"Reckless" Larry Crowne Poster Fined £25,000 in Spain

You can argue that the box office gross for the rom-com movie Larry Crowne by Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts was so low that it's criminal.

But it's the movie's promotional poster that's actually illegal, at least in Spain:

The poster, which shows Roberts and Hanks riding without protective headgear, was in violation of Spain's strict traffic rules, which ban "any publicity, in print, audio or video that may incite excessive speed, reckless driving, situations of danger or any other circumstance involving conduct contrary to the principles of the law".
ThinkSpain said the makers of the film had been fined more than £25,000 for the breach.

Link

This is why car advertising in Europe is so bloody dull these days. Most car advertising tends to be EU wide and so the adverts have to comply with the rules in all the member states. So basically you're not allowed to show anybody having fun in a moving car.

Of course this means that advertising companies do get the oportunity to be creative, but that probably doesn't sell cars. Everybody who saw it loved the car advert with the kid dressed as Darth Vader, but I doubt many can remember which car it advertised.

So what we tend to get are mostly generic dull videos of a car driving around town, mostly moodilly lit at night. The car usually has a numberplate made up of reversible characters (I, M, V, 0, etc) so that the same footage can be used in countries where they drive on the left (UK and Malta). And the voice over is generally more to do with prices and finance than it is to do with the car itself.

Thanks Spain.