Heads Held High

The brand campaign was the act of refusing to stop publishing.

On December 18, 2025, mobs stormed the Dhaka headquarters of Prothom Alo, the country’s largest Bengali-language daily, and set it on fire. Staff were trapped inside. The attack was an attempt to silence the publication outright after the death of a prominent Islamist activist.

Digital publishing resumed within 17 hours. The print edition was on the streets the next morning.

Heads Held High was less a campaign than a record. The imagery paired the scorched newsroom with a freshly printed front page - same masthead, same date, the building still smoking. The pitch to the reader was not framed in the language of exclusive content or digital perks. It was framed in the language of solidarity. They tried to burn this paper. We are still here. So is the journalism. Stand with us.

Patronage in this register stops being a transaction. The subscription becomes an act of political alignment with people who refused to stop showing up to work. The campaign was nominated for the 2026 INMA Global Media Awards for Best Brand Awareness - but the actual award was the next morning’s edition.

Sources: www.inma.org ↗www.youtube.com ↗www.inma.org ↗en.prothomalo.com ↗