Basics of Advertising

Advertising is a form of marketing communication. As described by University of North Carolina at Pembroke, “Advertising is mass media content intended to persuade audiences of readers, viewers or listeners to take action on products, services, and ideas. The idea is to drive consumer behavior in a particular way in regard to a product, service or concept” (Canno, 2014).

The fact that advertising is paid for and persuasive (i.e., the seller controls the content and message) separates it from other forms of mass mediated communication such as publicity, news and features. Advertisements are usually directed toward a particular market segment, and that dictates which media and which vehicles are chosen to present the message. A medium refers to a class of communication carriers such as television, newspapers, magazines, outdoor, and so forth. A vehicle is a particular carrier within the group, such as Rolling Stone magazine or MTV network. Advertisers determine where to place their advertising budget based on the likelihood that the advertisements will create enough of an increase in sales to justify their expense, in other words, their return on investment (ROI). Advertisers must be familiar with their market and consumers’ media consumption habits in order to be successful in reaching their customers as effectively as possible.

The most basic market segments for advertising are: 1) consumers, and2) trade, which are people within the industry that make decisions affecting the success of your marketing efforts. The first market (consumers) targeted through radio, television, out-of-home which includes billboards, street furniture such a bus benches, transit media including bus and train signage, along with alternative placement such as on-building wraps, direct mail, magazines, newspapers and the Internet. Consumer advertising is directed toward potential buyers to create a “pull” marketing effect (see Chapter 2).

The second target market is the trade, and consists of wholesalers, retailers, and other people known as gatekeepers who may be influenced by the advertisements and respond is a way that is favorable for the marketing goals. This creates a “push” marketing effect (again, see Chapter 2). In the recording industry, this would include radio program directors that may be influenced by an advertisement in Billboard, to more favorably consider a particular advertised song for inclusion in the station’s weekly playlist. Trade advertising is usually done through direct mail and through trade publications (usually magazines or email) aimed at people who work in the industry. Trade advertising is not common through television, radio and newspapers because they are too general in nature—not targeted enough to effectively reach the industry.

Figure 19.1

Consumer advertising: The Media Buy

When considering a media buy, labels consider many factors:

• Media
• Budget
• Target market
• Timing
• Partners
• Artist Relations

There are advantages and disadvantages to the various mediums and why each might be chosen for a particular message.

Comparison of Media Options for Advertising

The most complex issue facing advertisers involves decisions of where to place advertising. The expansion of media has increased the options and complicated the decision. The following chart in Table 19.1 represents a basic understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of the various media options.

Television Advertising

Television reaches a broad audience and now with cable, it’s easier than ever before to target by interest: home owners, gardeners and DIYers might be reached through HGTV, those who love and/or own animals can be reached through the Animal Channel and music lovers might be able to be reached through MTV, CMT or GAC. “Might” because these channels are reducing their music programming hours and increasing reality TV and other programs that appeal to a wider audience. TV also has the benefit of sight and sound, which can be attention grabbing and can create an emotional connection to the product. Disadvantages are the high cost for placement and production of the spots and the short life span—it’s hard to say everything you need to say in 30 seconds. Also, DVR penetration continues to grow with nearly 50% of all television households now having at least one DVR. And what’s their favorite way to use those DVRs? You know it—to skip that great promo spot you just developed.

Terminology: ROS or Run-of-schedule. ROS just refers to the scheduling of a promo spot at any time the station wants to run it within a specified timeframe. Typically, this is much less expensive than if you specifically request a daypart or placement within a particular program. For example, a ROS spot may run at 10:45 a.m. on the station one day then 9:45 p.m. the next day.

Road Blocking is another term that is referenced mostly in television but can take place in other mediums as well. Have you ever switched a channel to avoid an annoying commercial only to see it running on the other major networks at the same time so that you really can’t escape it? That’s called road blocking.

