48-sheet posters advertising

What it is

The large-format printed poster on the wall facing an Underground platform, read across the track. It is bought by the panel and the rate includes print and posting.

Scale is what separates it from the other cross-track sites. Where a 16-sheet is a standing panel, a 48-sheet occupies a long run of wall, which is why it is limited to larger stations and interchanges where the trackside wall is long enough to carry one.

Why advertisers use it

It is bought when the requirement is presence rather than reach. One 48-sheet at a station makes an unmissable statement in that space, and at nearly three times the panel rate of a 16-sheet the buy is deliberately concentrated rather than spread.

The environment field also lists escalator halls alongside platform trackside walls, so the format is not exclusively a cross-track buy — the available positions at a given station are confirmed with the media owner at booking.

Cost

£6,000 per panel, per 2 weeks. Rates move with zone, station footfall and trading period: January and August are the softest, the Christmas run-in the hardest. Print and posting are included. The figure is per panel, so a two-site campaign is twice the number shown, and the site list rather than the rate is what usually determines the budget.

For how this sits against the rest of the range, see every format side by side.

Booking and lead time

Six to eight weeks ahead is the sweet spot: it protects both the price and the quality of the sites you get. Station dominations and peak trading periods need longer. Copy clearance sits ahead of the on-air date, so leave room for it in the schedule.

Filling a wall without shouting

The unit is wide, so a composition can run horizontally in a way the portrait cross-track formats cannot. That suits a scene, a product line-up or a headline that wants space to breathe, and it is the reason a 48-sheet execution rarely translates from a 16-sheet artwork without redrawing.

Viewing distance still governs everything. The reader is across the track and cannot approach, so type set for a poster passed at close range will not carry. Larger is not an invitation to add detail: it is an invitation to make one idea bigger.

For the approval chain and the artwork rules, see how to pass copy clearance first time.

48-sheet or 16-sheet?

Both face the platform from the opposite wall, and the choice is shape and concentration rather than quality. A 16-sheet is a portrait panel and costs less per site, so the same budget buys a position at several stations. A 48-sheet is a wide unit at a higher rate, which buys one commanding presence instead of several ordinary ones.

Availability separates them too. Cross-track 16-sheets exist wherever a platform has a wall opposite; a 48-sheet needs a long enough run of it, which limits the format to larger stations and interchanges.