Advertising Terms

AAA: American Academy of Advertising. An association of educators, students, and former educators in advertising.
AAAA: American Association of Advertising Agencies. An association whose members are ad agencies.
Accordian Insert: An ad inserted in a magazine, folded with an accordian-style fold.
ANA: Association of National Advertisers. An association whose members are advertisers, i.e., companies that advertise their products or services.
Accumulation: An audience-counting method, where each person exposed to a specific vehicle is counted once within a certain time period.
Acetate: Transparent plastic sheet frequently used for overlays in ad layouts.
Ad Copy: The printed text or spoken words in an advertisement.
Adjacencies: Time periods immediately before and after a television program, normally used as a commercial break between programs.
Adnorm: A measure of readership averages for print publications over a two-year period, used as a baseline for comparing specific ads to an average.
Advance Premium: A premium provided to a consumer, on the condition of some later purchase.
Advertiser: The manufacturer, service company, retailer, or supplier who advertises their product or service.
Advertising: A paid, mediated, form of communication from an identifiable source, designed to persuade the receiver to take some action, now or in the future. (This definition is based on the following study: Richards, J. I., and Curran, C. M. (2002). Oracles on "Advertising": Searching for a Definition. Journal of Advertising, Summer, 31(2), 63-77.)
Advertising Allowance: Money provided by a manufacturer to a distributor for the purpose of advertising a specific product or brand. See, also, Cooperative advertising.
Advertising Budget: Money set aside by the advertiser to pay for advertising. There are a variety of methods for determining the most desirable size of an advertising budget.
Advertising Elasticity: The relationship between a change in advertising budget and the resulting change in product sales.
Advertising Plan: An explicit outline of what goals an advertising campaign should achieve, how to accomplish those goals, and how to determine whether or not the campaign was successful in obtaining those goals.
Advertising Research: Research conducted to improve the efficacy of advertising. It may focus on a specific ad or campaign, or may be directed at a more general understanding of how advertising works or how consumers use the information in advertising. It can entail a variety of research approaches, including psychological, sociological, economic, and other perspectives.
Advertising Page Exposure: A measure of the opportunity for readers to see a particular print advertisement, whether or not that actually look at the ad.
Advertising Specialty: A product imprinted with, or otherwise carrying, a logo or promotional message. Also called a promotional product.
Advertorial: An advertisement that has the appearance of a news article or editorial, in a print publication. See Infomercial, below.
Advocacy Advertising: Advertising used to promote a position on a political, controversial or other social issue.
Affirmative Disclosure: A disclosure of information in an advertisement, required by the Federal Trade Commission or other authority, that may not be desired by the advertiser. This information frequently admits to some limitation in the product or the offer made in the advertisement.
Agate Line: A measure of newspaper advertising space, one column wide and 1/14th inch deep.
AIDA: Stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. This is a historical model of how advertising works, by first getting the consumer's attention, then their interest, etc.
Aided Recall: A research method frequently used to determine what consumers remember about an advertisement they have seen or heard.
Agency Commission: The agency's fee for designing and placing advertisements. Historically, this was calculated as 15 percent of the amount spent to purchase space or time in the various media used for the advertising. In recent years the commission has, in many cases, become negotiable, and may even be based on some measure of the campaign's success.
Airbrush: An artist's technique for creating a smooth gradation of color. It is often used to cover imperfections in a photograph, e.g., in a model's skin.
Ala Carte Services: Rather than provide all advertising services for one price, an agency may provide only the services that a client wishes to purchase.
Answer Print: The final edited version (print) of a television commercial, for approval by the client. It may still need color correction, etc.
Appeal: The advertisement's selling message.
Area Of Dominant Influence (ADI): A geographic designation, used by Arbitron, that specifies which counties fall into a specific television market. See, also, Designated Market Area (DMA).
Arbitron: Television and radio rating service that publishes regular reports for selected markets.
Art Proof: The artwork for an ad, to be submitted for client approval.
Artwork: The visual components of an ad, not including the typeset text.
Audience: The number of people or households exposed to a vehicle, without regard to whether they actually saw or heard the material conveyed by that vehicle.
Audience Duplication: The number of people who saw or heard more than one of the programs or publications in which an ad was placed.
Audilog: A diary kept by selected audience members to record which television programs they watched, as a means of rating television shows. Used by A.C. Nielsen.
Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC): A company that audits the circulation of print publications, to insure that reported circulation figures are accurate.
Audimeter: An electronic recording device used by A.C. Nielsen to track when a television set is in use, and to what station it is set.
Availability: Advertising time on radio or television that is available for purchase, at a specific time.
Average Audience (AA): The number of homes or persons tuned to a television program during an average minute, or the number of persons who viewed an average issue of a print publication.
Back To Back: Running more than one commercial, with one following immediately after another.
Bait Advertising: Advertising a product at a very low price, when it is difficult or even impossible to obtain the product for the price advertised.
Ben Day Process: A shading or dot pattern on a drawing.
Barter: Exchanging merchandise, or something other than money, for advertising time or space.
Billboard: (1) An outdoor sign or poster; (2) Sponsor identification at the beginning or end of a television show.
Billings: Total amount charged to clients, including the agency commission, media costs, production costs, etc.
Bleed: Allowing a picture or ad to extend beyond the normal margin of a printed page, to the edge of the page.
Blow-in Card: An advertisement, subscription request, or other printed card "blown" into a print publication rather than bound into it.
Blueline: A blue line drawn on a mechanical to indicate where a page will be cut.