Figure 19.2

Figure 19.3

Figure 19.4

Print Advertising

Magazines fall under the print medium and have the advantage of being able to communicate a lot of information. They also have a long life span—some magazines are passed along to others and some are kept for years. You can also target particular audiences through specialty publications like Car and Driver or Seventeen or Country Weekly. Disadvantages are the long lead time—you have to plan for an ad in a magazine and turn in ad copy and creative art work weeks prior to the printing. And unless you pay for premium positioning, your ad might be placed in a less than desirable location—like next to another ad or next to unrelated editorial.

This is an example of a print rate card for People magazine. You can see that is provides information like the rate base—which means the minimum number of subscribers and over the counter purchasers projected for those specific issues, then the rate for a four-color ad and black and white.

Typically on any type of rate card they will list the open rate, which is the highest rate you would be charged. The rates are almost always negotiable, especially in the print world. The rate card also provides an audience profile that details who reads the magazine. You can see at the bottom that they pulled this information from MRI, one of the syndicated research services discussed earlier.

Newspapers are another form of print advertising. Newspaper ads are great if you have short lead time and you can run an ad in the entertainment section, for instance, to reach people interested in those types of products. Disadvantages are the poor print quality, short life span, and the inability to really do any type of product sampling except if you were to print a digital code for a download or special content that they have to go online to “redeem.” Also, the printed version of newspapers skews to an older buyer so knowing your target demographic is really important.

Although print advertising has decreased substantially in recent years and it is not a big expense, typically, for Record Labels, there are occasionally partnership opportunities that might provide exposure in print. Knowing print terminology will aid you when the occasion arises.

Figure 19.5

The center spread is the ad unit in the center of a publication. If you dropped a magazine on a table, it might naturally open to this spread because of the way the magazine is bound. Circulation, or circ, is the average number of copies per issue. Closing date is the final deadline that you may reserve space in a publication. A double page spread refers to an ad that spreads across two facing pages. FP4C is shorthand for full page four color. Guaranteed position ensures a particular placement in a publication (as opposed to run of print, which means your ad could be placed anywhere).

The cover of a mag is referred to as cover 1. When you open up the cover and are looking at the page on the left, that is referred to as the inside front cover, or cover 2. Cover 3 is the inside of the back cover, and cover 4 is the back of the magazine. These are all referred to as “premium positioning” which means that they generally cost a lot more than just a run of print ad. Why? Because more people actually look at those than other pages in the publication.

If you want to place an ad in a magazine, or even if it’s an ad that’s being offered as a promotional trade, you will be asked to fill out an insertion order specifying the date of the issue you want. The specs list the mechanicals that you will want to provide to the designer. The primary reader is the one who receives the subscription or pays for the issue at newsstand.

The readers per copy take into account the initial subscriber or purchaser, as well as any other person who may have read the issue. These people are called secondary readers. For instance, the primary reader might leave an old magazine at her doctor’s office where 10 additional secondary readers may thumb through it as well.

Out-of-Home Advertising

Out-of-home advertising (OOH) refers to advertising that attempts to target the consumer outside of his or her home. There are four main categories: billboards; street furniture like bus shelters or kiosks; transit advertising like buses, ads on subways, ads in taxis, and airport advertising; and alternatives like bike racks, building wraps, stair wraps and gas pumps.

Image 19.6

Image 19.7

Image 19.8

Image 19.9

Billboard advantages are that there are a large number of people reached but a low cost-per-thousand people reached. It is also easy to target geographically using billboards. Disadvantages are, hopefully anyway, drivers are more concerned with watching the road than reading your billboard. And there really isn’t a way to target a particular demographic group so there is the potential to have a lot of waste. One car may be driven by a 65-year-old male, while the next car has four teenage girls in it.

Messages on billboards need to be very brief—generally no more than eight words is a good target. The creative image should include large, easy to read font and lower case letters. Also, think about which font colors are easiest to read and use those (in other words, no purple letters on a black background) (http://cdn.creativeguerrillamarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/HLIC/f8c8330ea0d06e7fb9bb4515bee8ac75.jpg).

