Advertising Terms

Continuity: Scheduling advertisements to appear at regular intervals over a period of time.
Continuous Advertising: Scheduling advertisements to appear regularly, even during times when consumers are not likely to purchase the product or service, so that consumers are constantly reminded of the brand.
Continuous Advertising: Where a photograph or other art depicts smooth gradations from one level of gray to another.
Controlled (Qualified) Circulation: Publications, generally business-oriented, that are delivered only to readers who have some special qualifications. Generally, publications are free to the qualified recipients.
Cooperative (Co-op) Program: A system by which ad costs are divided between two or more parties. Usually, such programs are offered by manufacturers to their wholesalers or retailers, as a means of encouraging those parties to advertise the product.
Cooperative Advertising: Same as Cooperative program, above.
Copy: All spoken words or written text in an advertisement.
Copy Testing: Research to determine an ad's effectiveness, based on consumer responses to the ad.
Corporate Advertising Campaign: A campaign that promotes a corporation, rather than a product or service sold by that corporation.
Copy Platform: See Creative Strategy, below.
Corrective Advertising: Advertisements or messages within advertisements, that the Federal Trade Commission orders a company to run, for the purpose of correcting consumers' mistaken impressions created by prior advertising.
Cost Efficiency: For a media schedule, refers to the relative balance of effectively meeting reach and frequency goals at the lowest price.
Cost Per Inquiry: The cost of getting one person to inquire about your product or service. This is a standard used in direct response advertising.
Cost Per Rating Point (CPP): The cost, per 1 percent of a specified audience, of buying advertising space in a given media vehicle.
Counter Advertising: Advertising that takes a position contrary to an advertising message that preceded it. Such advertising may be used to take an opposing position on a controversial topic, or to counter an impression that might be made by another party's advertising.
Coverage: A measure of a media vehicle's reach, within a specific geographic area.
Cost Per Thousand (CPM): The cost, per 1000 people reached, of buying advertising space in a given media vehicle.
Creatives: The art directors and copywriters in an ad agency.
Crop: To eliminate or cut off specific portions of a photograph or illustration.
Crop Marks: Marks to indicate which portions a photograph or illustration are to be used, and which are to be eliminated.
Creative Strategy: An outline of what message should be conveyed, to whom, and with what tone. This provides the guiding principles for copywriters and art directors who are assigned to develop the advertisement. Within the context of that assignment, any ad that is then created should conform to that strategy. The written statement of creative strategy is sometimes called a "copy platform."
Cumes: An abbreviation for net cumulative audience. Refers to the number of unduplicated people or homes in a broadcast program's audience within a specified time period. This term is used by A.C. Nielsen. It also is used by many advertising practitioners to refer to the unduplicated audience of a print vehicle, or an entire media schedule.
Cumulative Audience: See Cumes, above.
Cut: An antiquated term that refers to a photograph or illustration.
Cutting: A film editing technique that creates a quick transition from one scene to another.
Dailiies: Also called rushes, this refers to unedited film. These are called Dailies because the film typically is viewed from a single day's shooting, even if the final commercial or program will take many days or weeks of shooting.
DAGMAR: This refers to a process of establishing goals for an ad campaign such that it is possible to determine whether or not the goals have been met. It stands for Defining Advertising Goals for Measured Advertising Results.
Day-after Recall Test: A research method that tests consumers' memories the day after they have seen an ad, to assess the ad's effectiveness.
Daypart: Broadcast media divide the day into several standard time periods, each of which is called a "daypart." Cost of purchasing advertising time on a vehicle varies by the daypart selected.
Decay Constant: An estimate of the decline in product sales if advertising were discontinued.
Deceptive Advertising: FTC definition: A representation, omission, act or practice that is likely to mislead consumers acting reasonably under the circumstances. To be regulated, however, a deceptive claim must also be material. See Materiality, below.
