Mass Media Campaign for Tobacco Control

In January 2002, Work for a Better Bangladesh, PATH Canada, and the Bangladesh Anti-Tobacco Alliance, with financial support from the Government of Canada through the Canadian International Development Agency, began a mass media campaign to educate the public about tobacco control, raise awareness of the many problems caused by tobacco, and to increase public support for tobacco control.

The components of the mass media program include three TV spots, monthly radio programs, and 10 billboards around Dhaka.

Television

The first television spot, featuring professional actors and WBB staff, portrays the health (active and passive) and economic consequences of tobacco use.

In this ad, a poor boy is unable to attend school because his parents can't afford the school fees. The boy's mother convinces the father to give up smoking and use his savings to send the child to school.
In the ad is a song about how tobacco expenditures worsen poverty, including the line "Every day the deaths of 350 children from malnutrition could be prevented if money spent on tobacco went instead to food."

The second and third TV spots, also featuring professional actors and WBB staff, illustrate the goods that could be bought with the money otherwise spent on tobacco. In one, a poor rickshaw puller realizes that his money would be better spent on food for his family than on tobacco--a realization that delights his wife and children! In the other, a man gives up smoking and uses his savings to buy his family an expensive present.

Radio

Monthly radio programs are being aired as of January 2002. Subjects include tobacco and malnutrition, non-smokers' rights, the need for strong tobacco control legislation, and the national economic impact of tobacco use.

Billboards

Ten billboards went up around Dhaka. The billboards highlight the health effects of smoking (active and passive), the economic effects, and smoking-caused impotence.