Acronyms and Abbreviations
Since our list is already way too long, you can see all the acronyms that the FDA has to offer here.
(see http://www.fda.gov/cvm/acronym.htm)

Ad Copy
The printed text or spoken words in an advertisement.

Ad Recall
A measure of advertising effectiveness in which a sample of respondents are exposed to an ad and then at a later point in time are asked if they recall the ad. Ad recall can be on an aided or unaided basis. Aided ad recall is when the respondent is told the name of the brand or category being advertised.

Advertorial
An ad that is half advertising, half editorial, aimed at swaying public opinion rather than selling products.

Banner Advertising
Creation of online banners and placement such that Internet users find them easily and are attracted to them. Clicking on a banner ad usually redirects users to a specific landing page.

Benefit Headline
Type of headline that makes a direct promise to the reader.

Benefits
The particular product attributes offered to customers, such as high quality, low price, status, speed, sex appeal, good taste, and so on.

Bleeds
Colors, type, or visuals that run all the way to the edge of the page.

Brand
That combination of name, words, symbols, or design that identifies the product and its source and distinguishes it from competing products the fundamental differentiating device for all products.

Brand Awareness
The profile that a particular product has with consumers in the market. Advertising can enhance brand awareness

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 Equity
The totality of what consumers, distributors, dealers, and competitors feel and think about a brand over an extended period of time; in short, it is the value of the brand's capital.

Brand Loyalty
The consumer's conscious or unconscious decision expressed through intention or behavior to repurchase a brand continually. This occurs because the consumer perceives that the brand has the right product features, image, quality, or relationship at the right price.

Brand Name
Name used to distinguish one product from its competitors. It can apply to a single product, an entire product line, or even a company.

Campaign
1) An advertising campaign can be made up of a series of ads that can run over a long period of time, on a number of media vehicles like television, radio, print, etc. 2) Refers to the advertising that is purchased. For example, Canadian Tires Christmas campaign airs television advertisements in 15 markets for 8 weeks at 200 GRPs per market.

Category Development Index (CDI)
An index that is calculated by taking the percentage of a product category’s total sales that occur in a given market area as compared to the percentage of the total population in the market.

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.

Clickstream
1) the electronic path a user takes while navigating from site to site, and from page to page within a site; 2) a comprehensive body of data describing the sequence of activity between a users browser and any other Internet resource, such as a Web site or third party ad server

Clickthrough Rate
The percentage of those clicking on a link out of the total number who see the link. For example, imagine 10 people do a Web search. In response, they see links to a variety of Web pages. Three of the 10 people all choose one particular link. That link then has a 30 percent clickthrough rate. Also called CTR

Closing Date
A publication's final deadline for supplying printing material for an advertisement.

Clutter
When an advertisement is surrounded by other ads, thereby forcing it to compete for the viewer's or listener's attention.

Color Separations
Four separate continuous tone negatives produced by photographing artwork through color filters that eliminate all the colors but one. The negatives are used to make four printing plates—one each for yellow, magenta, cyan, and black—for reproducing the color artwork.

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 3 standard columns wide and 5 inches tall (or deep) would be 15 column inches.

Cookie
A file on the user's browser that uniquely identifies the user's browser. There are two types of cookies: persistent cookies and session cookies. Session cookies are temporary and are erased when the browser exits. Persistent cookies remain on the user's hard drive until the user erases them or until they expire.

Coverage
A measure of a media vehicle's reach, within a specific geographic area.

Customer Experience
The actions and opinions of customers. These are used to develop brand planning.

DMF
Stands for Drug Master File.
(see. http://www.fda.gov/cder/guidance/dmf.htm)

Domain
An Internet address. The most significant part of the address comes at the end. Typical toplevel domains are .com, .edu, .gov, .org. There are also various geographic toplevel domains (e.g, .ar, .ca, .fr, .ro, etc.)

DPI
Stands for dots per inch. DPI specifies the resolution of an output device, such as a computer screen or a printer, or an input device, such as a scanner. Web page resolution ranges from 7286 dots per inch. Print resolution usually runs from 300 to 600 dots per inch for print.

Effective Frequency
Exposures to an advertising message required to achieve effective communication. Generally expressed as a range below which the exposure is inadequate and above which the exposure is considered wastage.

