If winter reminds the average Bangladeshi about anything, it’s badminton, bhapa pitha and generic sweatshirt ads from a hundred different pages on their social media feed. However, among those hundreds of pages lurking around in your feed like annoying salesmen in a South Dhaka shopping mall catcalling you, Fardin Ahmed’s clothing brand Pandar Baash stood out for its unique marketing style. Fardin’s entrepreneurship might not be usable on a CV or anywhere in the real world for that matter, but it got him on Jashore Alo’s 30 under 30 list for 2022.
But recently, Fardin Ahmed was exposed on social media for allegedly buying t-shirts for his business from New Market at BDT 150 per piece and selling them for BDT 1000. The news has left his customers in shock as his gullible 15-year-old buyers couldn’t believe that their plain black generic t-shirt that had a hole in it after a month’s use doesn’t really cost BDT 1500.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star’s Google News channel. “It’s true that t-shirts from our Panda Originals actually cost BDT 150,” confessed Fardin Ahmed on Facebook Live, “But you have to understand, it’s not about the clothing when it comes to our brand. It’s about the brand value itself! It’s a lifestyle that we’re selling here.”
“When you wear our branded t-shirts, the people around you immediately know that you’re rich enough to be this dumb and can afford to get scammed by us. It’s a certificate for your irrational spending and your impulsive online shopping spree. I mean, let’s face it. You don’t really need our pure black sweatshirt, which is now available on our website for BDT 1800. After all, your entire wardrobe’s colour palette is so dark that people might confuse it for the recent Batman movie. But when our quirky advertisement pops up on your feed, you can’t help but fall victim to our carefully articulated web of capitalism and be a part of the social movement that we represent. The social movement represents the aim of our brand which is, of course, to get all of your money.”
“It’s not like we don’t put in any effort,” Fardin defended himself in front of the 20 people watching him live. “We print one or two words on the New Market t-shirts that we buy in bulk. We usually use hip words like pera, masti, moddhobitto and other words we believe accurately portray our victims – my apologies, our youth.”
“And it’s not easy opening up Photoshop, picking out the most generic font and typing those two words! It takes multiple man-hours. 0.05 seconds to be precise and 3 minutes if we’re counting in marketing major hours. We take time out of making PowerPoint presentations for our BBA degrees and design lifestyle products for you. Does Khairul Chacha from the footpaths of New Market do that? No. Even New Market vendors aren’t heartless enough to scam you guys to that extent. It takes a hustle mindset like ours to pull off something as dumb yet brilliant as Panda Baash.”
Meanwhile, economists are shocked to learn that a scam as obvious as this one actually worked. “How’s this news to our younger generation that plain black t-shirts don’t really cost all their hard-earned tuition money?” asks a concerned economist ahead of a suspected financial collapse.
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