Demographic Segmentation: Dividing consumers into groups based on selected demographics, so that different groups can be treated differently. For example, two advertisements might be developed, one for adults and one for teenagers, because the two groups are expected to be attracted to different types of advertising appeal. See Demographics, below.
Demographics: Basic objective descriptive classifications of consumers, such as their age, sex, income, education, size of household, ownership of home, etc. This does not include classification by subjective attitudes or opinions of consumers. See Psychographics, below.
Depth Interview: A method of research, whereby a trained interviewer meets with consumers individually and asks a series of questions designed to detect attitudes and thoughts that might be missed when using other methods.
Designated Market Area (DMA): A geographic designation, used by A.C. Nielsen, that specifies which counties fall into a specific television market. See also, Area of dominant influence.
Direct House: An advertising specialties company that manufactures and then sells its goods directly with its own sales force, rather than through retailers.
Direct Mail: Marketing communications delivered directly to a prospective purchaser via the U.S. Postal Service or a private delivery company.
Direct Marketing: Sending a promotional message directly to consumers, rather than via a mass medium. Includes methods such as Direct Mail and Telemarketing.
Direct Response: Promotions that permit or request consumers to directly respond to the advertiser, by mail, telephone, e-mail, or some other means of communication. Some practitioners use this as a synonym for Direct Marketing.
Direct Premium: A premium provided to the consumer at the same time as the purchase.
Display Advertisement: 1) In print media, any advertisement other than a classified ad. (2) An ad that stands alone, such as window sign.
Dissolve: Fading from one scene to another in a film or television production.
Directory Advertising: Advertising that appears in a directory (telephone directory, tourism brochure, etc.). This frequently connotes advertising that consumers intentionally seek.
Distributor: A company or person that distributes a manufacturer's goods to retailers. The terms "wholesaler" and "jobber" are sometimes used to describe distributors.
Door-opener: A product or advertising specialty given by a sales person to consumers to induce them to listen to a sales pitch.
Double Truck: A two-page spread in a print publication, where the ad runs across the middle gutter.
Drive Time: Used in radio, this refers to morning and afternoon times when consumers are driving to and from work. See Daypart, above.
Dummy: A copy (e.g., xerographic duplicate) of an ad, or even blank sheets of paper, provided to a printer or artist as an example of the size, color, or other aspect of the ad to be produced.
Duplicated Audience: That portion of an audience that is reached by more than one media vehicle.
Earned Rate: A discounted media rate, based on volume or frequency of media placement.
Electric Spectacular: Outdoor signs or billboards composed largely of lighting or other electrical components.
End-user: The person who actually uses a product, whether or not they are the one who purchased the product.
Em: A unit of type measurement, based on the "M" character.
Envelope Stuffer: A direct mail advertisement included with another mailed message (such as a bill).
Equal Time: A Federal Communications Commission requirement that when a broadcaster allows a political candidate broadcast a message, opposing candidates must be offered equal broadcast time.
Eighty-twenty Rule: A rule-of-thumb that, for the typical product category, eighty percent of the products sold will be consumed by twenty percent of the customers.
Exposure: Consumers who have seen (or heard) a media vehicle, whether or not they paid attention to it.
Eye Tracking: A research method that determines what part of an advertisement consumers look at, by tracking the pattern of their eye movements.
FCC: Federal Communications Commission. The federal agency responsible for regulating broadcast and electronic communications.
FTC: Federal Trade Commission. The federal agency primarily responsible for regulating national advertising.
Facings: Refers to the number of billboards used for an advertisement.
Factory Pack: A premium attached to a product, in or on the packaging.
Fairness Doctrine: Until the mid-1980s, a Federal Communications Commission policy that required broadcasters to provide time for opposing viewpoints any time they broadcast an opinion supporting one side of a controversial issue.
Family Brand: A brand name that is used for more than one product, i.e., a family of products.
