Jargon Buster - S to Z

Sales House
An organisation which sells advertising on behalf of other media owners. These sales houses typically retain a percentage of the revenue they sell in exchange for their services. These organisations may combine a number of websites together and sell them as different packages to advertisers.

SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
The process which aims to get websites listed prominently in search-engine results through search-engine optimisation, sponsored search and paid inclusion. See also PPC and SEO and Paid Inclusion

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
The process which aims to get websites listed prominently within search engine's organic (algorithmic, spidered) search results. Involves making a site 'search engine friendly'. See also organic listings

Server
A host computer which maintains websites, newsgroups and email services.

Share of Voice
A way of describing the weight of advertising for a brand or service in comparison or the total market.

Single column centimetre (SCC)
The unit measure used on press rate cards to calculate the costs of different space sizes.
For example :
25cms x 4columns = An advertisement size of 100 column centimetres.

Size
Poster sizes are as follows: 4 sheet (40" x 60"); 6 sheet (1750mm x 1185mm); 12 sheet (36' x 10'); 16 sheet (6'8" x 10'); 48 sheet (20' x 10'); 96 sheet (40' x 10'). There is a small variation in the size of 6 sheets dependent on the supplier. Details should be checked for production purposes.

Skyscraper
A long, vertical, online advert usually found running down the side of a page in a fixed placement. See also Universal Advertising Package.

Sniffer
Online software which identifies the capabilities of the user's browser and therefore can determine compatibility with ad formats and serve them an advert they will be able to see/fully interact with (eg: GIF, Flash etc).

Solus
An advertisement which is booked to appear on its own and not directly next to other advertising.

Spam
Unsolicited junk email.

Spider
A programme which crawls the internet and fetches web pages in order for them to be indexed against keywords. Used by search engines to formulate search result pages. See also organic listings

Split run
Some publications have regional editions which can be used for running two separate pieces of copy in the same issue. (Also see copy split)

Sponsored Search See PPC (Pay Per Click).

Sponsorship
Advertiser sponsorships of targeted content areas (e.g. entire website, site area or an event) often for promotional purposes.

Spot colour
Involves the use of a second colour, normally a primary one (e.g. red or blue), in addition to black.

Stickiness
Measure used to gauge the effectiveness of a website in retaining its users. Usually measured by the duration of the visit.

Streaming media
Compressed audio/video file which plays and downloads at the same time. The user does not have to wait for the whole file to downloadfrom the internet before it starts playing.

Superstitials
A form of rich media advertising which allows a TV-like experience on the web. It is fully pre-cached before playing. See also Rich Media, Cache.

Target audience
The specific audience that the advertisement is planned to reach.

TVR

Television Ratings
A rating for a programme or commercial is the percentage of the audience watching at that time. The rating, or percentage can be based on any target audience-e.g. you can get a TVR for All Adults, a TVR for ABC1 Men, etc. Thus Coronation street can have a 16-34 women TVR of 30.4, meaning that 30.4% of 16-34 women in TV households watched it-on average, across the time it was shown. Each commercial will also have a percentage, or TVR, of a specific target audience watching. When buying and selling airtime for a single campaign (of a products advertising), one can add the TVRs together for each spot to give Total TVRs for the campaign (known as Spot Ratings) - i.e. a total measure of what has been bought or sold. (As one is adding percentages by spot together, without accounting for duplication of viewing, the total is often into the low hundreds. For example, a campaign of Coca-Cola spots may add to 350 16-24 TVRs.) One can also look at rating by time - e.g. the first quarter hour of EastEnders.

Tenancy
The 'renting' out of a section of a website by another brand who pays commission to this media owner for any revenue generated from this space. EG: dating services inside portals or bookstores inside online newspapers

Titan Outdoor
Titan Outdoor Advertising Ltd. is the leading independent Outdoor contractor in the UK. It is part of Titan Worldwide, the fastest growing media company in the world.

Traffic
Number of visitors who come to a website.

Ultravision
Ultravision rotating panels have the attention-getting advice of rotating panels but a shorter duration of exposure to any one poster with the Multi-poster panel. These panels rotate horizontally.

Universal Advertising Package
A set of online advertising formats that are standardised placements as defined the by the IAB. See also banner, skyscraper, button, MPU and embedded formats

Universe
The total number of people for each audience category within a defined region.
For example : London ITV Housewives = 4,422,000

Unique users
Number of different individuals who visit a site within a specific time period.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator)
Technical term that is used to refer to the web address of a particular website. For example, www.iabuk.net

VAI-Visibility Adjusted Impacts
The amount of people who view a poster site. VAIs use computer experiments to measure eye movement when passing a site and are calculated by measuring this information against the gross number of people who pass the site. The better the panel, the closer the VAI to the gross.

Viacom Outdoor
An outdoor advertising company specialising in transport media including national buses and underground and bus, rail and roadside in Ireland.

Viewers Per Set
Average number of individuals 'present in the room' (as defined by BARB) when the 'set' is switched on.

Viral Marketing
The term "viral advertising" refers to the idea that people will pass on and share striking and entertaining content; this is often sponsored by a brand, which is looking to build awareness of a product or service. These viral commercials often take the form of funny video clips, or interactive Flash games, images, and even text.

Visual Clutter
A poster against a background of trees has less distractions than a poster in a busy high street, and existing experimental evidence suggest that this can be at least as important as whether the poster is solus or shares the site with other panels (which is another aspect of clutter).

VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol)
Technology that allows the use of a broadband Internet connection to make telephone calls.

WAP (Wireless Application Protocol)
Standard for providing mobile data services on hand-held devices.

Wi-Fi ( Wireless Fidelity)
The ability to connect to the internet wirelessly. Internet 'hotspots' in coffee shops and airports..etc use this technology.