Eye Tracking
A research method that determines what part of an advertisement consumers look at, by tracking the pattern of their eye movements.

Family Brand
A brand name that is used for more than one product, i.e., a family of products. e.g., Nike.

Flight
Advertising agency scheduling concept that alternates periods of advertising activity with periods of no activity

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.

Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Federal agency that has authority over the labeling, packaging, and branding of packaged foods and therapeutic devices.

Four Color
Black and three colors (cyan, magenta, and yellow) which are combined to produce full color print advertising.

Freestanding 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) The average number of times the same person will hear a commercial. 2) The number of times a unique recipient or user has viewed the same email message or Web page.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
Technology that allows file transfers from a local machine to a remote host.

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.

Gatefold
Double- or triple-size pages, generally in magazines, that fold out into a large advertisement.

Generic Brand
Products not associated with a private or national brand name. Sometimes referred to as Private Label.

Geographic Segmentation
A method of segmenting a market on the basis of different geographic units or areas.

GIF (Graphic Interchange Format)
A graphic format that uses compression to store and display images.

Graphic Design
The art of visual communication. The conception, planning and execution of designs that communicate a specific message to a specific audience within a given limitation—financial, physical, or psychological.

Gross Impressions (GIs)
The sum of the Average Quarter-Hour Persons (AQH) audience for all commercials in a given schedule. The total number of times a commercial will be heard over the course of a schedule.

Gross Rating Points (GRPs)
The total audience delivery or weight of a specific media schedule. It is computed by dividing the total number of impressions by the size of the target population and multiplying by 100, or by multiplying the reach, expressed as a percentage of the population, by the average frequency. In television, gross rating points are the total rating points achieved by a particular media schedule over a specific period. For example, a weekly schedule of five commercials with an average household rating of 20 would yield 100 GRPs. In outdoor advertising, a 100 gross rating point showing (also called a number 100 showing) covers a market fully by reaching 9 out of 10 adults daily over a 30day period

Gutter
The inside margins of two pages that face each other in a print publication.

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.

Hidden Text
Text on a Web page that is visible to search engine spiders but not visible to human visitors. This is sometimes because the text has been set the same color as the background. Hidden text is often used for spamdexing. Many search engines can now detect the use of hidden text, and often remove offending pages from their database or lower such pages' positioning.

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)
A set of codes called markup tags in a plain text (*.txt) file that determine what information is retrieved and how it is rendered by a browser. There are two kinds of markup tags: anchor and format. Anchor tags determine what is retrieved, and format tags determine how it is rendered.

Hyperlink
HTML programming that redirects the user to a new URL when the individual clicks on hypertext.

Illustration
Specialized area of art that generally uses nonphotographic images, usually representational, to make a visual statement.

Insertion Order
An agency or advertiser's authorization for a publisher to run a specific ad in a specific print publication on a certain date at a specified price.

Island Display
An in-store product display situated away from competing products, typically in the middle or at the end of an aisle

Island Position
A print ad that is completely surrounded by editorial material, or a broadcast ad surrounded by program content, with no adjoining advertisements to compete for audience attention.

Jingle
A short song, usually mentioning a brand or product benefit, used in a commercial.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
A file format that uses a compression technique to reduce the size (number of bytes) of graphic files.

Kerning
Spacing between the letters of a word

Keyword
A single word that a user inputs into an Internet search engine to request information that is similar in subject matter to that word. Advertisers may buy keywords from search engines so that their advertisements appear when a user inputs the purchased word.

Kicker
A subhead that appears above the headline. Sometimes referred to as an eyebrow.

Landing Page
The specific Web page that a visitor ultimately reaches after clicking a search engine listing. Marketers attempt to improve conversion rates by testing various landing page creative, which encompasses the entire user experience including navigation, layout, and copy.

Lanham Act
Federal trademark law.

Layout
An orderly formation of all the parts of an advertisement. In print, it refers to the arrangement of the headline, subheads, visuals, copy, picture captions, trademarks, slogans, and signature. In television, it refers to the placement of characters, props, scenery, and product elements, the location and angle of the camera, and the use of lighting. See also design.

