A towering issue worth advertising

The big wheels in the UAE obviously believe in the power of advertising. How else to explain the relentless hype and media exposure on behalf of The Palm, the Burj Dubai and Emirates airline, for example, with their massive poster sites, roadside banners, bridge strips, gargantuan special installations and continuous press and TV advertising?

While much of it may not be enormously creative, the sheer investment in media ensures that the messages are coming through loud and clear.

One may be sure that these hard-nosed entrepreneurial organisations have analysed the costs and benefits of these investments and concluded quite rightly that they are money well spent.

Meanwhile, like the proverbial gorilla in the corner of the boardroom, one towering issue that is readily susceptible to change by media communication is ignored, despite being the number one topic of residents' stress, frustration, anger, fear and even death. Yet communication on this topic is virtually non-existent or hopelessly incompetent. I refer to the promotion of safer driving on the roads.

Bad driving causes an average of one death a day on Dubai's roads alone, plus many more injuries, all multiplied by the grief and suffering of the victims' relatives and friends.

The root causes of the atrocious driving on our roads are a mixture of ignorance, arrogance and a lack of imagination. All of these could and should be addressed by continuous campaigns of public service advertising to educate the public and change attitudes and behaviour.

Doing so is not rocket science. In other countries, decades of public service advertising on TV, radio, outdoor media and the press have helped create a driving culture that is significantly safer and less stressful than that of the UAE today.

So if the head of the newly established Dubai Roads and Transport Authority should approach me tomorrow and ask what should be done, what would be my advice?

Once he'd assured me that all existing road traffic laws would be enforced rigorously, regardless of social position and national origin, I would point out that he needs a substantial budget, and that the communication programme must continue for the distantly foreseeable future.

After appropriate research, I would spend some of his money on a manual of good driving practice, along the lines of the UK's 'Highway Code', that would be issued to all drivers and form the basis for a significant portion of success in the driving test. It would be produced in all the major languages of the UAE's driving population.

The big idea

Then I would set the fizzing brains of our creative teams to work, finding a big, multi-faceted idea to cut through the ignorance, complacency and self-delusion of many of our drivers.

This idea would be brought alive on TV, for the medium's capacity to dramatise movement and time within a few seconds. It would be reinforced by radio, for this medium's access to drivers while actually driving. Billboards and roadside posters would send starkly-distilled core messages to drivers. Press advertising would use its own peculiar capacity to engage and inform at greater length and with more complex argument, to bring the message home. Viral e-mails would be diverting enough to be forwarded from friend to friend. Car stickers with key messages would be freely distributed to any driver who cared to display them. In-taxi videos would congratulate drivers for taking a cab instead of taking the risk of drinking and driving. Websites would spread truths and debunk myths about safe driving.

While not exhaustive, these media channels would all reinforce and reiterate the core idea and, as incontrovertible evidence from other countries shows, improve standards of driving and, to put it bluntly, keep more of us alive. Now isn't that worth doing? I shall be sitting beside my phone until we get the call.

- The writer is the regional creative director of Saatchi & Saatchi.