Scion apologizes, pulls insensitive ad

Scion has apologized.

Scion has pulled an ad that referred to people riding bicycles as “obstacles.” The ad, which we highlighted on July 11th, had a fighting theme and the “King of the road” was its tC model sportscar.

Over the weekend, a reader pointed us to a blog post on Scion.com (which seems to be incorrectly dated to July 2nd), where the company addressed the concerns about the ad and announced its removal:

Scion sincerely apologizes to members of the bicycling community that might have been offended by a recent advertisement. It was certainly not our intention to do so as Scion has great respect for bicyclists. Scion is sensitive to your opinion and in response, has made the decision to remove the advertisement.

Your feedback is appreciated as it is through communications such as yours that we become aware of our customers’ expectations and reactions. It also provides us with valuable insight when developing future advertising strategies.

If you have any further questions or comments, call us toll free at 1-866-70-SCION, Monday-Friday 5am-6pm PST and Saturdays 7am-4pm PST.

Thank you for your interest in Scion.

We’re happy to see this ad pulled. There’s enough tension and anger between road users already. The last thing we need is a car company making it seem like some sort of game where the victory goes to the most aggressive and strongest player.

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Founder of BikePortland (in 2005). Father of three. North Portlander. Basketball lover. Car owner and driver. If you have questions or feedback about this site or my work, feel free to contact me at @jonathan_maus on Twitter, via email at maus.jonathan@gmail.com, or phone/text at 503-706-8804. Also, if you read and appreciate this site, please become a supporter.

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Anne Hawley
Anne Hawley
10 years ago

I’m delighted to have contributed to what must have been a deluge of negative feedback, astonished tweets, outraged re-blogs, etc. Scion did the right thing. Pulling the ad is one thing, but I’m also reasonably impressed with the wording of the apology.

Jeff
Jeff
10 years ago

Clearly they have great respect for bicyclists. Also for traffic cones and potholes.

anon1q2w3e4r5t
anon1q2w3e4r5t
10 years ago

I believe the reason for the incorrect post date is because they just swapped out the announcement for a new car model featured in that ad and replaced it with the apology.

Craig
Craig
10 years ago

This ad has not been pulled. I saw it on local broadcast TV last night.

A.K.
A.K.
10 years ago

Super annoyed by this ad, as one of the reasons I love my Scion is because I can fit my bike in the back without having to remove the wheels or use a stupid roof/trunk rack.

anon1q2w3e4r5t
anon1q2w3e4r5t
10 years ago
Reply to  A.K.

I removed the entire back seat of my car to fit my bike without having to remove the wheels. 🙂

borgbike
10 years ago

Is the ad gone forever from the internet? There should be a record of this somewhere.

A.K.
A.K.
10 years ago
Reply to  borgbike

Nothing is ever gone forever from the internet!

9watts
9watts
10 years ago

Ah, the political uses of the subjunctive:
“Scion sincerely apologizes to members of the bicycling community that might have been offended by a recent advertisement.”

I don’t think members of the bicycling community might have been offended; they were offended. Hard to imagine you, Scion, taking this step of pulling the ad if your wording were accurate. And you, Scion mgmt. *might* want to explain how you came to approve the ad in the first place; what the thinking was that suggested it was in good humor, or whatever.

q`Tzal
q`Tzal
10 years ago
Reply to  9watts

How about this odd ball theory:
Despite the reasonable assumption that the advertisement was written by a domestic ad company it is possible that final approval came from Toyota Corporate HQ overseas.
Anyone not from America might have a hard time understanding or believing the underclass status of anyone that uses a bicycle in America and thus might approve an advert that otherwise looks like normal USA machismo gone wild.

Matt
Matt
10 years ago

It always amazes me that a huge company like Toyota would want to piss anybody off. Why make enemies? At lest they did the right thing, finally.

q`Tzal
q`Tzal
10 years ago

JM:
I noted this on the 13th of July in your last article.
When I found the Scion blog I saw comments ranging back a few days before your first article. Of course I didn’t spend hours digging through the blog looking for fraud.

How are you determining that “JULY 2nd” is inaccurate?

q`Tzal
q`Tzal
10 years ago
Reply to  q`Tzal

A Google search of “2014 Scion tC “King of the Coupe” Commercial” constrained to 07/01/2013 through 07/03/2013 would seem to confirm that Scion launched their 1st insincere apology on 07/02/2013:
https://www.google.com/search?q=2014+Scion+tC+%E2%80%9CKing+of+the+Coupe%E2%80%9D+Commercial&client=ms-android-verizon&rlz=1Y3YOJM_enUS542US543&sa=X&ei=yzzxUYWCL4aMigLFroGICQ&ved=0CB4QpwUoBg&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A7%2F1%2F2013%2Ccd_max%3A7%2F3%2F2013&tbm=

grimm
grimm
10 years ago

I bet their ad company Attik is ANGRY. Hahaha.

Mont
10 years ago

Their apology was sincere,over a minor thing, seems like much ado about nothing. Even as a cyclist I have trouble finding anything to be upset about here.

Bici
Bici
10 years ago
Reply to  Mont

Then you’re clearly not thinking about the consequences of referring to cyclists as ‘obstacles’ – we operate on roads that are already bursting with rage and aggression, and ads like this only intensify that.

And I’d also question the ‘sincerity’ of an apology that does it’s upmost to shine the best light on the company, rather than actually taking full responsibility for their decision.