Death Marketing -2

Clever strategy to market Bidi!

Ansari bidi and Chawali bidi are resorting to new strategies to market its death sticks, violating the tobacco control law. The bidi company authorities are giving away free calendars with brand logo and pictures, particularly to attract the poor people to its products. According to GATS 2017 report, there has been a 22.5 percent surge between 2009 and 2017 in the number of people who have seen advertisement of bidi products. Notably, the punishment for advertising tobacco and tobacco products, under the existing law, is a simple imprisonment or a monetary fine not exceeding Tk. 100,000 or both the penalties and if the offence is found again, the punishment will be doubled. To safeguard public health, we must check such marketing campaign.