Online or Digital Advertising

Online or digital advertising, offers the music industry a lot—we can finely target our audience, we can use video and audio, graphics and photos, and we can set up a campaign so that we only pay for people who care enough to actually click on our ad. Disadvantages are that the environment is extremely cluttered and many consumers have trained themselves to ignore most standard ad units. Also, the Internet is vast so finding adequate coverage to the target market may be challenging.

When you think about it, in addition to straight up online advertising opportunities, online marketing is really woven into every other medium. For instance, in our industry we have online radio, radio station websites, local and national TV station websites and online versions of entertainment publications. The opportunities are almost endless and clearly, this form of advertising should be woven into every part of a marketing plan.

Display advertising refers to an image-based way of promoting products and services Another important term is contextual advertising, which is a form of targeted advertising that would allow a user on a rock music website to be served up ads on related content like rock memorabilia or tickets to local rock concerts coming up in the area.

There are three main types of digital ads: There are standard text ads, which is what you typically see when you conduct a search for a product on Google. Then we have a standard display ad that has images and basic text. It generally will have only one function though. For instance, if you click on it the ad will take you to a website. Banner ads are a good example of this. Then we have rich media ads, which can include video and a lot of opportunities to interact with the consumer.

Image 19.10

Image 19.11

This is an example of a standard text ad that sells with words.

This is an example of a Standard display ad. These types of ads may incorporate Flash but again, there is generally one interaction—when you click on it, it takes you to one site.

Rich Media ads offer much more interactivity with the audience. Rich media ads might expand when you click or roll over them or allow videos to be played inside the ad unit itself.

This advertisement allows for interaction with device simulation along with a view of actual “record breaking event.”

Image 19.12

Image 19.13

Search engine advertising is a core component to every marketing plan. Ads can be on search engines themselves. When searching for “Christian Music” on Google, key word search profiles lift to the top several ad-driven items for searchers to view first.

Figure 19.14

How does this work? Advertisers pay on a per-click basis; in other words, they pay a few cents for each time a web visitor clicks on their sponsored link. The advertiser enters in a series of keywords (search terms or words their customers are likely to use in a search engine when looking for a particular product or type of web site). Advertisers place bids to have their ad strategically located in the sponsored links category on search engine results. The advertiser can actually create a list of terms and bid independently on each one. The highest bid for that particular set of search terms has the top spot. You may not want to be the top spot for blues music if you depend on live shows for income because blues fans from all over would be likely to click to your site only to learn that you are not performing in their area. But if the term “blues music” was combined with “East Texas” and you are performing in that area, then perhaps you want one of the top advertiser spots. Finding the right keywords and combination of keywords may take a bit of trial and error at first.

Contextual Advertising

Contextual advertising is defined as advertising on a web site that is targeted to the specific individual who is visiting the web site based on the subject matter of the site and then featuring products that relate to that subject matter. For example, if the user is viewing a site about playing music and the site uses contextual advertising, the user might see ads for music-related companies such as music stores. Google has added AdSense as a way for web site owners to feature relevant advertising on their sites and share in the CPC revenue generated by sponsors. The source of these ads comes from the AdWords program, so that those who sign up for AdWords can specify if they want their ad to appear on these related web sites—the content network. Google’s website states, “A content network page might be a web site that discusses a product you sell, or a blog or news article on a topic related to your business.”

Look on other websites with whom search engines partner based on the specific keywords or phrases the marketer is targeting. For example, this contextual ad for Publix Grocery Stores was generated on a website called Everyday Health. The keywords Publix’s likely used when they placed the ad on the ad network could have been “healthy eating,” “weight loss,” “diet,” or “menu planning” (http://www.everydayhealth.com/groups/.

Figure 19.15

Digital advertising is typically sold on a cost per click, or CPC, basis. This is also referred to as Pay per click, which simply means that an ad might be seen by millions of people but you are only charged for the ones who actually clicked on it.

