Glossary

The terms from advertising

In agencies, it is common practice to throw around technical terms, even though advertising should be understandable to everyone. Especially in the advertising industry, you often only understand the station as an uninvolved person. To help you understand what your agency is communicating to you, Schwarz+Matt has thought about the most important terms in the advertising industry and defined them here.

Above-the-line

Above-the-line advertising can be described as advertising that is communicated with the help of traditional media. The most important feature of above-the-line advertising is that it targets the masses and is easily recognizable to them. Examples of above-the-line media include cinema advertising, TV and radio spots, print or online ads, etc. The counterpart to above-the-line advertising is below-the-line advertising.

Affinity

Affinity refers to the ratio of the proportion of the target group that uses a particular medium to the proportion of the same target group in the total population. The formula for calculating affinity is: (reach in the target group)/(reach in the population) x 100. A high affinity exists, for example, if 20% of a target group uses a particular medium, but the target group makes up only 18% of the total population.

Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is an Internet-based sales method in which a sales partner promotes the supplier’s products via links. In return, the distributor/affiliate gets a commission. Often, this type of marketing can be observed on YouTube, where YouTubers link to a product used in their video in the video description and in return receive a small commission for each click.

AIDA model

The AIDA model describes the four phases that a customer goes through before buying a product. A perfect advertisement guides the customer through all four phases.

Attention= The customer becomes aware of the product.

Interest= The customer begins to take an interest in the product.

Desire= The customer develops the desire to own the product.

Action= The customer buys the product.

B2B / B2C

Business to Business or Business to Customer. B2B describes the trade and communication links between business partners. B2C describes the trade and communication links between a company and private individuals. An example of B2B is the sale of raw materials to a processing company, an example of B2C is the sale of DVDs to the end consumer.

Below-the-line

Below-the-line advertising can be described as advertising that is not communicated with the help of traditional media. The most important feature of below-the-line advertising is that it is more targeted and personalized. Examples of below-the-line media are sponsoring, guerrilla marketing, promotion teams or viral marketing. The counterpart to below-the-line advertising is above-the-line advertising.

Brand Awareness

In marketing, brand awareness is the familiarity of a brand. Awareness, however, is not to be confused with the attention that a brand arouses, but describes an active effort on the part of a person. For example, we could find out Schwarz+Matt’s awareness by asking strangers which advertising agencies they know. If many of the respondents mention Schwarz+Matt, we have good awareness.

Briefing

The agency briefing is the first and most important briefing during the cooperation with the agency. It contains the mission statement of the respective company as well as all important information about the company that the agency needs. Usually, all this information is gathered by the company in advance and handed over to the agency in written form, but ideally the agency works out the briefing together with the company.

Cluster

A cluster is a group of people or objects with similar characteristics. In the advertising industry, a cluster corresponds to a statistical group of people who embody certain characteristics. These characteristics are only found in the specific cluster and cannot appear in other groups of people. All the people who travel from downtown Dortmund to Bochum in the evening could therefore form a cluster.

Copy strategy

Copy strategy is a model for strategic planning of an advertisement. As a rule, the copy strategy is composed of consumer benefit, positioning, reason why, tonality, USP and target group. These six characteristics can be used to develop an ad that is precisely tailored to the target group.

Consumer Benefit

Consumer benefit describes the part of the advertising concept that explains to the customer the advantage that the product offers. In principle, the consumer benefit is nothing more than the main promise, which is usually described by the slogan. At the same time, the consumer benefit is the main benefit that is relevant to the target group. The consumer benefit of Schwarz+Matt, for example, is that we create brands and growth.

Corporate Identity

The term corporate identity refers to the public image of a company. The corporate identity is composed of:

Corporate Behavior – The behavior of a company towards its employees (internal) and the public (external).

Corporate Communication – The channels and methods by which the company communicates internally and externally.

Corporate Design – The visual appearance of the company such as color, logo, typo, etc.

Crossmedia

Crossmedia is the publication of a media product across multiple communication channels. Some series, for example, can be accessed on TV, on YouTube and via the company’s own website. In the advertising industry, too, there is the possibility of networking and using advertising products cross-medially. This allows different spots with the same message and tone to be aired across different platforms.

Umbrella brand

In a brand system, the umbrella brand is a superior brand with particularly high reach and acceptance. As a rule, the umbrella brand itself does not launch any products on the market, but merely serves as a marking instrument. The products of the individual sub-brands can be distinguished from other products by quality features etc. thanks to the umbrella brand.

