Globe and Mail - Fussy baby? Just put him on the dryer, furniture ad suggests
Why gently rock your baby to help him fall asleep and risk cramping your arms when you can simply put the wee one on top of a home appliance that will do the work for you?
In recent TV and radio commercials, a Quebec furniture and appliance chain suggested its dryers doubled as handy baby-calming devices (the vibrations could soothe junior into a pleasant slumber!).
“In the TV ad, you see Mum fold clothes, Dad is holding a crying baby,” describes Lisa Dutton, a media spokesperson for Montreal Children’s Hospital of the McGill University Health Centre. “He places the baby on a white machine that is jiggling. The baby stops crying. The camera cuts to a picture of a washer and dryer with the ad pitch. The implication is that the machine is so quiet and smooth it will calm a cranky child.”
“In the radio ad, the voice over says the dryer comes with a baby cycle.”
Afraid that parents would follow that dangerous suggestion, the Montreal Children’s Hospital of the McGill University Health Centre put out a release yesterday warning that trying the dryer trick is a bad idea. This morning, the furniture chain in question – Brault & Martineau – pulled the ad from the air.