Lead-in Paragraph
In print ads, a bridge between the headlines, the subheads, and the sales ideas presented in the text. It transfers reader interest to product interest.

Leading
The measurement of the space between separate lines of text (pronounced ledding).

Logotype (logo)
A brand name, publication title, or the like, presented in a special lettering style or typeface and used in the manner of a trademark. Often the logotype is presented along with a graphic element and a tagline to comprise the “signature.”

Loyalty Index
Frequency of listenership of a particular broadcast station.

Mailing List
A type of database containing names and addresses of present and/or potential customers who can be reached through a direct-mail campaign.

Makegoods
An additional ad impressions that are negotiated in order to make up for the shortfall of ads delivered versus the commitments outlined in the approved insertion order.

Market
A group of potential customers who share a common interest, need, or desire; who can use the offered good or service to some advantage; and who can afford or are willing to pay the purchase price. Also, an element of the media mix referring to the various targets of a media plan.

Marketing Mix
Four elements, called the 4Ps (product, price, place, and promotion), that every company has the option of adding, subtracting, or modifying in order to create a desired marketing strategy.

Marketing Objectives
Measurable goals to be accomplished by an organization's overall marketing program such as sales, market share, or profitability

Marketing Plan
A written document that describes the overall marketing strategy and programs developed for an organization, a particular product line, or a brand.

Media
A plural form of medium, referring to communications vehicles paid to present an advertisement to its target audience. Most often used to refer to radio and television networks, stations that have news reporters, and publications that carry news and advertising.

Media Plan
A document consisting of objectives, strategies, and tactics for reaching a target audience through various media vehicles.

Message Strategy
The specific determination of what a company wants to say and how it wants to say it. The elements of the message strategy include verbal, nonverbal, and technical components; also called rationale.

MPEG
1) The file format that is used to compress and transmit movies or video clips online; 2) standards set by the Motion Picture Exports Group for video media.

Narrative Copy
A type of body copy that tells a story. It sets up a problem and then creates a solution using the particular sales features of the product or service as the key to the solution.

Nonpersonal Selling
All selling activities that use some medium as an intermediary for communication, including advertising, public relations, sales promotion, and collateral materials.

Overrun
Additional numbers of a print vehicle that are produced in excess of those needed for distribution. Overruns may take place to meet unexpected needs or demands.

Package Insert
Separate advertising material included in merchandise packages that advertises goods or services; also referred to as Package Stuffer.

Packaging
The container for a product—encompassing the physical appearance of the container and including the design, color, shape, labeling, and materials used.

Page Impression
A measurement of responses from a Web server to a page request from the user's browser, which is filtered from robotic activity and error codes, and is recorded at a point as close as possible to the opportunity to see the page by the user. (See www.iab.net for ad campaign measurement guidelines.)

Page Layout
A sketch that gives the general appearance of the printed page, showing placement of headlines, text, and illustration.

Paid Circulation
The total number of copies of an average issue of a newspaper or magazine that is distributed through subscriptions and newsstand sales.

Pantone Matching System (PMS)
A system that precisely characterizes a color, so that a color can be matched, even by different printers. By knowing the Pantone color specifications, a printer does not even need to see a sample of the color in order to match it.

PDF Files (Portable Document Format)
A translation format developed by Adobe used primarily for distributing files across a network, or on a Web site. Files with a .pdf extension have been created in another application and then translated into .pdf files so they can be viewed by anyone, regardless of platform.

Penetration
The extent to which a certain medium reaches a market or target group.

Personal Selling
Sales made through a medium of face-to-face communication, personal correspondence, or personal telephone conversation, etc.

Persuasion
A change in thought process or behavior that occurs when the change in belief, attitude, or behavioral intention is caused by promotion communication (such as advertising or personal selling).

Positioning
(1) Distinguishing a product or service from it’s competition within the minds of a select group or target audience. (2) The process of ordering Web sites or Web pages by a search engine or a directory so that the most relevant sites appear first in the search results for a particular query. Software can be used to determine how a URL is positioned for a particular search engine when using a particular search phrase.

Positioning Statement
A brief and powerful expression that embodies the brand promise and establishes the brand's 1) target audience, 2) frame of reference (e.g. market definition), and 3) unique selling proposition. Positioning statements provide marketing professionals a blueprint for the developing and managing of a brand’s marketing strategy. 

