How Condo Corporations Can Sell Advertising on Lobby Screens

Once a building has screens, the space between notices can carry paid advertising. For a condominium corporation, that's a modest revenue line that offsets running costs. For residents, it's a useful local marketplace. Done badly, it's clutter that undermines the notices. Here's how to do it well.

Who buys ads in a condo building

• Resident businesses: tutors, personal trainers, hairdressers, accountants, realtors who live in the building
• Local businesses: the café downstairs, the dry cleaner, a nearby gym, pharmacies, restaurants
• Instructors and classes: yoga, fitness, language and music lessons, often using the building's amenity space
• Service providers: cleaners, movers, handymen (subject to the board's policy)

How slots work

The screen rotates through content. A typical approach:

• Notices and rules get priority and appear most often
• A fixed number of ad slots are mixed into the rotation
• Each slot is sold for a period (often monthly)
• Each ad appears for a set number of seconds each time it comes up

Keeping the number of slots limited protects the screen's main purpose and makes each slot more valuable.

The board's role

The corporation, through the board, decides:

• Whether to allow advertising at all
• Who may advertise
• What content is not allowed
• How much slots cost
• Who approves each ad

All of this belongs in a written policy. See writing a condo advertising policy.

Administration

Someone has to:

1. Receive requests and artwork
2. Check each ad against the policy
3. Invoice and collect payment
4. Schedule the ad for its paid period
5. Remove it when the period ends

The simpler this is, the more likely it is to keep running. Standard ad templates (the advertiser supplies text and a logo; the template does the rest) save a lot of back-and-forth.

Money

Revenue goes to the corporation. How it's recorded and whether any tax obligations arise (for example, HST) are questions for the board and the corporation's auditor. Treat advertising as an offset to running costs, not a reason to install screens on its own. See realistic revenue expectations and pricing ad slots.

Keeping residents on side

• Keep ads clearly labelled as ads
• Don't let ads outnumber notices
• Set content standards that residents would be comfortable seeing in their own lobby
• Give residents a way to raise concerns about an ad with management

Commercial buildings

The same model works in office and mixed-use buildings, where tenants, nearby retailers and service providers are natural advertisers. See tenant communication screens.