Font
computer screen or printer type face, such
as Courier, that is typically measured in points (72
per inch), with characteristics such as bold and italics.
Format
DOS process used to specify the configuration
of a floppy or hard disk and to prepare it for receiving
electronic information.
Frequency (f)
ranges from zero to the total number of insertions
in a media plan.
Frequency distribution
or exposure distribution
refers to the percentage of the target audience exposed
at each frequency level in a media plan.
G
Gallup & Robinson, Inc.
provides advertisers with several measures
of print and broadcast advertisement registration,
communication and effectiveness. These can be used
to estimate message/vehicle ratios in media planning
programs.
Grid rates
typically used in broadcast to show how prices
of announcements vary by daypart and preemptive protection,
allowing stations to set prices in relation to demand.
Gross impressions
total duplicated vehicle or message exposures
achieved by a plan.
Gross rating
points (GRPs)
sum of all vehicle or message rating points
delivered by a media plan and are therefore duplicated.
H
Harvey Research Organization,
Inc.
provides publishers of business publications
and their advertisers with recall data for readers
and buyers on seeing and reading of advertisements,
among other information. Editorial and additional
services also are available.
Households Using
Television (HUT)
percentage of households in a market viewing any programming
during a specified daypart. Summing the station or
network ratings in a given daypart will equal HUT.
Dividing the ratings by HUT will equal the station
or network share of audience. In advertising media
planning, it is important not to let share and HUT
sizes, which are almost always higher than ratings,
confuse the critical link between ratings and costs
which determines schedule efficiency. Similar concepts
include Persons Using Television (PUT), with duplicate
terms for radio (e.g., HUR and PUR).
I
IBM compatible
microcomputer hardware that has been designed
to be a clone of standard IBM equipment. IBM stands
for International Business Machines Co. which is a
major producer of computer products.
Impression
A single exposure
of an audience member to an advertising unit.
Insertions
number of advertisements
(ads) placed in a vehicle within a specified time
period.
J
K
Keyboard
83 to 101 or more key device for manually entering
information into a computer.
L
List Broker
or list house refers to an organization that
administers direct mail advertising lists, often including
purchasing and developing lists, maintaining them,
and selling or renting them to clients, among countless
other services.
M
Macintosh
brand of microcomputer products distributed by Apple
Computers, Inc.
Math coprocessor
device or computer chip that relieves the
central processing unit (CPU) of the computer the
task of handling math functions, which the math coprocessor
handles more efficiently.
Marketer's
Guide to Media (MGM)
published
semi-annually by ADWEEK, Inc., provides nearly 200
pages of data on national, ADI and metro audiences
and costs for most major advertising media categories.
Media category
or media type
refers to a similar group of media vehicles, such
as consumer magazines, newspapers, radio stations,
and so on.
Media mix
combination
of media vehicles and media categories which make
up a schedule.
Mediamark
Research, Inc. (MRI)
major
competitor of SMRB that provides media and product
usage data on various audience groups broken down
by numerous demographic and socioeconomic variables.
MEDIAWEEK's
Guide to Media (MGM)
published
quarterly to provide planners with broad data on most
major advertising media categories.
Menu
any
computer screen that offers choices for selection
by the user.Message/vehicle ratio
estimate of the probability of message exposure given
vehicle xposure. Data that are helpful in estimating
these ratios can be obtained from Starch, Gallup &
Robinson, and in-house research, among others.
Metropolitan
Statistical Area (MSA)
counties
encompassing an urban market as defined by the U.S.
Department of Commerce. Audience measurement services
often use these criteria to define their Metro Survey
Areas.
Monitor
television-like
device that displays the status of the computer.
Monroe Mendelsohn
provides
extensive data for advertisers on upscale audiences
in terms of demographics, geodemographics, socio-economic,
media usage, and consumption of products and services.
N
Nielsen
company that provides advertisers
and media organizations with spot and network television
audience data in a variety of formats and release
intervals. Two well-known reports included the Nielsen
Station Index (NSI) and the Nielsen Television Index
(NTI) prepared for Designated Market Areas (DMAs)
and networks respectively. Nielsen is a competitor
of Arbitron.
O
P
Printer
device that prepares hard or paper copies of program
output.
Q
R
RADAR
offers syndicated radio network audience
data to its subscribers as well as an on-line service.
RAM
acronym for random access memory, which is
electronically activated working space of the computer
where programs and files are temporarily stored and
manipulated.
Random access
memory (RAM)
electronically activated working space of
the computer where programs and files are temporarily
stored and manipulated.
Rating
estimated percentage of a target audience
exposed to a media vehicle within a specified time
period.
Reach (1+)
estimated percentage of the target audience
exposed one or more times to the vehicles or messages
in a plan.
Reach (3+)
estimated percentage of the target audience
exposed three or more times to the vehicles or messages
in a plan.