Preferred Position
A position in a printed publication that is thought to attract most reader attention and is sold at a higher rate; for example, the back cover of a magazine.

Premium
An item, other than the product itself, that is offered free or at a nominal price as an incentive to purchase the advertised product or service.

Press Release
Printed news story prepared by an organization and distributed to the media for the purpose of publicizing the organization's products, services, or activities.

Primary Data
Research information gained directly from the marketplace.

Private Brand
Product brand owned by a retailer, wholesaler, dealer, or merchant, as opposed to a manufacturer or producer, and bearing its own company name or another name it owns exclusively. Also referred to as Private Label.

Private Label
Personalized brands applied by distributors or dealers to products supplied by manufacturers. Private brands are typically sold at lower prices in large retail chain stores.

Professional Advertising
Advertising directed toward professionals such as doctors, dentists, and pharmacists, etc., who are in a position to promote products to their patients or customers.

Public Relations (PR)
The management function that focuses on the relationships and communications that individuals and organizations have with other groups (called publics) for the purpose of creating mutual goodwill. The primary role of public relations is to manage a company's reputation and help build public consent for its enterprises.

Pulsing
The use of advertising in regular intervals, as opposed to seasonal patterns.

Qualitative Research
A method of advertising research that emphasizes the quality of meaning in consumer perceptions and attitudes; for example, in-depth interviews and focus groups.

Quantitative Research
Research that tries to determine market variables according to reliable, hard statistics about specific market conditions or situations.

Query
A word, a phrase, or a group of words, possibly combined with other syntax, used to pass instructions to a search engine or a directory in order to locate Web pages.

Rate Card
The list of prices and products and packages offered by a media company.

Rating Point
(1) In television, one percentage of all TV households who are viewing a particular station at a given time. (2) In radio, one percentage of all listeners who are listening to a particular station at a given time. Both instances vary depending on time of day.

Reach
(1) Unique users that visited the site over the course of the reporting period, expressed as a percent of the universe for the demographic category; also called unduplicated audience; (2) the total number of unique users who will be served a given ad.

Recall Tests
Post-testing methods used to determine the extent to which an advertisement and its message have been noticed, read, or watched.

Recognition
(1) Formal acknowledgment given by a communications medium to an advertising agency to recognize that agency as being bona fide, competent, and ethical; therefore, entitled to discounts. (2) The ability of research subjects to recall a particular ad or campaign when they see or hear it.

Relationship Marketing
Creating, maintaining, and enhancing long-term relationships with customers and other stakeholders that result in exchanges of information and other things of mutual value.

ROI
Stands for Return On Investment and refers to the percentage of profit or revenue generated from a specific activity. For example, one might measure the ROI of a paid listing campaign by adding up the total amount spent on the campaign (say $200) versus the amount generated from it in revenue (say $1,000). The ROI would then be 500 percent. Often referred to sales per lead.

Run of Press (ROP)
A newspaper publishers option to place an ad anywhere in the publication that they choose, as opposed to Preferred Position. Also referred to as Run of Paper.

Sampling
Offering consumers a free trial of the product, hoping to convert them to habitual use.

Sans Serif Type
A typographic family group that is characterized by a lack of serifs.

Self Mailer
A direct-mail piece in which no envelope or wrapper is required for mailing.

Serif Type
Short, decorative cross lines or tails at the ends of main strokes in some typefaces, such as Roman lettering.

Signage
Indoor or outdoor presence or advertising.

Silk Screening
A color printing method in which ink is forced through a stencil placed over a screen that blocks out areas of an image, and onto the printing surface. Also referred to as Serigraphy.

Situation Analysis
The gathering and evaluation of information to identify the target group and strategic direction of an advertising campaign.

Slotting Allowances
Fees that manufacturers pay to retailers for the privilege of obtaining shelf or floor space for a new product.

Slotting Fee
A fee charged to advertisers by media companies to get premium positioning on their site, category exclusivity, or some other special treatment. It is similar to slotting allowances charged by retailers.

Social Classes
Traditional divisions in societies — upper, upper middle, lower middle, and so on — by sociologists who believed that people in the same social class tended toward similar attitudes, status symbols, and spending patterns.

