Radio ads that drive me MAD

It’s no secret to anyone who lives in Dubai that the quality of radio ads here is abysmal.

Everything from buying a car or taking out a loan to conserving water seems to be acted out by a smug family of ignorant parents who’re inevitably educated by smart-alec children with terrible accents. Dialogue invariably runs along the lines of “Ooh, Ahmed, you are a clever boy! Mummy’s 42 and even she didn’t know you should turn the tap off while cleaning your teeth! / should have banked at X bank / should have bought Y car!”

Someone, please shoot them all now.

Anyway at present there’s one ad in particular that makes me want to throw a brick at the radio. It’s the one for the Arabian Radio Network (ARN) Business Club seminars.

I can’t quote it verbatim as I usually shout abuse over it, but it goes something along the lines of: “Every morning, thousands of mums in the UAE get up and feed their children a healthy breakfast of branded items bought from their chosen supermarket. They dress in clothes they’ve chosen from their favourite malls, get in a large SUV and drive the children to a well-researched school.”

I think it’s supposed to tell potential advertisers what a great target audience these mums are – so far, so good. Most mums do make most of the decisions regarding these matters: We are a great target audience.

But then it all goes wrong. “And during that whole hour,” the ad continues, “the chances are those mums will be listening to the radio.”

THAT WHOLE HOUR????

What mum in the UAE can wake the children, feed them breakfast, make their lunches, get them dressed, ready and out the door, drive the average 70km round-trip school run and be back in ONE HOUR?

Unless you’re one of the handful of debentured families that lives a stone’s throw from the local school, the school-run alone takes an hour, forget all the other bits.

The irony is, the ad is for a seminar that teaches “effective radio advertising.”

If you asked me, the number-one rule of effective radio advertising would be to understand your audience. But what would I know? I’m just a housewife.