Figure 19.16

Figure 19.17

This is a chart of media ad spending by category for 2011 projected until 2017. You can see that TV is still expected to generate the most in ad sales, but look at the projected growth of digital and within digital is mobile advertising—again, huge increases expected. Magazines are expected to hold steady, which newspaper advertising (and this reflects print only) will continue its decline. Radio and outdoor are each expected to increase slightly.

Social Media Advertising

Advertising options on social networks continue to grow. Sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram provide a cost-efficient way to reach a preferred target market.

Facebook

Facebook is able to provide laser-focused targeting by combining its own data from user activity with information provided by third-party providers of syndicated consumer data, giving marketers access to more than 500 partner categories including Demographics, Home, Financials, Vehicles, Travel, Hobbies and Interests, Lifestyles, Charitable and Political Affiliations, and more. For instance, if you want to target ads to people 18–24 years old who like pages related to Beyoncé and are anticipating the purpose of a vehicle in the next six months you can do that through a combination of both Facebook and third-party information. You can also use Facebook’s Custom Audiences feature to use your existing database (e.g., your list of email subscribers) to target those people on the platform.

Facebook has made it easy for even novices to implement an ad campaign by first asking advertisers to identify an objective (e.g. engagement, page likes, clicks to a website), then walking you through the options step by step. The most commonly used ad types on Facebook are Page Post Ads and Promoted Posts. Display options include Desktop News Feed, Right Sidebar (the smaller ads to the right of the news feed) and Mobile News Feed.

As mentioned, targeting capabilities in Facebook are vast including: Location, Age, Gender, Relationship Status, Language, Education, Work-places, Financial, Home, Market Segments (e.g. ethnicity, generation, family size, moms), Parents, Political affiliation, Life events, and more.

There are three pricing options for Facebook ads:

1. CPC or Cost Per Click: the advertiser only pays when someone clicks on the ad
2. CP (Thousand) Impressions—or CPM: the advertiser pays each time an ad is viewed even if there is no interaction with the ad
3. Optimized CPM: the advertiser agrees to let Facebook use its data to serve the ad to the most likely to take the action you want. For example, if your objective is “App Installs” your ad might be shown to the people in your defined target audience who have a history of downloading apps. With this method you are still paying every time someone sees your ad but because the algorithm is identifying the best targets for you there is less “waste” involved, resulting in a more efficient buy.

Twitter

Twitter follows a similar approach to Facebook in that they ask advertisers to first state their objective (e.g., tweet engagement, app installs, website clicks, video views) which will determine the correct type of ad, of which there are three main types:

1. Promoted Tweets—tweets that show up in the main news feed.
2. Promoted Accounts—shows up in the “who to follow section”
3. Promoted Trends—shows as “promoted” in the “Trends” list. This option allows an advertiser to be at top of the trending list for 24 hours and is only available to large advertisers as the cost can be substantial.

For Promoted Tweets, Twitter considers the quality of tweets, in addition to the budget, in determining with ad units to show. Generally, favored tweets include those from accounts who have demonstrated engagement with consumers (do they re-tweet, favorite or reply often to the tweets?), is the tweet related to subjects the user is interested in, and is the tweet timely. The last one is important as more timely tweets get priority.

Twitter also has robust targeting options including location, gender, language, interests and desires. Ad advertiser may choose to target specific keywords (searches or tweets) or specific television programs watched. An advertiser may also select people with specific interests or people who are similar to followers of specific accounts. As with Facebook, Twitter allows advertisers the ability to reach tailored audiences using data like email addresses.

Advertisers pay for Twitter ads on a CPE (Cost per Engagement) basis.

1. Promoted Tweets—the advertiser only pays when someone clicks, retweets, replies to or favorites an ad.
2. Promoted Accounts—the advertiser only pays when someone follows.

Instagram

Instagram is slowly rolling out ads across its platform, beginning with a few select partners that were already strong players in the Instagram community who have organically built a loyal following. Criteria for ads are more restrictive on this platform than other social networks with a focus on high quality and engaging ads. As such, ads must meet certain criteria such as:

• No logos in ads other than as a natural part of the scene
• No product features in the images
• Images used should be authentic to the partner’s brand

Instagram also encourages the design of ads with mobile in mind to better serve that large and growing audience.

