You're reading: Yanukovych hijacks space meant for social advertising

While Ukrainian nongovernmental organizations struggle to get their message on billboards about hepatitis, HIV-AIDS, orphans, the dangers of smoking and other critical social issues, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has no problems getting his smiling face plastered over hundreds of big boards.

Denys Ivanesko, a spokesman for the presidential administration, said the ads meet the criteria for social advertising, which by law is supposed to get up to 10 percent of all advertising spaces on billboards for free.

However, many experts claim the opposite. Artem Bidenko, head of the Ukrainian Outdoor Advertising Association, is one of them.

“If I post a New Year congratulatory banner with my photo on it tomorrow, it will be considered not as a social advertisement, but as a commercial one,” Bidenko says. “Why it works with the president is a real question.”

The question must have been on the minds of dozens of people all over the country who defaced billboards featuring Yanukovych with graffiti.

Five criminal cases have been started as a result.

The law on advertising gives a vague definition of social advertising. It claims that any information “aimed at achieving social goals and popularizing global human values which is not aimed at making a profit.”

Bidenko says that it’s the city administration that decides whether ads belong to the “social” category and should get free space. It then issues an order to the owners of billboards to run them.

“Each billboard owner signs an agreement with the city, which obliges [them] to set aside 5 to 10 percent of their advertising space to social advertisement chosen by municipal authorities,” says Bidenko.

The billboard operator is freed from taxes for that particular space in exchange.

“There wasn’t any pressure on the billboard owners,” assures Bidenko. “I think they were gathered and asked to post the banners, because if they didn’t, Kyiv administration would have problems.

Some of them even volunteered boards in the center, because no one wants changes in the administrations.”

Non-government organizations, such as the International HIV/AIDSAlliancein Ukraine, do not get that treatment, though.

When the Alliance tried to get some ad space for their advertising campaign on hepatitis in August, the city authorities “didn’t turn us down, just told us they have a tight plan for a year, and there is no space for us,” says Kostiantyn Pertsovskyi, senior communications manager at the Alliance.

Along with the All-Ukrainian Network of People Living with HIV, the InternationalHIV/AIDSAlliance ended up seeking help from the Ukrainian Outdoor Advertising Association, and approached individual operators.

“It takes too long to get any [free] billboards from the Kyiv city administration,” says Andriy Andrushkiv, senior manager of the communication and advocating department in the All-Ukrainian Network of People Living with HIV.

He said there is no clear procedure for allocating boards designated for social advertising, and people responsible for the issue often change, which means you have to start the lengthy process all over again.

City authorities did not comment on the issue by the time Kyiv Post went to press.

But the president does not seem to have the same problems.

“Apparently, the owners of billboards did choose to post the president’s posters instead of anything else,” Ivanesko said. “I don’t know how it works, but I am pretty sure they are to choose. It happens three times a year: on Independence Day, on New Year’s Eve and on Easter.”

Ivanesko did not know who paid for the posters or how many were posted around Kyiv.

But it seems that the Kyivans will get a chance to count them pretty soon, around Easter.

Kyiv Post staff writer Alyona Zhuk can be reached at [email protected].

 

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