"Good times, bad times, there will always be advertising. In good times people want to advertise; in bad times they have to."
—Bruce Barton
If you are a business owner who has done any type of advertising, you have probably encountered special acronyms and terms unique to the electronic, cable, Internet, print and outdoor advertising industries. These terms can be a foreign language at best. Some of this media speak and jargon is defined below.
CABLE TELEVISION
CABLE ADVERTISING can be broken down into two categories: network and spot. There are over 7,000 cable systems in the U. S.
- NETWORK CABLE refers to buying commercial time directly from a cable network to reach their entire national audience.
- SPOT CABLE usually refers to commercial schedules placed on local cable systems by national or regional advertisers who often advertise in multiple cable TV markets.
AD-SUPPORTED NETWORK: a national or regional cable TV channel, such as MTV or ESPN that makes available a certain amount of time per hour for local commercials.
AVERAGE AUDIENCES (AA): the number of coverage households tuned to the reported cable network during the average minute of the program.
CABLE ORIGINAL: a program, such as a movie or series, which is originally produced and premiered by a cable network. The quality of Cable Originals has led to a dramatic shift in audience to cable television.
CHURN: the turnover of cable television subscribers due to disconnects and/or new subscribers.
CUMULATIVE AUDIENCE: a research term describing the unduplicated audience for a television program or commercial over multiple airings. In Cumulative Audience figures, an individual is counted only once.
DUAL FEED: two separate broadcast transmissions for two separate time zones, so that programming times will be uniform for viewers on both coasts. Most cable networks now support dual feed broadcasts.
HOUSEHOLD (HH): the core measure of circulation for a cable TV system. Typically, cable companies collect a monthly subscription fee from each household served. In addition to detached homes, apartment units are usually counted as individual households.
HOUSEHOLD PENETRATION: the percentage of households within a cable TV service area that elect to subscribe. If 7,500 homes within a 10,000-household service area subscribe, the Household Penetration level would be expressed as 75 percent.
INTERACTIVE CABLE: cable systems that have the technical ability to let subscribers communicate directly with a computer at the system head end from their television sets, using special converters and regular cable lines. VoD (see below) is a form of interactive cable.
INTERCONNECT: simply a large group of cable systems within a DMA (see above) that are "connected" together. An interconnect gives advertisers the option to reach all cable households within a given market with one buy, one contact and one shape.
MARKET SEGMENTATION: this gives advertisers the ability to deliver customized advertising messages to specific Zones (see below) within a market.
MULTPLE SYSTEM OPERATOR (MSO): a company that operates more than one cable TV system. Companies such as Comcast and Time Warner Cable are examples of MSOs.
NARROWCASTING: programming designed to reach a specific group defined by demographics and/or program content.
ON DEMAND: an entertainment service that allows viewers instant access to content such as movies, cable series, original programs, educational programs, premium channels, news, sports, etc. Programming from content providers is delivered by consumer's cable company and may be free, subscription-based, or paid for on a transactional basis. With On Demand service, consumers can control what they watch and when, with features such as play, pause, fast-forward, rewind and stop. On Demand is preferred to VoD (see below).
PER-INQUIREY ADVERTISING: direct-response advertising for which the cable network or system running the commercial is paid based on the number of responses received rather than the commercial time used.
REGIONAL NETWORKS: cable TV channels distributed in a regional area that carry a mix of area professional and amateur sports teams, news plus some national programming.
SCATTER BUYING: marketers purchasing commercial time when the need arises from the unsold inventory at a different cost than the upfront buys. See Upfront.
TIERS: programming which services beyond the basic offerings at an additional price increment.
VoD: short for Video-on-Demand, an umbrella term for a wide set of technologies and companies whose common goal is to enable individuals to select videos from a central server for viewing on a television.
ZONE: a local area or subset of a DMA.
ELECTRONIC (Broadcast television & radio)
(Terms marked with an asterisk apply to cable television as well)
ADJACENCY: placing a commercial before or after a specific program, e.g. news or weather.
*AUDIENCE COMPOSITION: the distribution of the audience for a particular program or time period in terms of specific demographics. This is also known as AUDIENCE COMP.
*AVAIL or availability: a break within normal network programming allotted to a broadcast network, radio station or local cable system for insertion of local commercials.
*AVAIL CODE: a code assigned to a program or time period for placing commercials on a log and for keeping track of the number of commercials available to sell.
BEST TIME AVAILABLE (BTA-radio): a way of ordering a schedule.
*COST PER PERSON (CPP): a number which describes the relationship between the cost of a television commercial and the estimated number of people or households who view it.
*COST PER THOUSAND (CPM): the cost per thousand of gross impressions, or the amount of money spent to have your announcements run 1,000 times or exposed to 1,000 people.