Reach curves
two-dimensional diagrams showing how audience
accumulates with increases in gross rating points
or budget levels. The diagrams can be based on individual
vehicles, schedules, and single and mixed media options.
Readership
total number of individuals in a selected
group (e.g., adults, males, females 18-34) that are
estimated to recognize, or to have read or looked
into a particular publication within an issues life
cycle. The technical definition varies, depending
on the me thod used to measure it. However it is measured,
readership is a more useful tool for advertisers than
is circulation.
Readers-per-copy
(RPC)
average number of subscribers, newsstand
buyers and pass-along readers of a publication for
each copy that is distributed (e.g., total readership
divided by circulation). This index is often used
to estimate readership based on relevant circulation.
READEX, Inc.
offers publishers of agricultural, business,
and professional publications, and their advertisers,
data on advertising messages, including: recall seeing,
recall reading, interest rating, usefulness, perception,
attention getting, believability, and infor mation
content, among others. The company also conducts custom
studies and provides data on readership of editorial
content.
Retail trading
zone (RTZ)
defined by the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) and
refers to an urban area outside of the city zone that
accounts for the high proportion of a markets retail
sales and is also included within a newspaper's circulation.
S
Saturation
that
point in an array of vehicle, media category, or mixed
media options where additional insertions or expenditures
lead to limited or unacceptable additions to reach
or effective reach.
Schedule
or
plan refers to a group of vehicles that are part of
an anticipated purchase designed to have a pre-specified
effect on the target audience.
Scheduling
methods
of timing advertisements across weeks and months.
Typical patterns include continuous, flighting (on/off)
and pulsing (high/low).
Self-pair
reach
or
two-use reach is the net audience of two insertions
in a single media vehicle. This is a required input
into many advertising media exposure distribution
models.
Share
percentage
of all viewers or listeners during a particular daypart
or program who are tuned to a selected station or
network. See also Households Using Television (HUT).
Showing
number
of illuminated and non-illuminated billboards or poster
panels required for daily reach of a specified proportion
of the mobile population within a market. Typical
showing sizes are 25, 50, 75 and 100. The term lingers
despite efforts over the ye ars to replace it with
GRPs.
Sample adult reach and
frequency estimates for different showing sizes are
provided in the following table.
| 25 |
76.8% |
8.2 |
| 50 |
83.4% |
15.0 |
| 100 |
87.8% |
28.5 |
Simmons Market
Research Bureau (SMRB)
major
competitor of MRI that provides media and product
usage data on various audience groups broken down
by numerous demographic and socioeconomic variables.
Software
preset
series of instructions or programs designed to allow
the user to manipulate data, text and graphics, among
other information, with a computer.
Standard
Advertising Unit (SAU)
measure
intended to make separate newspapers comparable despite
different page layouts. Essentially, one SAU is equivalent
to one column inch, whether the newspaper is a broadsheet
or a tabloid.
Standard
Rate and Data Service (SRDS)
company
that provides cost and a variety of other useful media
information on all major advertising media categories
and vehicles within those categories.
Starch INRA
Hooper
research
company that provides advertisers with data on print
and broadcast advertisement recognition and other
communication measures. These data can be used to
estimate message/vehicle ratios in media planning
programs.
Syndicated
program
television
programs or series that are sold by syndicators to
stations on a market-by-market basis without affiliated
network involvement.
T
Tabloid
newspaper with a page size that is approximately
half that of a broadsheet or standard newspaper.
Target audience
group of consumers that an advertiser is
attempting to influence. The term is often interchanged
with target market, which better identifies the geographic
area(s) of interest.
Total schedule
cost
estimated price tag of an anticipated schedule.
It is obtained by summing across all vehicles in a
plan the vehicle cost times the number of insertions
in the vehicle.
Total Survey
Area (TSA)
counties included in an Arbitron market report
that are within and outside of a designated Area of
Dominant Influence (ADI).
Tracking studies
research projects conducted to estimate the
effects of advertising campaigns on target audiences,
measuring such dimensions as awareness, recall, and
attitudes, often for both the sponsoring advertiser
and its major competitors.
Turnover rate
extent to which
a media vehicle changes audience within a specified
time frame. In broadcast it is often measured within
a daypart as cumulative audience divided by the average
quarter hour rating.
Two-use reach
or self-pair reach is the net audience of
two insertions in a single media vehicle. This is
a required input into many advertising media exposure
distribution models.
U
V
Vehicle
carrier of advertising messages such as a
magazine or a television program.
W
Windows
microcomputer operating system based on
a graphical user interface (GUI) that is intended
to make tasks easier, faster and more intuitive for
the user than the text-based interface of DOS.
X
Y
Z
Zoned edition
applies to newspapers that offer advertisers
subdivisions of their total circulation.
For more information
see: Media
Advertising Strengths and Media
Data Sources
