Chapter 9

Opportunity to See (OTS)

A possible exposure of an advertising message to one audience member. Also called an advertising impression. Effective frequency is considered to be three or more opportunities to see over a four-week period; but no magic number works for every commercial and every product.

Circulation

A statistical measure of a print medium's audience; includes subscription and vendor sales and primary and secondary readership.

Readers Per Copy

Variable used to determine the total reach of a given print medium. RPC is multiplied by the number of vendor and subscription sales to determine the total audience size.

Advertising Impression

a possible exposure of the advertising message to one audience member

Creative Mix

the product concept, target audience, advertising message, and communications media.

Media Planning

to conceive, analyze, and creatively select channels of communication that will direct advertising messages to the right people in the right place at the right time

Effective Frequency

the average number of times a person must see or hear a message before it becomes effective

Bursting

A media scheduling method for promoting high-ticket items that require careful consideration, such as running the same commercial every half-hour on the same network in prime time.

Blinking

A scheduling technique in which the advertiser floods the airwaves for one day on both cable and network channels to make it virtually impossible to miss the ads.

Roadblocking

Buying simultaneous airtime on all four television networks.

Recency Planning

Erwin Ephron's theory that most advertising works by influencing the brand choice of consumers who are ready to buy, suggesting that continuity of advertising is most important.

Pulsing

Mixing continuity and flighting strategies in media scheduling.

Continuous Schedule

advertising runs steadily and varies little over the campaign period.

Advertising Response Curve

indicate that incremental response to advertising actually diminishes, rather than builds, with repeated exposures

Effective Reach

Term used to describe the quality of exposure. It measures the number or percentage of the audience who receive enough exposures for the message to truly be received.

Gross Rating Points

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

Gross Impressions

The total of all the audiences delivered by a media plan.

Programmatic Advertising

Advertising in which computers make decisions about what ads are inserted in what content providers. Advertisers bid for audiences and based on their willingness to pay and the demographic match of audiences on content sites.

Flighting

An intermittent media scheduling pattern in which periods of advertising are alternated with periods of no advertising at all.

Continuity

The duration of an advertising message or campaign over a given period of time.

Frequency

The number of times the same person or household is exposed to a vehicle in a specified time span. Across a total audience, frequency is calculated as the average number of times individuals or homes are exposed to the vehicle.

Distribution Objectives

define where, when, and how often advertising should appear

Rating

the percentage of homes or individuals exposed to an advertising medium.

Message Weight

the total size of the audience for a set of ads or an entire campaign

CPM (Cost Per thousand)

A common term describing the cost of reaching 1,000 people in a medium's audience. It is used by media planners to compare the cost of various media vehicles.

Audience Objectives

Definitions of the specific types of people the advertiser wants to reach.

Media Vehicles

Particular media programs or publications.

Reach

The total number of different people or households exposed to an advertising schedule during a given time, usually four weeks. Reach measures the unduplicated extent of audience exposure to a media vehicle and may be expressed either as a percentage of the total market or as a raw number.

Audience

is the total number of people or households exposed to a medium.