them this will only become an issue when the warrenty claims directly atributed to the advertising begin to out strip the sale benifits of the ads or they are held legal responsable for the actions of some nit wit who is hurt trying to copy the ads.

before u ask do i support these ads the answer is no
do they benifit we 4wders at base level yes & no
do i think there are better ways to advertise yes the best ad i have seen for 4wds is the jeep ad with the jeep driving thruogh the bush only to stop at a flower & the vioce over saying at jeep this is a stop sign. did this ad work it didnt last long so maybe not
regards Bruce

Poor Rob, you and people who think like you are sad cases indeed.
With Govt. funded graphic adverts with emphasis on safer driving practices targeting the young in particular, shouldn't responsible community members expect there to be a consistent, responsible safety standard in ALL motor vehicle advertising ?
There are obviously too many in the community who have not witnessed the horror of motor vehicle tragedy and its sad,sad trauma on immediate families, ambulance, firefighters, police and medical staff who unavoidably have to confront this reality.
The glossy advertising depicting morons pushing the safety limits whilst seemingly oblivious to the possibility of something untoward occurring, even another road user, on the road/track , are sending the wrong messages to our young inexperienced and older tryhard adults. Humans using motor vehicles recklessly and unsafely in the pathetic belief their exhuberant , grandstanding performance behind the wheel compensates for low self esteem should not be encouraged.
Motor vehicle tragedy is not glamorous.

How about we create a list of the ads that we feel are inappropriate - with a brief reason why. Can someone start with a specific ad and lets pick em to pieces...
(I note that the ad for a 2wd, can't remember, was jealous so it jumped off the cliff - it has now been remade - it was a shoker, giving the message that an acceptable response to jealousy was to commit suicide, now they just beep horns)...funny how the power of influential advertising with this one was quickly acted upon...

I think we've all aired views and have a good grasp of the issues now lets get to specifics.ExplorOz