Boutique: An agency that provides a limited service, such as one that does creative work but does not provide media planning, research, etc. Usually, this refers to a relatively small company.
Body Copy: The text of a print ad, not including the headline, logo, or subscript material.
Brand Development Index (BDI): A comparison of the percent of a brand's sales in a market to the percent of the national population in that same market.
Brand Manager: Person who has marketing responsibilities for a specific brand.
Brand Name: Name used to distinguish one product from it's competitors. It can apply to a single product, an entire product line, or even a company.
Bridge: Transition from one scene to another, in a commercial or program.
Broadside: A promotion that is printed on a single large sheet of paper, usually on only one side of the paper, as opposed to a tabloid or other off-size newspaper.
Bulldog Edition: An edition of a print publication that is available earlier than other editions. Usually, this is the early edition of a large circulation newspaper.
Broadsheet: Standard size newspaper.
Business-To-Business Advertising: Advertising directed to other businesses, rather than to consumers.
CBBB: Council of Better Business Bureaus. A national organization of local business bureaus.
Buried Position: Placing an ad between other ads in a print publication, so that readers are less likely to see it.
Caption: (1) An advertisement's headline; (2) The text accompanying an illustration or photograph.
Car Card: A poster placed in buses, subways, etc. Also called a Bus card.
Card Rate: Media rates published by a broadcast station or print publication on a "rate card." This is typically the highest rate charged by a vehicle.
Camera-ready Art: Artwork that is in sufficiently finished form to be photographed for printing.
Cease-and-desist Order: An order by the Federal Trade Commission requiring an advertiser to stop running a deceptive or unfair advertisement, campaign, or claim.
Category Development Index (CDI): A comparison of the percent of sales of a product category in a market, to the percent of population in that market.
Chain Break: A pause for station identification, and commercials, during a network telecast.
Channels Of Distribution: The routes used by a company to distribute its products, e.g., through wholesalers, retailers, mail order, etc.
Chrome: A color photographic transparency.
Circulation: Of a print publication, the average number of copies distributed. For outdoor advertising this refers to the total number of people who have an opportunity to observe a billboard or poster. This term sometimes is used for broadcast, as well, but the term "audience" is used more frequently.
Classified Advertising: Print advertising that is limited to certain classes of goods and services, and usually limited in size and content.
Claymation: An animation method that uses clay figurines.
Clearance: The process by which a vehicle reviews an advertisement for legal, ethical, and taste standards, before accepting the ad for publication.
Client: The ad agency's term for the advertisers it represents.
Closing Date: The day final copy and other materials must be at the vehicle in order to appear in a specific issue or time slot.
Clutter: When an advertisement is surrounded by other ads, thereby forcing it to compete for the viewer's or listener's attention.
Coincidental Survey: A survey of viewers or listeners of broadcast programming, conducted during the program.
Cold Type: Refers to most modern typesetting methods, such as phototypesetting, because they do not involve pouring hot molten metal into molds for different type fonts.
Coated Stock: Paper with a slick and smooth finish.
Collateral Materials: Sales brochures, catalogs, spec sheets, etc., generally delivered to consumers (or dealers) by a sales person rather than by mass media. These materials are considered "collateral" to the sales message delivered by the sales person.
Collectibles: A type of premium that consumers may desire to have as a part of a greater collection of similar goods.
Color Proof: An early full-color print of a finished advertisement, used to evaluate the ad's final appearance.
Color Seperation: A full-color ad normally is generated through printing of four separate colors: yellow, cyan, magenta, and black. The color separation consists of four separate screens; one for each of those four colors.
Column Inch: A common unit of measure by newspapers, whereby ad space is purchased by the width, in columns, and the depth, in inches. For example, an ad that is three standard columns wide and 5 inches tall (or deep) would be 15 column inches.
Combination Rate: A special media pricing arrangement that involves purchasing space or time on more than one vehicle, in a package deal. This is frequently offered where different vehicles share a common owner.
Commercial Advertising: Advertising that involves commercial interests rather than advocating a social or political cause.
Communication Process: A description or explanation of the chain-of-events involved in communicating information from one party to another.
Comparative Advertising: An advertising appeal that consists of explicitly comparing one product brand to a competitive brand.
Competition-oriented Pricing: A pricing strategy that is based upon what the competition does.
Competitive Parity: A method of determining an advertising budget, designed to maintain the current "share of voice."
Comprehensive Layout: A rough layout of an ad designed for presentation only, but so detailed as to appear very much like the finished ad will look.
Consent Order: Also called a consent decree, this is a Federal Trade Commission order, by which an advertiser agrees to make changes in an advertisement or campaign, without the need for a legal hearing.
Consumer Advertising: Advertising directed at a person who will actually use the product for their own benefit, rather than to a business or dealer.
Consumer Stimulants: Promotional efforts designed to stimulate short-term purchasing behavior. Coupons, premiums, and samples are examples of consumer stimulants.
Consumer Behavior: Study of how people behave when obtaining, using, and disposing of products (and services).
Consumer Jury Test: A method of testing advertisements that involves asking consumers to compare, rank, and otherwise evaluate the ads.
Consumerism: (1) Advocating the rights of consumers, as against the efforts of advertisers, (2) The emphasis of advertising and marketing efforts toward creating consumers. These two definitions are almost opposite in meaning, but the former is commonly used today, while the latter was common prior to the 1970s.
Container Premium: Special product packaging, where the package itself acts as a premium of value to the consumer.