The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has censured an advertisement on Google for BMW claiming it produced, “zero emissions cars”.

The ASA challenged whether the claim misleadingly represented the vehicles’ environmental impact. And that it could be understood that consumers would interpret the ad as promoting BMW’s portfolio of electric cars and that those cars would produce zero emissions in all circumstances.

BMW replied that they were aware that when making claims about zero emissions in relation to BEV, an advertisement should make clear that it is only when driving, not in the lifecycle production or charging.

BMW (UK) said they had bid on terms such as ‘zero emission cars’ to target consumers who used such searches to find out information about battery electric vehicles (BEV). They said the term was inserted into the advertisement due to the automatic keyword feature in Google Ads. They were not aware that facility had been activated for those search results and it was only on receiving the complaint they discovered it.

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