Direct mail

Direct mail refers to advertising that is not aimed at the masses, but is tailored to individual persons. Direct mail thus enables a high success rate without major wastage. Direct mail can be used, for example, for brochures, product samples or advertising letters.

Ratings

Audience shares are percentages of the total number of households watching a television or radio program at a given time. These ratings are collected by the Gesellschaft für Konsumforschung (Gfk) and tell how many viewers were watching a program at a particular time.

Survey

A survey is nothing more than collecting and analyzing data on a particular topic. Surveys, observations, and systematic investigations are among the types of data collected. The goal of a survey is to determine the frequencies, relationships, or intensities of certain characteristics. A survey can be used to determine awareness, for example.

Frequency

Frequency describes the frequency with which a company advertises in a given period of time, or how often the public is confronted with the company through advertising in a given period of time. Often the frequency is related to how high the advertising budget is and which target group is to be addressed. The motto “a lot helps a lot” does not always apply.

Geomarketing

Geomarketing analyzes spatial structures of markets in order to optimize product sales. Geomarketing can be used to improve location planning, sales planning, media planning and profiling of potential customers. For example, geomarketing could be used to find out that there are many prospects in a region and thus move their location to that region.

Community Marketing

When all the companies in an industry join forces and carry out joint marketing activities, this is known as joint marketing. This type of marketing is especially suitable for companies that produce very similar products without much difference in quality. Community marketing can be used to advertise and grow an entire market.

Gatekeeper

A gatekeeper is an influencer that affects the public’s decision-making process. This means that the public is influenced so that the majority of the population supports the opinion of the influencer. For the most part, a gatekeeper is a person or entity that is highly regarded by the public. Especially in the current era of social media and blogs, anyone can become a gatekeeper.

Image

Image describes how a company or brand is perceived. As a rule, one of the goals of advertising is to improve the image of a company. The problem with image is that it comes from the subjective assessments of the public and is not based on objective realities. Images can be determined via surveys.

Investor Relations

Investor relations is the term used to describe public relations work directed at investors. Share prices can fall as a result of poor earnings figures as well as unclear communication. For this reason, it is important to always keep investors up to date. The three most important target groups for investor relations are investors, analysts and the financial media.

Joint ventures

A joint venture is a joint undertaking between two legally and economically independent companies. Here, the two companies give both financial capital and human capital in the form of executives to the new company. As a rule, a joint venture acts autonomously, i.e. legally autonomous and independent.

Campaign

The main task of advertising agencies is the development and implementation of campaigns. Basically, campaigns are nothing more than temporary actions by companies to promote their product. As a rule, campaigns can be built around a slogan. To develop a meaningful campaign, a lot of time must be invested in analysis, planning and control. As a rule, a consumer benefit is advertised.

Classic media

Traditional media include print, radio, TV, cinema and posters. Although many predict the extinction of these media, especially print, it can be observed that only the usage pattern is changing, but the media will not die out completely. This observation goes back to Wolfgang Riepl, which is why it is also called Riepl’s law. You can still reach the largest mass of people with traditional media.

Convergence

Convergence is the process by which two previously independent goods merge to form a new product. In the media world in particular, technical progress has recently given rise to a large number of converged products. For example, today there are smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, smart watches, etc.. For the advertising industry, this means the possibility of being able to advertise on a variety of platforms and the possibility of networked advertising.

Creativity methods

Being creative on demand is not easy and actually almost impossible. However, to get some stimulus you can use various creativity techniques. The aim of creativity methods is the optimization and control of creative procedures. Examples of creativity methods are the 6-3-5 method, the morphological box, the inspiration lotto or the Osborn checklist.

Location based advertising

Location-based advertising is an advertising technique in which the location of the user is determined and thus favorable products are advertised in the vicinity. The user can then access these using an app or the Internet and is directed directly to the point of sale. The shares of location-based advertising in the overall mobile advertising market are growing steadily and are becoming increasingly important.

Logo

One of the most important elements of corporate identity is the logo. The logo usually represents a brand and is usually a graphic sign. There are some rules for the design of a logo. Thus, logos should be obviously understandable, memorable and distinctive. In addition, the logo should be easy to see and reproduce even on small motifs.

