Escalator panels (static) advertising

What it is

Printed panels set into the wall alongside an escalator, at 419 by 572mm each — a good deal smaller than a 4-sheet poster, and read from a few feet away as the escalator carries you past. They are sold by the panel with a minimum of ten, so a booking covers a stretch of the shaft rather than a single frame.

The escalator does the work. It moves at a fixed speed, so every passenger passes every panel in the same order at the same pace, and the run reads as a sequence whether or not it was designed as one.

Why advertisers use it

The ten-panel minimum is the format, not a hurdle. A single panel beside an escalator is a poster someone glides past; ten in a row is a sustained piece of communication delivered at a pace the advertiser controls rather than the reader.

It is also the cheapest way on the network to buy that mechanic. Panel for panel this is the lowest rate we hold, and the rate includes print and posting — so a full run costs a fraction of what the digital equivalent does at the same station.

Cost

£300 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 inside the panel rate, and the ten-panel minimum sets the real entry point rather than the single-panel figure.

The right choice depends on the job, not the format — compare them on what each is for.

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.

Designing a run, not a poster

The frames arrive in a known order at a known pace, which is the opportunity. A run can build — a proposition stated, developed, then resolved — in a way a single site cannot. What does not work is ten identical panels: the reader has already taken the message by the third, and the remaining seven are paid-for repetition.

Each panel still has to stand on its own, because passengers join the escalator at different points and some are travelling the other way. The reliable structure is a sequence where every frame makes sense alone and gains from the ones before it.

Supplying to spec is only half of it: copy clearance sits ahead of the on-air date.

Paper or digital on the escalator?

The digital version of this position takes multiple executions, accepts artwork on a shorter lead time and carries motion. Paper takes one execution, held for the flight, and costs substantially less for the same stretch of wall.

So the question is whether the campaign needs to change during the run. If it does, the digital panels earn their premium. If one sequence is going to run for the fortnight, paper buys the same mechanic and the same audience for less.