Creative Requirements

Please follow these requirements when designing your creative for The Globe and Mail & its partner sites

• Creative Guidelines:

  • Overall, ad creative must be complementary to the user experience and not overpower or distract from the main reason our audience comes to the site, to read and consume our content.

  • We reserve the right to halt and pull any campaign, for any reason, at any time, without providing prior notice. An explanation would be immediate once the campaign has been paused.

• Colour:

  • Colour schemes should be tasteful and complementary to our site’s style.

  • No large swatches of colour that overpower and conflict with the style of our site. (ie. Red, grey ...)

  • Globe and Mail colours cannot be used within the creative design = Red: Hex #DA161F & Grey: Hex #595959 

  • Billboard and Hero units must not use red or dark grey fills which conflict with or imitate the Globe’s brand and navigation colour. 

• Design:

  • Cannot interfere with ability of user to read or consume our content. Any expanding/overlay creative is prohibited from using instant mouseover expansions. All overlay creative must have a visible manual close [X] button.

  • Cannot replicate our content, otherwise deface, impair, harm or modify images of our content.

  • Creative should never mimic The Globe and Mail content style sheets including fonts & backgrounds.

  • Cannot imply an association or approval of editorial consent with advertising messaging.

  • Cannot be overpowering nor excessively distracting.

  • Creative must be clearly branded and include a 1 pixel border.

• Globe and Mail logo:

  • Use of the Globe logo mark in co-branded campaigns is subject to approval

• Delivery:

  • Package all applicable gif/HTML5 files within individual Zip files – one for each creative unit to run.

  • Attach all associated files to an e-mail and send to your Account Manager, your AOS AND traffic@globeandmail.com. Please use file names and associated gif files that are similar.

  • Please supply the full URL string for the creative as is. Do not provide the URL within a hyperlink. 

• Testing:

  • All rich media or third party advertising on theglobeandmail.com sites is subject to a minimum of 5 business days testing before the selected placements will become active.

  • Please ensure all creative is fully tested to work in all versions of Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and Safari.

  • All third party served ads must be tested and validated for specs prior to running on theglobeandmail.com sites.

• Advanced Concepts:

  • With the scope of possibility within digital advertising constantly developing, we are happy to evaluate any concept or idea presented to us by a client that is beyond the technical and creative options listed within this document. 

  • We evaluate all concepts in detail, based on our technical and editorial considerations and work with you to ensure your campaign is delivered both creatively and effectively.

• Approval:

  • All ad units are subject to publishers approval based on motion path overlay, animation, length, and/or content of advertising.