Fixed-sum-per-unit Method: A method of determining an advertising budget, which is based directly on the number of units sold.
Flat Rate: A media rate that allows for no discounts.
Flighting: A media schedule that involves more advertising at certain times and less advertising during other time periods.
Focus Group Interview: A research method that brings together a small group of consumers to discuss the product or advertising, under the guidance of a trained interviewer.
Font: A typeface style, such as Helvetica, Times Roman, etc., in a single size. A single font includes all 26 letters, along with punctuation, numbers, and other characters.
Four As: See AAAA, above.
Four Ps: Stands for Product, Price, Place (i.e., distribution), and Promotion. This is also known as the Marketing Mix, see below.
Franchised Position: An ad position in a periodic publication (e.g., back cover) to which an advertiser is given a permanent or long-term right of use.
Four-color Process: A printing process that combines differing amounts of each of four colors (red, yellow, blue & black) to provide a full-color print.
Free-standing Insert (FSI): An advertisement or group of ads inserted - but not bound - in a print publication, on pages that contain only the ads and are separate from any editorial or entertainment matter.
Frequency: (1) Number of times an average person or home is exposed to a media vehicle (or group of vehicles), within a given time period. (2) The position of a television or radio station's broadcast signal within the electromagnetic spectrum.
Fringe Time: A time period directly preceding and directly following prime time, on television.
Full-service Agency: An agency that handles all aspects of the advertising process, including planning, design, production, and placement. Today, full-service generally suggests that the agency also handles other aspects of marketing communication, such as public relations, sales promotion, and direct marketing.
Galley Proof: A typeset copy of an ad or editorial material, before it is made into pages for final production.
Fulfillment House: A coupon clearing house. A company that receives coupons and manages their accounting, verification and redemption.
Full Position: An ad that is surrounded by reading matter in a newspaper, making it more likely consumers will read the ad. This is a highly desirable location for an ad.
Galvanometer Test: A research method that measures physiological changes in consumers when asked a question or shown some stimulus material (such as an ad).
Guaranteed Circulation: A media rate that comes with a guarantee that the publication will achieve a certain circulation.
Gatefold: Double or triple-size pages, generally in magazines, that fold out into a large advertisement.
Green Advertising: Advertising that promotes a product or service's ability to help or, more likely, not hurt the environment.
Grid Card: A broadcast media rate card that lists rates on a grid, according to the time periods that might be selected for the ad.
Gross Audience: The audiences of all vehicles or media in a campaign, combined. Some or much of the gross audience may actually represent duplicated audience.
Generic Brand: Products not associated with a private or national brand name.
Gravure: A printing process that uses an etched printing cylinder.
Gross Impressions: Total number of unduplicated people or households represented by a given media schedule.
Gutter: The inside margins of two pages that face each other in a print publication.
Gross Rating Points (GRPs): Reach times average frequency. This is a measure of the advertising weight delivered by a vehicle or vehicles within a given time period.
Hierarchy-of-effects theory: A series of steps by which consumers receive and use information in reaching decisions about what actions they will take (e.g., whether or not to buy a product).
Halftone: A method of reproducing a black and white photograph or illustration, by representing various shades of gray as a series of black and white dots.
Holding Power: The ability to keep an audience throughout a broadcast, rather than having them change channels. It is represented as a percent of the total audience.
Holdover Audience: The percent of a program's audience that watched or listened to the immediately preceding program on the same station. Also called Inherited audience (see below).
Hologram: A three-dimensional photograph or illustration, created with an optical process that uses lasers.
Horizontal Discount: A discount on a media purchase resulting from a promise to advertise over an extended period of time.
Horizontal Publications: Business publications designed to appeal to people of similar interests or responsibilities in a variety of companies or industries.
Host/Hostess Gift: A gift to a consumer who sponsors a sales demonstration party or meeting.
Hot Composition: A method of typesetting that uses molten metal to form the letters for a typeface. See Cold type, above.