The words the trade uses, defined plainly.

Advertisement tax is the charge levied by an Indian urban local body on the display of an outdoor advertisement within its limits — now more often framed as a licence or permission fee than as a tax, because the constitutional basis for a separate advertisement tax changed when GST was introduced.

Also: Hoarding tax · Advertisement fee · Licence fee · Permission fee

A bus queue shelter, usually written BQS, is the roofed structure at a bus stop that carries advertising panels on its side and rear faces — read at close range by waiting passengers and at short range by passing traffic.

Also: BQS · Bus shelter · Bus stop advertising

DOOH — digital out-of-home — is outdoor advertising displayed on electronic screens rather than printed material, sold as slots of time inside a rotating loop that several advertisers share, rather than as sole occupancy of a panel for a month.

Also: Digital out-of-home · LED screen advertising · Digital billboard

Flexing is printing a campaign onto flex — the coated PVC sheet most Indian outdoor advertising is printed on — and mounting is fitting the printed sheet to the structure.

Also: Flex printing · Flex · Installation · Pasting

A gantry is an outdoor advertising structure that spans a carriageway overhead, so traffic passes underneath it rather than alongside — most often a purpose-built span across a road, or advertising panels carried on a foot-over-bridge.

Also: Overhead gantry · Foot-over-bridge panel

A hoarding is the Indian term for a large-format outdoor advertising panel — a printed or digital display mounted on a fixed structure beside a road, on a rooftop or on a boundary wall, sold for a defined period rather than by the number of people who pass it.

Also: Billboard · Large-format outdoor

Illumination is how an outdoor advertising panel is lit after dark: frontlit, where fixtures mounted in front throw light onto the printed face; backlit, where light sits behind a translucent material and passes through it; or non-lit, where the panel is dark once daylight goes.

Also: Frontlit · Backlit · Non-lit · Lighting

A loop is the full repeating sequence of advertising slots on a digital screen: every advertiser plays once per loop, so the loop length divided by your slot duration is your share of the screen, and the loop length divided into the operating hours is how often you appear.

Also: Loop length · Rotation · Share of voice · SOV

Media barter is an arrangement in which a brand settles all or part of the cost of its advertising in goods, capacity or vouchers rather than in cash — the advertising is supplied against the stock, both sides are valued in writing before either performs, and each leg carries its own tax invoice.

Also: Barter advertising · Contra deal · Trade exchange · Goods-for-media

Monitoring photographs are dated, geotagged photographs of each booked position, taken at mounting and again during the campaign, that evidence the advertisement was actually displayed at the site contracted for the period contracted.

Also: Proof of display · Mounting photos · Site photos · End-dated photos

A pole kiosk is a small advertising panel — usually a pair, back to back — fixed to a street light or utility pole, and bought as a run of consecutive poles along a stretch of road rather than as a single position.

Also: Lamp post panel · Pole panel · Street pole branding

A reciprocal trade agreement, usually written RTA, is the contract governing a media barter transaction: it records what each side supplies, the value placed on each leg, the schedule for performing them, and the restrictions on where and how the traded goods may subsequently be sold.

Also: RTA · Barter agreement · Trade exchange agreement

A sky-sign is an advertisement placed on, above or attached to a building — a roof, terrace, parapet or upper facade — so that it is seen against the sky, and in most Indian municipal law it is a distinct licensing category with its own permission and its own fee, not merely a description of where a hoarding sits.

Also: Skysign · Rooftop advertising · Terrace hoarding

A unipole is an outdoor advertising display carried on a single vertical column, so the panel stands clear above the traffic with nothing supporting it from the sides — as distinct from a hoarding on a lattice frame or one fixed to a wall or roof.

Also: Monopole · Single-pole hoarding