Other digital advertising options in the music industry include re-targeting ads that places a piece of code on artist and industry websites that allows an advertiser to present an ad to that consumer on social networks or other websites; ads on YouTube such as banner ads, in-video overlay ads and in-stream video ads; and advertising on online radio and streaming services like website placement sold by radio station groups, Spotify and Pandora.

Media Planning

Media planning involves the decisions made in determining in which media to place advertisements. It consists of a series of decisions made to answer the following questions:

1. How many potential consumers do I need to reach?
2. In what medium (or media) should I place ads?
3. When and how often should these ads run?
4. What vehicles and in which markets should they run?
5. What choices are most cost-effective?

It also involves analyzing the costs to determine which mediums are most cost effective.

How Advertising Effectiveness is Measured

As we learned in the radio chapter, the total number of unique views of an ad over a period of time is referred to as the Cume. A household or person is counted only once even if the ad was viewed by that person multiple times. This is also known as net unduplicated audience or net reach. Cume, or Net Reach, may be expressed as an absolute number or as a percentage of the population.

Frequency is the number of times a consumer or population is exposed to the ad message.

Gross Impressions are the total number of times an ad was viewed. The figure counts duplicates or repeated viewings by the same person. For example, one million Gross Impressions could be one million people each exposed once or 10,000 people each exposed 100 times or any other such combination of numbers. So it includes duplicate views by the same person.

Another Example:

A rating point is a value that is equal to one percent of the total population or households that are tuned into a particular program or station at a specific time. For example, a six rating for women 18–49 means that six percent of all women 18–49 in a specified geographic region were viewing that station or program.

Gross Rating Points (or GRPs) quantify impressions as a percentage of the population reached rather than in absolute numbers.

GRPs measure the sum of all Rating Points during an advertising campaign without regard to duplication. Just like in our recent Gross Impressions example, a GRP of 100 could mean that you bought one hundred spots with a one percent reach or that you bought 2 spots with a 50% reach.

GRPs are calculated by determining the reach of your spots (which is a function of the stations or programs you purchase) times the frequency or number of spots.

Each GRP represents one percent. For example, if 25 percent of all televisions are tuned to a show that contains your spot, you have 25 Rating Points. If, the next time the show is on the air, 30% are tuned in, you have a total of 25+30 or 55 Rating Points.

Targeted Rating Points or TRPs are similar to GRPs, but they express the reach times frequency of only your most likely prospects. For example, if you were marketing makeup for women and knew that the program in which your message ran consisted of 50% women, your TRP would be half your GRP.

In other words, GRPs relate to the total audience exposure to the message whereas TRPs relate to the target audience exposure.

Cost per Point is used by most media planners as a way to determine the cost for reaching one percent of the target audience. The average cost per spot divided by the average rating point per spot would give you this number.

Cost per Thousand or CPM is the cost of reaching 1,000 homes or individuals with your message. By the way, M is the roman number representing 1,000, that’s why it’s CPM. So in this example, if Option A costs $50,000 and reaches 100,000 people and Option B costs $25,000 but only reaches 40,000 people, how do you determine which option gives you the biggest bank for your buck? Figure out the cost of reaching one thousand people and you can see that Option A is the most efficient buy.

Example:

Advertising and its impact is not something that is easy to measure. Sure, we can measure the individual units within a campaign, but for a national effort you might have national and local radio, national and local television spots, online ads, publicity efforts, promotions and other elements that all contribute to the success or failure of a project. It’s really a matter of trying to test as many variables as you can to help pinpoint the main drivers of sales.

Figure 19.18

Figure 19.19

Co-op or cooperative advertising generally refers to the joint promotional effort of two or more parties in the selling chain, for example, a release being featured in a Best Buy circular, or premium placement of the product in exchange for ad dollars. This financial implication of this type of advertising is discussed in the Distribution and Retail chapter but here are some examples.

