Glossary of Advertising Terms

Term	Definition
Account	The relationship between agency and client - an account may cover one campaign or many years of advertising, and may include all the products marketed by a client or just one campaign
Advertorial	A paid-for advertisement which includes editorial content; normally identified in a print magazine with the word "Advertisement" printed as a head across the top of the page to distinguish it from true (in theory unbiased) editorial content
Agency	The organisation which takes care of advertising for clients.
Anchorage	The 'pinning down of meaning' that a caption provides when coupled with an ambiguous image - or vice versa
Animatic	A filmed storyboard, where stills or short extracts are put together as a rough edit to show the client prior to the filming and editing of a full quality (and therefore expensive) TVC
Benefits	The features of a product which are highlighted to customers in ads. there are only two true benefits: better and cheaper. An ad may highlight the supposed emotional benefits of owning a product (eg you'll be happier, more attractive)
Billboard	Space for outdoor advertising
Brand	See full definition on page
Brief	The outline of a campaign's purpose given to the agency by the client. The brief is then developed further by the agency for internal use
Campaign	A time-limited set of ads - campaigns may run across different media, and for one month or ten years, but can be categorised together as they are the execution of a central idea
Client	The organisation who pays the agency
Coverage	Calculated in percentages, the proportion of a target audience who has the opportunity to see an ad once
Creative	The creative ideas behind an ad, or the person/team who comes up with them
Classified	Advertising which does not used pictures, and is generally not produced by an agency. A good example of how vendors can communicate directly with buyers
Copy	The text created for an ad
Demographics	Describing an audience by age, gender, ethnicity, location - ie the facts about them
Focus Groups	Small,specially selected groups representing a target audience who are paid to answer questions by a market research organisation
Frequency	The number of times an audience get the opportunity to see an ad
Pitch	The communication by the agency of a campaign strategy to the client
Penetration	The proportion of a potential market that is actually using a particular brand
Product Placement	The practice of paying for a branded product to be used by a character in a movie - eg James Bond driving a BMW Z3
Product Positioning	Establishing the market niche of a product - which may not be as the brand leader - and advertising to the appropriate segment of the audience
Propaganda	The deliberate manipulation of information in order to achieve certain objectives - NB this is RARELY used in connection with modern advertising
Psychographics	Describing an audience by their shared psychological profile (likes, dislikes etc) >
Reach	Similar to coverage
Slogan	Line of copy which encapsulates the campaign strategy
Space	The pages in a magazine or newspaper which can be sold (as double spreads, foldouts, full, half and quarter pages) to advertisers
USP	Unique Selling Proposition/point - a highlighted benefit of a product which makes it stand out from all rival brands.