Matara Mayor’s Challenge

Matara Mayor summons a meeting of the Marketing Graduates employed by the city businessmen.

He says that he has seen lot of innovative ideas are made by practicing marketers when products are sold to the general public.

As such he wants them to find a workable solution to a long standing problem the city is having.

He makes the following presentation about the poster problem he has in the city to apprise you the magnitude of the problem and the importance of a novel solution.

Finding a solution to a public menace- postersPosters have been a media of advertising since the paper was invented. It has been used to promote products and services, ideas, rumours, dangers, people and for various other things and even to topple governments and to create revolutions.

Advantages of posters

Getting attraction of public instantly Very big cost advantage – no

payment for the carrier. No censorship to posters Easy to produce – Screen printing Innovative flexible mode of communication

Uncontrolled nature of poster pasting

Most of the posters are pasted on public or private properties not meant for pasting posters (promote politicians, political rallies and political ideas, tuition classes, musical shows, stage dramas, products and

services, death notices all appear on such places)

They are pasted even on public warning notices, traffic notices, road signs and even on road name boards..

Unpleasant to sight and destroys the beauty of towns

Certain posters are new, others are old and blackened, other are being obliterated by used engine oil etc. They paint a very ugly picture of the road sides

The public as well as private sector spend lot of money in maintaining their buildings, parapet walls, warning boards, traffic and road signs.

Commercial organisations and poster advertising

Many commercial organizations use posters as a means of advertising

But most of them do not know the life time of a poster.

Another poster will be over pasted on it.

Generally a posters life time is less than 3 days.

Problems with poster pasting

poster pasting has become one of the main environmental problems

with little attention or no attention is made to find a proper workable solution.

Posters are waste of money and threat to the peace.

one needs to paste many posters to achieve his or her objective of advertising his product or service

Almost all the posters are made out of foreign material.

Removing posters has become expensive. Poster Buster machine cost millions

Problems with posters…..

Many of the violent incidents related to elections have some connection with pasting, removing or obliterating posters

Property owners also at times oppose for pasting posters on their walls. There again breach of the peace could happen.

Find an answer

Mayor of Matara says that, he needs to find an answer to this problem.

It should be a win win method for all the stake holders

Poster pasters are my people who worked for me and pasted my own election campaign posters

Advertisers who use poster as a medium are the businessmen funded my election campaign

Private property owners where posters are pasted on their walls are also the people who voted me.

Municipal Council I head has to be remunerated if not I will not be able to execute many other important activities.

Then, the public and environment