Advertising on city buses: formats, prices and cities

Bus advertising formats: what each one covers

A bus has three surfaces for advertising: the rear and the two sides (on an articulated bus, the sides of both sections). Formats differ in how much of each they cover and in whether or not they go up over the windows; the whole job is also known as bus wrapping. The more vinyl, the more it’s seen and the more it costs. The sizes we give are approximate: every bus model has different measurements, and we send you the final template once the vehicle has been assigned.

Standard (3 faces)

The entry-level format. A panel of about 2 × 1.1 m on each side, below the windows, and a small rear panel of about 2.2 × 1 m. It’s the ordinary ‘3-face livery’ you see in any city, and the one that uses the least vinyl. It suits short messages, say a name and a phone number, and trying the medium without spending much. Available on rigid and articulated buses.

Full rear

The whole back of the bus, about 2.4 × 2.5 m, plus the two standard side panels. Whoever is driving behind has it right in front of them every time the bus stops, three or four metres away, with plenty of time to read it. If your customers drive (garages, insurance, car dealerships), start with bus rear advertising. On rigid and articulated buses.

Large side

Two large panels that go up over the windows in perforated window vinyl (one-way vision film), plus the small rear panel. On a rigid bus, the left-hand side (the one without doors, as Spain drives on the right) measures about 3 × 2.05 m, and the right-hand side, between the doors, about 1.45 × 2.05 m. An articulated bus gets side panels on both sections: 3 × 2.05 and 1.40 × 2.05 m on the front one, 1.45 × 2.05 and 1.30 × 2.05 m on the rear. Many agencies call it ‘sides plus’. It’s the format behind the ‘from’ price on this page: a lot of surface for a price a small business can manage.

Large side plus

The two large side panels of the previous format plus the full rear; on other rate cards you’ll find it as ‘full rear plus sides plus’. It covers all three surfaces at full size without reaching the cost of a full wrap. People choose it when they want the ad large on both sides and a second message, also large, on the back. On rigid and articulated buses.

Tandem and half rear (rigid buses only)

The tandem is a strip of about 9.8 × 1.15 m running the full length of the side below the windows, wheel to wheel, with a small rear (tandem) or a full rear (tandem plus). It suits landscape-format messages: a strapline, an address, a list of services. The half rear covers about 2.3 × 1.5 m of the back, roughly two thirds, and is paired with standard or large side panels. These formats only exist on rigid buses.

Full wrap

The whole body in vinyl: both sides in full and the full rear. On a rigid bus each side is about 10 × 2.2 m; on an articulated one, 9.5 m for the front section and 5.3 m for the rear. The windows stay clear. This is the ‘full wrap’, what people call wrapping the bus: the entire vehicle becomes your ad. Expect around €5,500 for 4 weeks, vinyl included.

Super wrap

Like the full wrap, but with the windows covered too, in perforated vinyl: the design runs from end to end without a break, and passengers still see the street through the tiny holes in the vinyl. It’s the format with the most surface in the range, and the most expensive. On rigid and articulated buses.

The remaining rigid-bus formats, and the articulated (18 m) range

The size that counts is always that of the bus you’re given: before printing, we send you its template with the exact dimensions and the areas to work around (doors, seams, wheel arches).

Can I choose where my bus goes?

You can ask for a route or an area, and we try to stick to it. What we can’t do is promise it 100%, and we’d rather tell you now than later.

City buses aren’t tied to one route for ever. Your bus will run the route or area you ask for between 80 and 90% of the time. The rest of the time it moves to other routes: a workshop service, a breakdown, an extra rush-hour run, a shift change.

In practice, your ad keeps circulating around the same city. If you need one particular street (your shop door, the roundabout outside your dealership), that’s what a bus shelter or a fixed MUPI is for, and you can combine either with the bus.

When you ask for a quote, tell us which area you’re after: the campus, the hospital, the centre, the ring roads. We’ll tell you what’s available in your city.

Why advertise on a bus (and when it isn’t for you)

• Bigger than a MUPI. A 3 × 2.05 m large side panel has almost three times the area of a 1.20 × 1.75 m MUPI street panel (roughly the size of a UK 6-sheet), and it sits at eye level for pedestrians and drivers.
• The rear in a traffic jam. At the lights or in a queue, the car behind has the ad three or four metres away and nothing else to look at.
• The whole city from a single advertising site. The bus goes through residential areas, industrial estates and access roads where there are no MUPIs or billboards. With a fixed campaign you’d need a lot of faces to cover those areas.
• Repetition. The same residents pass the same bus several times a week, coming and going, for four weeks at least.
• Your area, as a guide. You can ask for a route or an area (the campus, the centre) and the bus will spend most of its time there.
• You pay for the vinyl once every 12 weeks. Up to week 12, running for longer only adds hire: on a 12-week run, large side panels on a rigid bus work out at about €367 a week.

When it isn’t for you. If your message needs a lot of text (a bus is read in three seconds), or if you must be on one exact street without fail (that’s what bus shelters and MUPIs are for). Nor if your campaign is shorter than 4 weeks, or if you want to change the creative every week: the vinyl goes on at the start and isn’t changed mid-block.

How to design a bus ad

People see a bus in passing, from the pavement or from the car behind. So the artwork has to make sense at a glance:

• One message, three seconds. Name, one line and a way to get in touch (website or phone). If something needs explaining, it isn’t for a bus.
• Big lettering. On a side panel, keep the smallest letters at least 10 cm high; on the rear, the car behind is only a few metres away, so it takes a little more text, but not much.
• High contrast and flat colours. Dark background with light lettering, or the other way round. Gradients and highly detailed photos get lost at 20 metres.
• Nothing important over doors, seams or wheel arches. The vinyl gets cut there. The bus template marks those areas; design on it, not before you have it.
• Watch the windows. Formats that go over them use perforated vinyl: it copes with colour and large shapes, but not with fine text or small logos. Better to put the text on the bodywork and the colour on the glass.
• Safety margin. Leave about 4 cm clear on every edge of each panel; the fitters need it.
• The file. Vector PDF at 1:1 or 1:10 scale (in that case, at 300 dpi), text converted to outlines and colours in CMYK. If you’re unsure how to prepare it, we explain it step by step here: how to get a design ready for the printer (in Spanish).
• Think about both sides. The left-hand side (no doors) is bigger than the right: don’t force the same artwork to fit both; make two versions.

Combine the bus with other advertising sites in your city

If you also want to be on a particular street, add fixed sites:

• Bus shelters on your streets and next to your premises, from €92 per face per week.
• MUPIs in pedestrian areas of the centre, from €92 per face per week.
• Billboards on the approach roads and ring roads, from €78 per billboard per week.

You can see and book every fixed site in the campaign planner (in Spanish), with real prices and photos; we add the bus to the same proposal.