These are all examples of Co-op advertising. There’s an end cap display in a music store. Then you have in the lower left, an album Point of Purchase poster that is “available at Target”—in this case, the record label paid for favorable in-store positioning of the album. Then to the right, we have an example outside of the music industry—Amazon Prime and American Express partnering on a banner ad.

Television and Radio Campaign: Here is the schedule of an actual ad buy for the CMA Awards show in Atlanta that included both tv and radio. You can see the Rating Points purchased, the cost $6,000 and the Cost Per Point which is 800 or 6,000 divided by 7.5. One spot was purchased and that generated 75,000 impressions among women 25–54 for a Cost per Thousand or CPM of 80.

Table 19.2 Sample TV Advertising Buy

Figure 19.20

This television advertising buy was bolstered by additional ad exposure at radio. These time buys were during the week leading up to the CMA Awards Show.

Table 19.3 Radio Buy

Online Campaign

As mentioned earlier, many labels have opted to use fans as their mouthpiece by giving them tools such as widgets to virally spread news about artists and their new releases. But online advertising campaigns can be directed in a way to maximize dollars while creating exposure and immediate sell-through. Instead of using impressions, as print advertising does, online ad costs are based on PPC or Pay-Per-Click impressions, where sites charge those advertising a fee based on consumers who have “clicked” through the actual banner ad. By researching analytics of website activities, labels can derive best sites on which to advertise, based on all sorts of great data: gender, age, ethnicity, income, education, and lifestyles. By marrying the target market of the artist with website analytics, the probability of click-through traffic increases dramatically—and the impression of hearing and selling the artist increases as well.¹

Figure 19.21

The online music magazine, No Depression targets Americana—roots music. Their advertising fees are strictly impression-based, but the actual ads are interactive, meaning that they have click-through and flash capability.²

Figure 19.22

The Steve Earle “Live At The BBC” release was a click-through banner ad that rotated on No Depression’s home page. As an Americana artist, this banner ad placement made perfect sense, notifying the target market of the pending release a week prior to street date. To click through the banner, the reader could instantly become a consumer, landing on Amazon.com’s site where a pre-order sale could occur along with the consumer being able to click through to a specified Steve Earle artist store. Here, catalog releases along with select merchandise could be purchased as well.

Coordinating with Other Departments

Any media campaign should be designed in conjunction with the publicity department. A coordinated media campaign is necessary because the vehicles targeted for advertising are the same vehicles targeted for publicity and some synergy may occur. For example, placing an ad in a particular publication may increase the likelihood of getting some editorial coverage. Or at least, if it has been determined that the vehicle reaches the targeted market, those consumers will be receptive to the editorial content of the publication, as well as the advertisement content.

The placement of co-op advertising is usually secured through the sales department. Although ad dollars are designated, these funds are usually attached to a “buy” from the account that the co-op ad is being placed. Recognizing and leveraging the value of the ad dollars beyond that of just “impressions at the consumer level” is key for maximizing the advertising exchange.

There are a myriad of choices when deciding how to alert consumers as to a new release from an artist, and as technologies emerge, these options will continue to increase. What is important is to keep the target market top-of-mind with the budget close-to-the-vest. Understanding all the “players” in the drama with their various agendas will help keep the message from getting garbled. For in the end, the label needs to do the “right thing”—which is to sell records.

Remember that with any advertising campaign, you are looking to reach your audience is the most efficient and effective way, or the best bang for the buck. You also want to be sure your marketing efforts are not too focused on one medium. For instance, you wouldn’t want to focus on television at the exclusion of any radio or digital ads. The goal is to have a plan that is comprehensive and includes a good mix of mediums to ensure, as much as we can anyway, that we are targeting our best consumers in multiple places with our sales message.

Glossary

Banner Advertising —a type of contextual advertising that includes a designed message that allows for a click-through interface to another site, engaging the consumer with a sell-through missive.

