A farewell to flyers, our alternate gum wrappers

A farewell to flyers, our alternate gum wrappers

Pesky flyers (like the ones RTA uses!) will soon be banned. You know what they say: innovation comes from limitation, or something like that.

June 15, 2011 4:20 by kippreport

Don’t you just hate it when you come home, open the door and find yourself stepping on printed (in some cases, handwritten) flyers for ‘spa’ shops, laundry services and grocery store discounts? What about when you’re approaching your car and you find your windshield wiper has become a file cabinet for ‘DJ party’ flyers and credit card brochures?

Well fret no further. Apparently starting July 15 advertisement stickers on parked cars and slipped under doors will be banned. Companies found to be doing so after the date will be fined, according to an Emirates 24/7 article.
“The crackdown on cheap advertising is part of a new anti-littering campaign to be launched next month. The civic body would start fining the culprits from July 15,” Abdul Majeed Abdul Aziz Al Sifai, Director, Waste Management Department, Dubai Municipality was even quoted in an article in Khaleej Times article.
Cheap advertising, eh? Well Kipp hopes RTA gets the memo because last year it ran what Kipp admits is a very creative campaign that involved fake sunny-side up eggs placed on thousands of car hoods across Dubai as part of a campaign to encourage car owners to use the Dubai Metro.
The eggs were printed on palm-sized cards and mounted on magnets. It had a small message that read: “It’s a cool 20°C on the Metro”.
“We’re trying to get a key message across in a different way,” Peyman Younes Parham, the director of the Roads and Transport Authority’s corporate marketing department told The National.
So looks like RTA will have to find different ways to catch people’s attention. How about the more customary SMS route? Or maybe a billboard? (after all, the outdoor sector needs the financial boost)
Or they could just face the music and continue to try creative, attention-grabbin campaigns at the cost of a Dh500 littering fine or a Dh200 fine for sticking bills and posters in public.