[twitter]Easter Island is the most remote island in the world.

Stand on the beach and you are staring at the longest expanse of ocean between land on the planet. I went there in 2009 with Team Diabetes to run a marathon, and while I was there I Skyped my son (picture above). I was as far away from him as I possibly could be, but I still found a way to see his face.

When I went to the Dad 2.0 Summit in New Orleans last month, my phone rang while I was in the middle of one of the cocktail parties.

It wasn’t a usual phone ring, it was a FaceTime call from my wife so I could give digital kisses to the boys before bed. I don’t travel a lot for business, but when I do I always do some math for the time zones to make sure I can say hello to my bobos. I left the party early, sat in the lobby and spent some time with my kids.

In this Jetsons world we live in, it’s not hard to get some “Face Time” in with the kids no matter where you are.

So it is disappointing an ad from Days Inn Canada would go the other way and buy in to the eternal stereotype that business trips are vacations from family and dads relish in the fact they don’t have to do parenting duties like reading with their kids.

The ad features a kid sitting on his bed, sad that dad isn’t there to read to him before cutting to dad eating take out thai watching MMA in his room and proudly belting out that daddy is away from the family.  They are trying to highlight their properties as a place where you can have a ‘bizcation,’ trying to sell business trips as vacations away from reading to your kids?

That’s just ‘dad as doofus’ all over again and plays to a lowest common denominator when so many dads are out there trying to raise the bar.

The whole point of Dad 2.0 was to celebrate what it means to be a modern father and to help brands find that voice that shows dads in a positive light. Brand messaging is very important in changing public opinion, which is why so many of us jumped on Procter & Gamble’s Thank You Mom campaign asking “What About Dad?”

It would have been easy for Days Inn Canada to have been better. They could have highlighted the free in-room WiFi at their properties which let parents spend time reading to their kids before bed even when they’re away on business.  Even when you’re on the road, you can still be in touch with home. Being on the road sucks. We miss our kids. We miss our family.

Hey, Days Inn Canada, you can do better, I’d love to help.

See Also: Days Inn Canada Falls Short In New Dad Ad by Canadian Dad.

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