GlossaryProduction
Flexing and Mounting
Also called Flex printingFlexInstallationPasting
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. Both are production costs, quoted separately from the media, and both are usually the client's.
In more detail
Almost every first-time outdoor buyer in India is surprised that the media rate does not include the thing people actually see. The media rate buys the right to occupy the position for a period. Printing the artwork and fixing it to the structure are separate, and on a large campaign they are a meaningful share of the total rather than a rounding error.
Flex is the standard substrate: a woven base coated in PVC, printed by wide-format inkjet, hemmed and eyeleted at the edges so it can be tensioned onto a frame. It is cheap, fast, and tolerant of Indian weather, which is why it dominates. It is also the reason outdoor artwork has to be built differently from press artwork — flex is read at distance, printed at low resolution relative to its size, and stretched on fitting, so fine type, tight registration and subtle gradients do not survive the journey.
Mounting is where most of the avoidable damage happens. A sheet tensioned unevenly ripples and reads as cheap; one fitted loose flaps and tears in the first strong wind; one fitted in the wrong orientation is a wasted cycle. The difference between a campaign that looks like the mock-up and one that does not is almost never the printing.
- 01
Is flex printing included in the hoarding rate?
Usually not. The media rate buys occupancy of the position for the period. Flexing and mounting are separate line items, and on a multi-position campaign they are a material part of the budget.
Ask for them to be quoted explicitly at the proposal stage rather than discovered at the invoice stage. A proposal that shows only a media rate is not showing you the cost of the campaign.
- 02
How should artwork be prepared for flex?
Built for the distance it will be read from, not for the screen it is designed on. That means large type, high contrast, few words, and no reliance on fine detail or subtle tonal transitions, because flex is printed at low resolution relative to its physical size and then stretched.
Bleed matters more than designers expect, since the sheet is hemmed and tensioned at the edges and anything close to the margin will be pulled around the frame. And colour will shift: flex printing is not a proofed press process, so a brand colour that must be exact needs a printed sample approved before the full run.
- 03
Who is responsible if a flex tears?
It depends what the contract says, and this is worth settling before the campaign rather than after. Damage from weather during the cycle is a normal operational risk on outdoor, and a plan running through a monsoon window should carry an explicit maintenance and replacement provision rather than assuming somebody will notice.
Practically, the party who notices is the party who is looking. That is the argument for monitoring photographs on a schedule rather than only at mounting.
Where it earns its place
- Any printed outdoor format — hoarding, unipole, gantry, wall wrap, kiosk, shelter panel.
- Campaigns with a fixed message for the full cycle, where printing once is the efficient answer.
- Multi-position campaigns where a single print run covers many sites at a low unit cost.
And where it does not
Flex is the wrong answer where the message needs to change during the campaign — every change is a fresh print and a fresh mounting, which is the arithmetic that makes DOOH worth its premium. It is also poor for anything requiring exact colour fidelity or fine detail, and it carries an environmental cost that some brands are no longer willing to sign off: PVC flex is not readily recyclable, and a large campaign generates a great deal of it. Where that matters, it should be raised at the planning stage rather than at the point of disposal.
What moves the price
The variables, not a rate.
We do not publish a rate card. We own no media, so every plan is negotiated against several vendors — a published figure would describe what we would like to charge rather than what the market will take.
- 01Total printed area across the campaign — the dominant variable by a wide margin.
- 02Substrate and quality grade, including whether the position requires backlit-grade material.
- 03Number of separate positions, since mounting is priced per site and per access difficulty.
- 04Height and access — mounting a high unipole costs more than a low panel of the same size.
- 05Any mid-cycle replacement or maintenance provision built into the plan.
Questions we are actually asked
Flexing and Mounting, in practice.
What is flex material made of?
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A woven polyester or nylon base coated with PVC, printed by wide-format inkjet. It is cheap, weather-tolerant and fast to produce, which is why it is the default substrate for Indian outdoor. It is also not readily recyclable, which is worth raising early if that matters to the brand.
How long does flexing and mounting take?
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Printing is quick — usually days rather than weeks. Mounting depends on the number of positions, their height and access, and whether any of them need traffic management. The realistic constraint on a launch date is rarely the printing.
Can I reuse a flex on another site?
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Rarely worth it. Sheets are cut and hemmed to a specific frame, and removal usually damages the edges. A campaign moving between positions of different dimensions is a fresh print in practice.
Read next
- Hoarding
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.
- Unipole
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.
- Monitoring Photographs
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.
- Illumination
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.
Knowing the word is not the same as buying it well.
Tell us the market and the objective. We will tell you plainly whether this format is the right instrument for it.