Do you need permission or a licence for a billboard in Bangladesh?

This is the part of out-of-home nobody puts on a slide, and it is exactly the part that catches out advertisers who try to arrange a structure themselves because somebody offered them a cheap wall.

What needs clearing

Broadly three things, and they are separate from each other:

1. The structure. A unipole, gantry or screen frame is a piece of engineering above a public road. It needs to be built and certified to stand up, in this climate, for years.
2. The site. Permission to have an advertising structure in that location, from the relevant city corporation or local authority.
3. Access. Agreement with whoever owns the rooftop, facade or land it stands on.

Each has its own timeline, and none of them can be rushed by wanting them more.

What this means for you, practically

If you book screen time or a face on an existing, operating site, all of that is already done and it stays with the operator. You are buying media, not commissioning construction. This is the ordinary case and it is why lead times are measured in days.

If you want a structure built somewhere one does not exist, you are in a different conversation with a different timeline — survey, permission, fabrication, mounting. Worth doing for a long-term flagship position. Not worth starting six weeks before a launch.