What Hania Aamir's Dhaka visit really sold us

Chances are, you saw her. If not beaming from a giant billboard overlooking a gridlocked intersection, then smiling from your phone screen, a bowl of phuchka in hand.

Modern marketing is a form of magic, indeed. For a fleeting moment, Sunsilk and Hania Aamir pulled off the perfect illusion. A familiar shampoo suddenly felt glamorous; a visiting Pakistani actress became a Dhaka phenomenon. With a few carefully chosen Bangla words and the charm of shared culture, they conjured an atmosphere of adoration that blanketed the capital.

The arrival of Hania in Dhaka was, by all accounts, a masterclass in modern marketing: billboards that shimmered, a campaign that dominated conversation, and a cross-border star whose presence felt inescapable.

But once the spotlights dim and the billboards come down, we are left with a series of uncomfortable questions: what was being sold, who was paying the price, and what we, as consumers, chose to overlook.

Boycott for Coke, billboard for Sunsilk

In recent times, Bangladeshi consumers have demonstrated a potent capacity for ethical stands. A fierce and effective boycott campaign against Coca-Cola, fuelled by its perceived ties to Israel, sent a powerful message. The backlash was so significant—with reports of sales dropping by as much as 23%—that it prompted a disastrous PR response that only fanned the flames.

Yet, as Hania charmed Dhaka on behalf of Sunsilk, the brand's parent company, Unilever, seemingly floated above the fray. This oversight is striking, given that Unilever is a prominent and long-standing target for the global BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement.

The primary reason stems from a high-profile corporate clash with its subsidiary, Ben & Jerry's. When the ice cream maker's independent board decided to halt sales in illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories, Unilever's corporate leadership intervened directly. It sold its business interests in Israel to a local licensee—a move designed to ensure the product remained available everywhere and effectively nullified the board's ethical stance.

The consequences for Unilever have been tangible in other regions. The corporation has publicly reported significant sales declines in Muslim-majority nations such as Indonesia, directly attributing the slump to consumer boycotts over the Middle East conflict.

Isn't it obvious to ask why the same consumer outrage that rocked Coca-Cola in Bangladesh did not extend to this high-profile Unilever campaign?

Selling fantasy to a market built on necessity

To understand the Sunsilk–Hania Aamir campaign, you must first understand its central paradox. The entire spectacle—the multi-crore budget, the international celebrity, the glamorous billboards—was designed to sell a product whose market dominance is built on a single, humble reality: the 5-taka shampoo sachet.

This is not a niche market; it is the market. Let's be clear about who builds a brand like Sunsilk in Bangladesh. It is not the urban elite chasing the latest K-beauty trends. The brand's beating heart is the 'sachet economy', the engine of Bangladesh's FMCG sector.

Brands like Sunsilk did not become household names by selling aspirational bottles to the urban elite. They achieved their status, as confirmed by Kantar's 2023 report naming Sunsilk the 'Most Chosen Brand', through the staggering volume of single-use packets sold to millions of price-sensitive consumers.

This reliance on sachets is not a choice of convenience; it is a calculation of necessity. In a country where persistent inflation forces households to cut back on essentials, the sachet is a lifeline. It allows a student, a garment worker, or even a family managing a tight budget to access a moment of normalcy and self-care without committing to the prohibitive cost of a full bottle.

This is what makes this campaign so jarring.

The campaign's glamorous aesthetic speaks little to the price-sensitive core consumers, who make careful purchasing decisions based on affordability rather than aspiration.

This is a marketing strategy built on a fundamental disconnect. It takes a product used by millions and attaches it to a face that represents a life lived by the few.

This is where corporate power intersects with the class divide. The core Sunsilk user is making careful purchasing decisions, and it is questionable whether a foreign celebrity on a billboard translates into meaningful value for them.

This strategy of using cultural affection to bypass ethical scrutiny is a well-worn one. Look no further than the immense popularity of Coke Studio. The platform produces beautiful, unifying music that fosters deep emotional connections, making it far more difficult for a consumer to associate the brand with its parent company's controversies.

What are we really buying?

It is easy—almost comforting—to view Hania Aamir's visit as just another marketing campaign: a famous face, a big brand, a few fun days of social media buzz. To see it as anything more is to be cynical, right?

Wrong. This perspective requires a willful naivety. In today's hyper-aware geopolitical and economic landscape, can anything on this scale ever be outside politics? A multi-crore, cross-border campaign involving a foreign government's soft power asset is never just a campaign.

It is inherently political. It is intentional.

To understand the Hania Aamir campaign is to recognise that it is not an anomaly; it is the perfection of a decades-old marketing playbook.

A corporation like Unilever doesn't make multi-million-dollar bets that go against the grain of geopolitics; it leverages them. The campaign served as the perfect, feel-good cultural soundtrack to the quiet diplomacy happening in the background.

And to assume the star herself is an oblivious pawn is to misunderstand the business of modern celebrity. An international ambassador of her calibre, supported by a professional management team, is not oblivious. They understand the market, the timing, and the context of their high-value engagements. The job isn't just to smile and sell shampoo; it is to be the charming, disarming, and studiously apolitical face of a calculated strategic manoeuvre.

As we celebrate the glamour on the billboards and the charm of a visiting star, it is essential to look beyond the surface. We must ask what narratives we are implicitly endorsing and, more importantly, whose realities we are choosing to ignore.

Ayesha Humayra Waresa studies Mass Communication and Journalism at the University of Dhaka. She can be reached at ayeshawaresa2002@gmail.com.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.