Tuesday, December 23, 2008

"Return to Dubai Airport Free Zone Authority Station please"

Snappy name isn't it, for one of the Metro stations.

What about Sharaf DG Station.

And GGICO Station.

Mr Mattar Al Tayer, Chairman of the Board and Executive Director of the RTA, is quoted as saying these are: "...national projects and will preserve the national identity. We will not give up the national identity for money."

Just so.


The fascinating list of station names is in the Gulf News story, here.

6 comments:

hemlock said...

trying to read and understand gulf news hurts my head. sometimes it even destroys my will to live.

Anonymous said...

hemlock, I've lost the will and energy to question such reports... sometimes I'm even too exhausted to roll my eyes. "We will not give up the national identity for money." - You should have thought about that when you openend your doors to hundreds of thousands of expatriate workers, welcomed them in the UAE because they would do the work you weren't willing or capable of doing. Surprise Surprise: They're back-tracking again!

The Ego said...

Saw a similar post on Dubai Consumer Mirror ... hmmmm...

"The RTA has kept in place a stringent mechanism for controlling participating brands to prevent any overuse or excessive commercial exploitation"
Uhuh.

Seabee said...

D I'll be surprised if only two of us have posted about this. It's a topical story, we have very strange Metro station names, the comments and the actions are in conflict...I'm sure there are more bloggers talking about it.

Alexander said...

National Paints got the naming rights to its roundabout for free.

What are they worth to a brand? The connotation with NP R/A is frustration, upset and annoyance. Did that stop us buying the paint? No.

So is the obverse true? Yes. These station names have no value at all and we'll just call 'em what we want to in the end...

Seabee said...

I suspect you're right Alexander. The old naming rights were given to things (such as National Paints Roundabout, Defence Roundabout, Fish Roundabout etc) by us to help us locate places. The same will probably happen to these stations, travellers will call them by their location rather than the official name. (Who calls Jumeirah Road by its name? It's Beach Road to everyone I know).

What's the value to the brand? As you well know it's easy to annoy people by bad, inappropriate or overly intrusive advertising and that annoyance adversely affects the brand. This could well go down that track.