Consumer Advertising —targeted advertising that speaks directly to consumers through mediums such a radio, television and publications that are consumed by consumers.

Contextual Advertising —Advertising on a website that is targeted to the specific individual who is visiting the web site based on the subject matter and then featuring products that relate. A contextual ad system scans the text of a web site for keywords and returns ads to the web page based on what the user is viewing, either through ads placed on the page or pop-up ads.

Cooperative advertising (co-op) —An advertisement where the cost of the advertising is funded by the manufacturer of the product and the retail outlet agrees to feature the product within the store.

Cost per Click (CPC) —Also referred to as Pay per Click, advertisers are charged for an online ad only when consumers actually click on it.

Cost per Point —a way to determine the cost for reaching one percent of the targeted audience.

Cost per thousand (CPM) —A dollar comparison that shows the relative cost of various media or vehicles; the figure indicates the dollar cost of advertising exposure to a thousand households or individuals.

Cume —total number of unique viewers of an advertisement over a period of time.

Dayparts —Specific segments of the broadcast day; for example, midday, morning drive time, afternoon drive time, late night.

DIY or Do-It-Yourself —refers to the independent artist who does not have a record deal and pursues and musical career using social media tools while creating the music that they like.

Frequency —the number of times the target audience will be exposed to a message.

Geotargeting —A method of detecting a website visitor’s location to serve location-based content or advertisements.

Gross impressions —The total number of advertising impressions made during a schedule of commercials. GIs are calculated by multiplying the average persons reached in a specific time period by the number of spots in that period of time.

Gross rating point (GRP) —In broadcasting/cable, it means the size of the audience during two or more dayparts. GRPs are determined by multiplying the specific rating by the number of spots in that time period.

Keywords —search terms of words consumers are likely to use in a search engine when looking for a particular product or type of web site.

Media fragmentation —The division of mass media into niche vehicles through specialization of content and segmentation of audiences.

Media planning —Determining the proper use of advertising media to fulfill the marketing and promotional objectives for a specific product or advertiser.

Medium —a class of communication carriers such as television, newspapers, magazines, outdoor, and so on.

Out-of-Home (OOH) —advertising that targets consumers outside of his or home with four main categories: Billboards, Street Advertising, Transit Advertising, and Alternative Advertising such as building wraps.

Rating —In TV, the percentage of households in a market that are viewing a station divided by the total number of households with TV in that market. In radio, the total number of people who are listening to a station divided by the total number of people in the market.

Rating point (a rating of 1%) —1% of the potential audience; the sum of the ratings of multiple advertising insertions; for example, two advertisements with a rating of 10% each will total 20 rating points.

Rich Media Advertising —a type of contextual advertising that can include video and other interactive media with consumer.

ROI (return on investment) —deals with the money you invest in the company and the return you realize on that money based on the net profit of the business.

ROS (Run-of-Schedule) —the scheduling of advertising that the promotional spot will runt run any time within a specified timeframe, usually at radio or television. Typically less expensive than if a specific daypart or placement within particular programming was requested.

Road Blocking —When another channel in the same medium is running the same commercial in the same timeframe. This strategy is to catch channel surfers to expand the reach of the commercial to the same targeted market.

Reach —The total audience that a medium actually reaches; the size of the audience with which a vehicle communicates; the total number of people in an advertising media audience; the total percentage of the target group that is actually covered by an advertising campaign.

Search Engine Advertising —these advertisements are shown on search engine pages when keywords are searched. Used as part of Search Engine Optimization strategies when creating keyword elements in placing ads on search engines.

Targeted Rating Points (TRP) —similar to GRPs, but express the reach X frequency of only the most likely prospects of your advertising.

Trade advertising —Advertising aimed specifically for retailers and media gatekeepers through trade publications and mediums.

Trade publication —A specialized publication for a specific profession, trade, or industry; another term for some business publications.

Vehicle —A particular carrier within the group, such as Rolling Stone magazine or MTV network.