These advertisements sometimes evoke feelings of both surprise and strangeness. Most often, they are published in contravention of the general norms that are to be strictly observed in the industry.
The Ministry of Culture and Information recently warned against the social and security risks of such advertisements, according to a report in Al-Eqtisadiah business daily.
Some of these advertisements read, “Seeking job of a family driver in the evening,” “Saudi youth willing to work as masseur,” and “Seeking SR1.5 million in investment with a promise of annual return of SR700,000.” Some others offer jobs for women with attractive salaries and no work. One individual advertised that he is seeking someone to do home deliveries of breakfast with a condition that the food shall be cooked at home and not at any restaurants.
These advertisements make the readers confused and suspicious. Some of these advertisers are honest in their offering while some others resort to placing these ads in pursuit of means to earn an additional income. Some others who want to be engaged in jobs in their free time give ads offering to work as family driver.
The Ministry of Culture and Information recently issued a circular banning placement of ad insertions from both Saudi and expatriate private vehicle owners. The ministry noted that some newspapers were still carrying some of these ads and warned that such activities are in violation of the law.
These types of advertisements are a new phenomenon in Saudi society. In the past, most ads were in conformity to the general norm that advertising content, targeting the public, must have safe, secure and healthy elements.
On the contrary, most of the ads at present carry some sort of ambiguity and mystery.
Some of these ads are strange enough and readers are suspicious of even their credibility.
As a result of these, there has been substantial change in the attitude of people. Earlier, many people, especially job-seekers, viewed these ads as credible, but now such ads lack credibility and so people go through them with cynicism. They witness incidents showing that many unscrupulous people provide ads to realize their evil goals.
