Sometimes I watch local TV channels hoping that it will help to keep me updated on current affairs, although most of things I learn after a tea break at Dawn Café, near the fish market.

I realized that TV Advertizing is fast growing in the Maldives (perhaps due to availability of more than one channel and competition amongst those). Through such TV Ads, various companies are using different approaches, techniques and talents “pass the message across” to their specific audience.

As a marketer, obviously, I am much keen on watching or listening to the details of those ads, hoping that I will be able to learn some new techniques or talents. The one thing I learned is that we don’t use Dhivehi Language in most of the Ads, but rather the messages are narrated in English Language.

I wonder why? And I asked a friend too. He immediately replied that those ads are targeted to English speaking/understanding audience who wouldn’t normally watch local TV channels. This doesn’t make sense, I said to him straight away. Because, as I see most of those who sit and watch local channels are mostly our parents or grandparents, who may or may not understand English and even if they did will not be the decision makers when it comes to buying a product or getting a specific service advertized. If this is the case, which I think is, the purpose of those creative advertisements are just useless and a waste of your marketing Rufiyaa.

Let’s keep the purpose of those Ads aside and think from a National perspective. English is our second language, but we hear many people who say; (mostly politi-cians) “we should be proud of our Nation and our own Language, which is Dhivehi, because it is unique and nowhere in this world is this language used, practiced or taught”.

So why not use this “unique tool” when marketing and advertising to the audience (buyers) of our Nation.