Splash Page
Similar to a gateway page but provides an initial display that must be viewed before a visitor reaches the main page. This usually acts as a kind of opening title sequence.

Spot Color
The technique of coloring for emphasis some areas of basic blackandwhite advertisements, usually with a single color.

Spot Radio
National advertisers' purchase of airtime on individual stations. Buying spot radio affords advertisers great flexibility in their choice of markets, stations, airtime, and copy.

Storyboard
A blueprint for a TV commercial that is drawn to portray copy, dialogue, and action, with caption notes regarding filming, audio components, and script.

Streaming
(1) Technology that permits continuous audio and video delivered to a computer from a remote Web site; (2) an Internet data transfer technique that allows the user to see and hear audio and video files. The host or source compresses, then streams small packets of information over the Internet to the user, who can access the content as it is received.

SWOT Analysis
An acronym for internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats, which represent the four categories used by advertising managers when reviewing a marketing plan. The SWOT analysis briefly restates the company’s current situation, reviews the target market segments, itemizes the long- and short-term marketing objectives, and cites decisions regarding market positioning and the marketing mix

T1
A high speed (1.54 megabits/second) Internet connection

T3
A very high speed (45 megabits/second or higher) Internet connection.

Tabloid
A size of newspaper that is roughly half the size of a standard newspaper. A page size is normally 14 inches high by 12 inches wide.

Tactics
The precise details of a company’s marketing strategy that determine the specific short-term actions that will be used to achieve its marketing objectives.

Tag Line
A slogan or phrase that visually conveys the most important product attribute or benefit that the advertiser wishes to convey. Generally, a theme to a campaign.

Target Audience
The intended audience for an ad, usually defined in terms of specific demographics (age, sex, income, etc.), product purchase behavior, product usage, or media usage.

Target Market
The market segment or group within the market segment toward which all marketing activities will be directed.

Tearsheets
The printed ad cut out and sent by the publisher to the advertiser as a proof of the ad's print quality and that it was published.

Testimonial
The use of satisfied customers and celebrities to endorse a product in advertising.

Trademark
Icon, symbol, or brand name used to identify a specific manufacturer, product, or service.

Trap
To combine different layers of colors in order to create various colors in the four color printing process.

Type Families
Related typefaces in which the basic design remains the same but in which variations occur in the proportion, weight, and slant of the characters. Variations commonly include light, medium, bold, extra bold, condensed, extended, and italic.

Typography
The art of selecting, setting, and arranging type.

Unaided Recall
A research method in which a respondent is given no assistance in answering questions regarding a specific advertisement.

Unfair Advertising
Advertising that is likely to harm the consumer. The FTC has the power to regulate unfair advertising that falls within a very specific legal definition.

Universal Product Code (UPC)
An identifying series of vertical bars with a 2-digit number that adorns every consumer packaged good.

Universe
Total population of audience being measured.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator)
The unique identifying address of any particular page on the Web. It contains all the information required to locate a resource, including its protocol (usually HTTP), server domain name (or IP address), file path (directory and name) and format (usually HTML or CGI).

U.S. Patent And Trademark Office
Bureau within the U.S. Department of Commerce that registers and protects patents and trademarks.

USP (Unique Selling Position)
The unique product benefit that the competition can not claim.

Validity
An important characteristic of a research test. For a test to be valid, it must reflect the true status of the market.

Vector Graphic
A graphic image drawn in shapes and lines, called paths. Images created in Illustrator and Freehand (graphic design software) are vector graphics. They are usually exported to be bitmap images.

Wear Out
The point reached when an advertising campaign loses its effectiveness due to repeated overplay of ads.

Web Beacon
A line of code that is used by a Web site or third party ad server to track a users activity, such as a registration or conversion. A Web beacon is often invisible because it is only 1 x 1 pixel in size with no color. Also known as Web bug, 1 by 1 GIF, invisible GIF, and tracker GIF.

Web Graphics
Low-resolution graphics optimized for use on the Internet.

White Space
Unoccupied parts of a print advertisement, including between blocks of type, illustrations, headlines, etc.

Who Is Data
Registration data such as the company name, address and telephone number when registering a domain name.

More to come…