Notes for owners · Branding and communication
Media specifications for advertising
Every medium takes a different file and rejects the wrong one quietly. Get the specification and the material deadline in the same email as the rate, before anybody opens a design file.
The GullySales team · Updated 21 Sept 2026 · 8 min read
Every advertising medium takes a different physical file, and the wrong file is rejected quietly, late, by somebody who does not call you. A newspaper drops the ad and bills you anyway. A channel refuses the master two days before air. A printer builds a hoarding from a low-resolution file because that is what arrived. None of this is a design problem. It is a sequence problem, and the sequence is nearly always run backwards.
The order that works starts with the booking. Get the specification and the material deadline in the same email as the rate, brief the designer with both, produce, and deliver early. Then get written confirmation that the material was received and is usable.
What each medium wants
| Medium | What you supply | What decides the file | Who produces the physical item |
|---|---|---|---|
| Newspaper | Press-ready file at final column width, in print colours | The edition, the column grid, black and white or colour | The publication |
| Magazine | Press-ready file with bleed and a safe margin inside the trim | The page size and whether it crosses the fold | The publication |
| Hoarding and flex | Artwork at one tenth scale, type as vectors | The panel size and the mounting wrap | The media owner's printer |
| Airport and mall panels | Artwork to the media owner's own template | The zone and whether the panel is backlit | The media owner |
| Television | A broadcast master to the channel's format and loudness standard | The channel and the paperwork it asks for | You, through the studio |
| Radio | An audio file of the exact purchased length | The station's format and whether it wants mono | You, through the studio |
| Cinema | A digital cinema package for the chain's system | The chain and the screens booked | You, through the studio |
| Digital display and video | Files within the platform's weight and duration limits | The placement and the device | You |
Read that last column. For most offline media you are not making the thing that appears. You are making a file that somebody else turns into the thing, and their template governs.
Resolution is a question about distance
There is one rule underneath all the numbers. Detail is needed in proportion to how close the reader gets.
A magazine page is held at forty centimetres, so it takes a fine screen and a high-resolution file. A newspaper is held at the same distance but printed on absorbent paper at speed, so fine detail closes up. Thin type, hairline rules and small reverse white text on a dark field all fill in and turn to mud. Set newspaper artwork heavier than looks right on screen.
A hoarding is read from thirty metres and above, so it is printed coarse on purpose. Building it at full size at 300 dpi produces a file of several gigabytes that nobody can open and that looks no different on the road.
A television screen and a phone are lit rather than printed, so the same artwork looks brighter and more saturated than the press version of it. That is why brand colours never match across a campaign, and why somebody has to decide which one is the true one.
The deadline is not the date you think
The publication date, the air date and the first day of the outdoor cycle are all after the material deadline, sometimes by a long way.
A printed hoarding has to be printed, transported and mounted, and mounting is weather dependent. A magazine closes its pages weeks ahead. A channel's traffic desk wants the master and the paperwork in advance and will not chase you for it. A cinema chain needs the file in its system before the show.
Two things to ask at booking, both in writing. What date is the material due, and to which email address or portal. Then deliver a clear day earlier than that. The second most common failure, after a wrong file, is a file sent at six in the evening on the deadline. It bounced from a mailbox with a size limit.
The file details that break things quietly
Fonts. Convert type to outlines for print, or send the fonts. Indian language artwork fails here more than anything else. A file set in an old non-Unicode Kannada or Telugu font opens at the printer as a page of nonsense, and nobody there reads enough of the language to notice.
Length. A thirty-second radio spot is thirty seconds, not thirty and a half. Stations cut the end.
Bleed and safe areas. Press artwork needs bleed beyond the trim and nothing important near the edge. A flex panel loses several inches to the frame wrap. A vertical video loses its bottom fifth to the platform's own buttons.
Naming. One pattern, every file, with the medium, the size or duration, the language and the version in the name. The cutdowns guide has the pattern we use.
A worked example
A building materials dealer in Peenya runs a festive campaign across three media. One hoarding on Tumkur Road, a quarter page in the Kannada edition of a daily, and a fortnight of Kannada radio.
The bookings are made in the last week of August. Before a designer is briefed, collect three things for each medium. The exact dimensions or duration, the file specification, and the material deadline with the name of the person who receives it. That page goes to the designer with the creative brief.
The hoarding artwork is built at 1:10 and the newspaper version is set with heavier type and no reverse white. The radio spot is timed to twenty-nine and a half seconds. All three go out two days early, and each comes back with a written confirmation.
Nothing about this is clever. It is the reason the panel went up on the first of the cycle.
What to do next
For your next campaign, make one page with a row for every placement: medium, size or duration, file specification, material deadline, and who receives it. Fill it in at booking, not at briefing. If you want that page built alongside the media plan, and the artwork checked against it before it goes out, book the free audit.