Election season: Outdoor advertisers protest illegal use of billboards

‘Political parties have not fulfilled promise to pay’.

KARACHI:

It is election year and political fervour is on the rise in the financial capital of Pakistan and this is compounding problems for outdoor advertisers who are trying to deal with the onslaught of political banners. It is not the message they have an issue with, but the fact that more often than not, political parties do not feel the need to pay for this premium advertising space.

Sindh Outdoor Advertisers Association (SOAA) has decided to start a series of protests from Thursday (today) starting with a press conference at the Karachi Press Club (KPC). The decision was taken after they failed to get a favourable response from political and religious parties who were unmoved despite frequent requests, SOAA President Masood Merchant told The Express Tribune at his office on Wednesday.

“We have no choice because we our losing our business. Untimely and unwarranted banners on billboards disturb advertising campaigns,” he said, “Because of this, leading national and multinational companies have stopped their campaigns and we lose business of millions of rupees.”

Last month, SOAA used their own billboards to voice their complaints against the problem and requested government to take notice. Later, the association got assurances when they met the leaders of political parties, but none of the leading parties have fulfilled their promises, Merchant said.

Outdoor advertisers say that the problem is aggravated these days because of the economic slowdown in country and even big advertisers have cut down their budgets.

SOAA says that their members’ pay Rs1.5 billion in revenues annually to different departments of federal and provincial governments but government is not taking the concerns of this regulated industry seriously.

Out of the Rs1.5 billion revenues from Sindh, Karachi generates over Rs1 billion owing to the size of city and large number of boards. There are some 2,500 to 3,000 billboards in the jurisdiction of the city government and cantonment areas of Karachi, SOAA representatives said.

There are three stakeholders in a billboard business. The site owners, the clients that advertise on the boards and the authorities that collect revenues for government.

The billboard SITE owners say that they get boards in auctions conducted under the supervision of government. These boards are auctioned in millions and it goes up to Rs2.5 million. These billboards are then sold to advertising agencies on monthly basis. The rent of a big billboard depending on size can be as much as Rs0.2 million for a month.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 29^th, 2011.