With
national elections only a few months ahead, the ruling Awami League (AL) has
resorted to a campaigning technique that is unprecedented in history. The
residents of Dhaka woke up on Sunday morning to see nearly all billboards in
the city covered with placards, banners and festoons that highlighted all the
successes the present government has claimed to have achieved during its
tenure.
The effort may be unique, but the companies that own
these billboards are having to suffer huge losses because reportedly no payment
has been made by the ruling party for using these billboards. This
correspondent has found out that Awami League’s success stories were displayed
on hundreds of billboards in the capital’s Motijheel, Farmgate, Shahbagh,
Mirpur, Uttara and Malibagh areas.
Most of these billboards earlier had advertisements of
reputed business houses.
A government effort ?
Sources
from the Awami League said the unique campaign was part of an effort to thwart
the opposition “propaganda” that said the government had not succeeded in
fulfilling any of its electoral pledges. They also said the party was planning
to go for similar publicity stunts in some of the other big cities in the
country including Chittagong.
Environment and Forests Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud, also
publicity secretary of the ruling party, could not tell whether the money
for the giant placards and banners were spent from the government exchequer or
the party fund.
“We know about the campaign. But AL is not directly
involved. Some of our associate organisations may have done this. But one thing
I can say is that it will eventually turn out to be a very cost effective
promotion for us,” he told the Dhaka Tribune in his office on Sunday.
“Publishing one million posters will cost around Tk6m to
Tk10m. But billboards cost a lot less. Many city dwellers never care to look at
a poster. But everyone reads the messages on a billboard. If I can hang a
billboard in the capital’s Farmgate area, it will grab the attention of
millions of people every day. So, we decided to go for the billboards”, Hasan
Mahmud said.
The
minister informed they would launch a similar campaign in Chittagong this week.
“After that we will think about the other major cities and the important
areas.”
Mode of payment: The art of board grabbing
Owners
said they were not informed beforehand and now faced with losses that would
amount to millions of takas every day because nobody could say for certain how
long these banners and festoons will hang on their billboards. The losses, they
said were particularly biting because it was the Eid season, the time of the
year that the companies make the most cash by renting out their billboards.
“We have nothing to say about this. The government is
going for aggressive promotion after failing in the five city polls,” Hazi Md
Rashde, secretary of Outdoor Adverting Association, told the Dhaka Tribune over
phone.
He also said: “When the government and the ruling party
officially grab anything this way, then who will listen to what we have to
say?”
City dwellers said nearly all the billboards in the city
have been occupied by the ruling party. They had seen on Saturday that some of
the billboards were grabbed. On Sunday they saw almost all the billboards
covered.
A nefarious tactic (re)used
Seeking
anonymity, another billboard businessman said: “Not only this time; after the
government won the maritime boundary dispute with Myanmar a few years ago, we
faced the same problem. Chhatra League, Jubo League and even Krishak League
grabbed many billboards at that time.”
At the expense of the corporate pocket
Preferring
to be unnamed, a former Chhatra League leader from the Jagannath University and
now a billboard businessman, told this correspondent: “The government can
achieve absolutely nothing from this project. On the contrary, it may tarnish
the government’s image. Business houses who had detailed promotional plans for
Eid, will miss most of them,” he said.
Grameenphone,
the biggest telecom operator of the country, is reportedly hit the hardest
because it spends huge sum every year on billboard advertisements. “We face
these problems frequently. Grabbers never care to inform us. Suddenly we
discover that some of our billboards are occupied,” a spokesperson of
Grameenphone told the Dhaka Tribune.
“Political activist and leaders never think how much
money is involved with this. They do not know now how much do we have to pay
every day for renting a billboard,” said a businessman, requesting anonymity.
For renting a 20 feet by 40 feet billboard for a year, a
company generally has to pay around Tk600,000. There are many bigger billboards
in the city at convenient locations which cost around Tk1.5m for a year.
Industry insiders said dates like August 15, the national
mourning day, August 17, anniversary of the series bomb blast, and August 21,
anniversary of the grenade attack on an Awami League rally, were other
occasions when billboards were grabbed in the past.
Exclusive source: The
Dhaka Tribune
In pictures via bdnews24: Billboards of success
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