E.ON wind farm adverts banned

Ad watchdog rules that E.ON material promoting a proposed wind farm with pictures of smaller turbines was misleading
Tom Roberts
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 29 July 2009 07.39 BST

E.ON West Ancroft wind farm ads: illustrated with turbines from a separate wind farm
Energy giant E.ON has had a series of adverts promoting a proposed wind farm banned by the Advertising Standards Authority for "using misleading images".
E.ON distributed three pieces of illustrated promotional material to publicise a wind farm due to be constructed in West Ancroft, Northumberland.
The adverts were designed to encourage residents to attend a public exhibition about the development.
In one advert, E.ON used a picture of one of its wind farms in Cumbria to illustrate what the West Ancroft site would look like.
The turbines depicted were half the size of the those proposed for Northumberland.
But E.ON said: "The image provided no scale comparisons – for instance, vehicles or buildings, and was therefore not misleading as to the comparative size of the prospective turbines."
E.ON also stressed that the images were for "illustrative purposes only" and that "it was not the intention for them to be referred to as a depiction of how the West Ancroft wind farm would look like".
Another advert featured a photomontage, which E.ON said was intended to provide a general idea of what the West Ancroft site would look like. However, the photograph used was taken several kilometres from the proposed location.
Once again, the ASA deemed the advert misleading, saying that it did not convey the proposed wind farm's liekly "visual impact".
The ASA added that future promotional material needed to be "more representative" of the proposed developments.
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