Mailing

A mailing is nothing more than a mass email directed at potential customers. A mailing is the classic advertising medium in direct marketing. The advantage of a mailing is that specific customers/ and target groups can be addressed directly, which is why there is little wastage. Nevertheless, the required address lists are often expensive and recipients can sometimes feel harassed.

Brand

What exactly is a brand? The most important function of a brand for the advertising agency is the marking of products and the associated transfer of the image of a brand to the product. Ideally, customers can identify with the respective brand. At the same time, a brand offers consumers orientation on the market.

Marketing goals

In marketing, it is especially important to set goals. Goals can be divided into qualitative and quantitative or strategic and operational marketing goals. When finding goals, it is important to formulate realistic objectives. Ideally, a company’s marketing goals are SMART.

Specific, Measurable, Accepted, Realistic, Scheduled.

Market segmentation

In order to place a product correctly, it is important to segment the respective market beforehand. Segmentation is intended to distinguish people who are very similar (homogeneous) in their buying behavior, but rather heterogeneous among themselves. The goal of segmentation is to uncover different patterns of behavior among buyers and use the information gained to draw conclusions. For example, a market can be segmented by demographic, geographic, or even psychographic characteristics.

Mass media

Mass media are all those media that disseminate content and thus address a large mass of people. Mass media includes not only traditional media, but also online media. Another characteristic of mass media is that a large part of the population has theoretical access to them. Thus, a few transmitters communicate with many receivers. This communication only works in one direction.

Nielsen areas

In order to divide the national economy of Germany into different behavioral patterns, The Nielsen Company has mapped several areas. The goal of this subdivision was to capture different consumption patterns geographically. In particular, there are large differences in purchasing power. Often, Nielsen territories are used in campaign planning for national companies.

Niche strategy

If one company made the exact same product as another company, the younger company’s product would not last long. When applying the niche strategy, a product is deliberately placed in a market niche. A niche strategy becomes useful when a large company has become the cost leader and differentiation does not seem attractive.

Online marketing

Online marketing refers to all those marketing measures that are intended to strengthen a specific Internet presence. Online marketing includes, among other things, website maintenance, SEO / SEA and content management. The success of online marketing is relatively simple through the analysis of related data. Since the introduction of smartphones, an ever-growing part of online marketing is mobile marketing.

Opinion Leader

An opinion leader is a member of a group who has a greater influence on the group than the other members. The special position of the opinion leader enables him to influence the opinions of the group members. Opinion leaders can be found in almost every group. Social media influencers are also nothing more than opinion leaders with a very large sphere of influence.

Pay per click

Pay per click is a popular method of determining fees in affiliate marketing. For this purpose, a certain amount is set that the influencer receives when an affiliate link is clicked.

Pitch

The pitch is a presentation that an agency uses to compete for a contract. In order to win the budget of a company, the agency must prevail against the competition with its presentation (pitch). Although pitches are becoming more and more conventional, they mean considerably more effort for the agencies, because if one agency cannot prevail over the others, then all the preparatory work remains unpaid or only an expense allowance is paid.

Point-of-sale-promotion

Point-of-sale marketing refers to those marketing measures that convince customers while they are still at the point-of-sale that they should buy a product. So this can include the store design, the facade or the recognizability. In addition, merchandise placement can also be counted as point-of-sale marketing. The best-known example is certainly the confectionery at the supermarket checkout, where customers spend most of their time.

Price differentiation

Price differentiation enables the suppliers of a product to make optimal use of the demanders’ willingness to pay. To achieve this, providers differentiate prices according to various criteria. Differentiation may be personal, spatial, temporal or factual. For example, gasoline is subject to clear spatial price differentiation; it is usually more expensive at highway gas stations than at a rural road.

Product life cycle

The product life cycle is a theoretical model of business administration that describes the theoretical process from the development of a product to its market exit. In the basic model of the product life cycle, there are the four phases of introduction, growth, maturity and saturation, on the basis of which one can read the profitability of a product. Based on the life cycle, you can see that every product becomes unprofitable after a certain time if you do not counteract it with appropriate measures.

Product Placement

When certain branded products are specifically depicted in films/television programs or video games, this is known as product placement. In return, a cash/ or in-kind contribution is made for the placement. Ideally, the recipient should not find the product placement disturbing, but should still be made aware of the product.

