A one-month Elevator Media Advertising campaign is not calculated using a simple formula such as “price per screen × number of screens.” In practice, “one month” is not necessarily a standard media-buying unit in the Out-of-Home (OOH) industry either — actual Campaign Flights are often structured by week. A complete proposal depends on building type, Building Cluster, screen format, playback configuration, actual campaign duration, creative content, and any additional Interaction or Measurement modules required by the campaign.

Is One Month a Standard Media-Buying Unit?

Not exactly. “One month” is often how clients translate a budget into an easier-to-understand timeframe, but it is not necessarily the standard planning unit used in OOH. In many markets, major OOH operators work according to fixed posting or playback cycles. For example, JCDecaux in Ireland specifies a minimum duration of two weeks, referred to as one “cycle,” with 26 cycles per year.

Campaign duration also affects advertising recall. Some analyses within Vietnam’s Out-of-Home advertising industry have noted that viewer attention often increases progressively and peaks around the eighth week, before declining if the content is not refreshed. This means that a relatively short campaign of around one month can still be effective, but that effectiveness comes from how the weekly Flight is structured and how the content is refreshed, rather than simply rounding the duration to “one month.”

Therefore, when a brand asks, “How much does one month of Elevator Media Advertising cost?”, the first step is not to look up a single number. Instead, that “one month” needs to be translated into: how many weeks of advertising, across how many media placement points, and under what configuration. This is also the logic behind Elevator Media Advertising Quotation: What Information Do You Need to Provide? — duration is only one of six information groups required before pricing can be determined.

Does the Price per Screen Accurately Reflect Value?

Not completely. In Digital Advertising, the value of ad delivery is often standardized through CPM (Cost Per Mille — cost per 1,000 impressions) rather than priced by physical unit alone. Elevator Media Advertising follows a similar logic: businesses are not simply buying a physical screen location, but rather the ability to reach and hold the attention of a specific Audience within an enclosed environment. Two screens with the same nominal price can still deliver very different value depending on whether the building matches the intended Target Audience.

This is why What Determines the Cost of Elevator Media Screen Advertising? places building type and geography among the first factors considered when constructing a quotation, rather than simply counting the total number of screens.

What Is the Difference Between the Number of Screens and the Number of Buildings?

This is one of the easiest points to misunderstand when estimating a “one-month” campaign.

A single building may contain multiple elevators and therefore multiple screens at the same time. This means that part of the “screen count” in a proposal may actually represent multiple touchpoints reaching the same audience group — the same employees or residents — rather than an equivalent number of independent audiences. Building scale, including the number of employees or residents and the number of elevators, can influence actual traffic and exposure density more than the standalone number of screens.

(From left to right) Digital Frame (DF), LCD, and Digital Standee. Each format plays a different role within a campaign.

With a network of more than 18,000 screens across more than 2,000 buildings nationwide (What Is Focus Media Vietnam?), audience scale and density can vary significantly from one building to another. Two proposals with the same “number of screens” can therefore deliver very different levels of actual audience access depending on how many buildings and geographic clusters those screens are distributed across.

Are LCD and DF Formats the Same?

No. LCD Elevator TV and Digital Frame (DF) play different roles within a campaign. LCD is better suited to motion content such as TVCs, Product Demos, and Storytelling, while DF is more oriented toward repeated visual exposure to build Brand Awareness and Frequency.

Because the two formats serve different creative objectives and usually have different Inventory and playback configurations, “one month of Elevator Media Advertising” can mean very different things depending on whether a campaign uses LCD, DF, or a combination of both. A more detailed analysis of format selection by campaign objective is available in LCD, Digital Frame or Digital Standee: Which Should You Choose?

Why Is a Brief Required Before a Price Can Be Provided?

Because any figure quoted without a Brief is only indicative, not an actual campaign quotation. In the media industry more broadly, a Media Brief is a foundational document that defines objectives, Target Audience, key message, preferred channels, budget, and timing so that the media provider can develop an appropriate proposal instead of applying a generic price.

For Elevator Media Advertising, the Brief should contain at least six information groups: product/service, campaign objective, Target Audience, geography, timing, and expected budget — plus two optional factors depending on the campaign: Interaction requirements such as QR/NFC or a Landing Page, and the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that need to be tracked. The full list is explained in Elevator Media Advertising Quotation: What Information Do You Need to Provide?

In other words, the right question is not simply, “How much does one month of Elevator Media Advertising cost?” The more useful question is: who does the campaign need to reach, in which areas and building types, using which formats and playback configuration? “One month” is only one of several variables that need to be defined before an accurate quotation can be produced.

Contact Us for a Quotation

Brands can prepare a Brief based on the information groups above and contact the Focus Media Vietnam consulting team via Hotline 1900 5111 or Email info@focusmedia.vn to receive a recommended campaign configuration and quotation aligned with their specific objectives.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Is there a fixed price for one month of Elevator Media Advertising?
No. Focus Media Vietnam does not publish a fixed price that applies to every one-month campaign. Quotations are built according to geography, building type, format, playback configuration, and any additional modules required by each campaign.

Why can’t the price simply be calculated as “price per screen × number of screens”?
Because the number of screens does not accurately represent actual audience reach. Multiple screens may be located in the same building and reach the same Audience, while two proposals with the same number of screens can still differ significantly in traffic levels and Target Audience density.

What should I prepare before requesting a one-month quotation?
At minimum: campaign objective, Target Audience, geography, preferred format (LCD/DF), campaign timing, and expected budget. See the full list in Elevator Media Advertising Quotation: What Information Do You Need to Provide?