Public Relations

Public relations is an area of communication that is often equated with marketing, but actually oversees a completely different field of activity. The biggest goal of PR is reputation management, colloquially improving the image. All stakeholders of the company can be seen as the target group of public relations.

Qualitative / Quantitative Market Research

Both quantitative and qualitative market research aim to verify or falsify certain theses. Quantitative market research is based on a standardized survey and targets the broad masses. Qualitative market research, on the other hand, is not representative and is based on expert interviews or group discussions. Most often, theses are created based on qualitative research, which are then substantiated with quantitative surveys.

Reason Why

The Reason Why is nothing more than the justification for the Consumer Benefit. Seen in this light, the Reason Why proves the advertising statement discussed earlier. So if a cream takes particularly good care of the skin, the Reason-Why is usually the new chemical formula. If a butter tastes particularly delicious, the Reason-Why could be the special recipe, and if a car is particularly innovative, it’s thanks to specially trained engineers.

Range

Reach is a measure used to evaluate individual media. Advertising agencies usually work with their clients to decide which medium best suits the advertising concept based on the reach of individual media. For the most part, target group-relevant reach is used for this purpose. A distinction must be made between gross reach, net reach and cumulative reach.

SEO/SEA

SEO and SEA are the most important tools of online marketing. Search engine optimization (SEO) is mainly about using keywords to rank as high as possible in search engine rankings. Schwarz+Matt has optimized this page for the terms glossary and advertising, for example. In the field of Search Engine Advertising (SEA), we mainly work with ads on search engines to make the website more present.

Sinus Milieus

Sinus milieus are used to divide society into different groups. This sociodemographic classification is based on lifestyles, life goals, values, social backgrounds, and numerous other characteristics. Sinus milieus can be used to define target groups and position products, as they are universally valid and can be applied to many product groups.

Spot

A commercial is an audio or video clip that promotes a specific thing. The aim of a commercial is to raise awareness of a product, service or brand and bring it to the public, thereby hoping for higher sales. Spots can be used in various media such as television, radio, internet or even cinema.

Scattering losses

In advertising parlance, wastage is defined as those people who see an advertisement but do not belong to the target group at all. So if women’s shoes are advertised, all the men who see the ad can be mentioned as wastage. Due to wastage, advertising expenditure can turn out to be higher than originally thought if the same reach is still to be achieved. The goal of any advertising campaign is to minimize wastage.

Targeting

In the field of online marketing, if you want to precisely address certain target groups, then you usually use targeting. The most important prerequisite is the prior, precise definition of the target group. Then, a variety of methods, such as keyword targeting, contextual targeting, or regional targeting, can be used to reach the target audience.

Testimonial

A testimonial is a person who speaks for a brand or a product and thus advertises the same. Testimonials can be both real and fictional people. One of the best-known fictional testimonials in Germany is Tech-Nick from the Saturn commercials. Especially if the testimonials are close to the respective target group, they can bring great success.

Tonality

Tonality describes the style or atmosphere with which an advertising message is conveyed. For example, it can be factual, informative, cheeky, young, offbeat or ridiculous. Again, it’s important to analyze the target audience carefully to find the right tone. As a doctor, for example, you should tend to stay factual and informative; in the startup scene, a brash or young tone is often seen.

USP/UAP

The USP is a product feature that no other product has. This feature is usually communicated in the message and shows the customer that the product is the best. In some cases, however, it is difficult to differentiate products from others. In this case, the UAP comes into play. Here, a feature is communicated that all other products actually have as well, but do not emphasize as much.

Viral marketing

Viral marketing uses social media platforms to draw attention to a product with mostly crazy or profound messages. The particular challenge with viral marketing is to actually make the message go viral. Although the huge social media platforms now offer great potential, creativity cannot be planned and whether a message goes viral or not is mostly left to chance.

Advertising budget

The advertising budget is the amount of money given to the agency to implement a campaign or a specific project. Often, media planning and the scope of the project depend on the advertising budget. In the age of social media and online, it’s possible to get a little done on a shoestring budget. However, in order to actually compete in the market, it is important to plan the advertising budget appropriately.

Advertising target

The use of advertising always pursues a specific goal. Advertising objectives define what exactly is to be pursued with a project or campaign. Classically, goals are, for example, the acquisition of new customers in the amount of X or the improvement of the image. Ideally, a company’s advertising goals are also SMART.