COST PER RATING POINT (CPP): the cost of reaching 1% of the target audience. It is used by most media planners in developing and allocating market budgets and setting rating point goals.
*COVERAGE AREA: the number of households or individuals that are able to receive a given television or radio station.
DAYPART: a term used in both television and radio. Stations break the day into units called dayparts. For example, in radio, Drive Time is the daypart between 6a and 9a. In television, Early Fringe is the daypart between 3:30p and 5p.
*DEMOGRAPHIC: the population and makeup of the audience watching or listening to a particular program.
*DMA: Designated Market Area. DMA's are a way of designating particular geographic markets, and are often ranked by size of population. New York City is the nation's largest DMA so its DMA ranking is 1. Go to www.nielsenmedia.com for a complete listing of DMA's.
*FREQUENCY: the average number of times the same viewer sees your commercial. For example, an advertisement which appears a number of times over a four-week period will be seen or heard an average of X times by a certain percent of the target audience. Frequency is often referenced in tandem with Reach (see below).
GROSS IMPRESSIONS: are distinguished from a net, unduplicated audience, which measures the number of distinct, different people reached. This is also called Gross or Total Audience.
*GROSS RATING POINTS (GRP): a measure of total audience delivery expressed as a percent of the population. The Gross Rating Points may represent audience delivery for a single medium or a combination of media. "Gross" signifies that the audience delivery it represents defines neither "reach" (net delivery) nor frequency, but a combination of both. Duplication is not factored out in Gross Rating Points.
*HUT (Homes using TV): the percentage of TV households viewing TV during a specific time period.
*LIVE FEED: the use of a single broadcast transmission for all time zones. This means that programming that airs in prime time on the East Coast at 8p local time will air on the West Coast at 5p local time.
*MAKE-GOOD: an advertisement did not run as originally scheduled when, it is run again to "make good" on (or fulfill the intent of) the original ad order or contract.
*PUT (People Using Television) (or Persons Using Television at a particular time): expressed as a percent of all persons in TV homes. PUT combines all persons viewing, rather than reporting specific program viewing. Note that PUT and PVT (Persons Viewing Television) are interchangeable terms in common usage.
*RATING: the size of an audience expressed as a percentage of the total target audience universe (see below).
*REACH: the number of different people or households exposed to your television commercial. It is often used in tandem with Frequency.
*RUN OF STATION or RUN OF SCHEDULE (ROS for radio, television and cable): a way of ordering a radio, TV or cable schedule in which the spots may run at any time during the Flight (see below).
*SCHEDULE/FLIGHT: air time purchased and scheduled to run with a start and end date.
*SHARE: the percentage of all televisions (or people watching/listening) in use that are tuned to a specific station or program.
*UNIVERSE: the total target audience, either by demographic or households, that exists either on a national or local basis.
*UPFRONT: the buying of national television advertising time for a full broadcast year (generally September through August), via one negotiation. Upfront buying usually requires representation throughout all four quarters of a year, allows cancellation options in the last six months of a buy, and generally allows audience guarantees to advertisers.
INTERNET AND WEB SITE
ACCESSIBILITY: relates to web design and coding standards and refers to a web site’s ease of use. This ease of use includes people who are visually impaired, physically handicapped, or limited by older or less common computers and software.
ASCII: stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange and is a code that represents English characters as numbers, ranging from 0 to 127. Commonly used by computers and browsers, ASCII codes make it possible to transfer data from one computer to another computer (like a server). When transferring data from a computer to a server (called "uploading"), either ASCII or binary codes are used, depending on the type of file being transferred.
ASP: a coding language that is compatible with Windows servers. It is normally used to increase functionality on a web site or to work with a database. ASP works in conjunction with html and html variants (see below).
BACK LINKS: are links from other web sites to yours. Back links are used to increase a site's popularity with search engines and to increase visits to the site.
BANDWIDTH: relates to how much a resource is used. An analogy would be a freeway. The wider the freeway, the more traffic (users) it can handle. The narrower the freeway is, fewer people can use it at once, without problems. When a web site gets many visitors, it uses a lot of bandwidth.
BINARY: a coding system that consists of only two numbers, 0 and 1. Everything typed into a computer is converted into binary. Each character consists of coding a unique combination of the zeros and ones. Screens and printers then convert this binary code back into the letters and numbers that were typed. When uploading (transferring) information (files) from a computer to a server, certain files need to be transferred in binary coding in order to be correctly interpreted and rendered. The alternative to binary for uploading is ASCII.
BLOG: a word formed by combining the words "web log," is an online journal or diary, and is currently a very popular method of sharing thoughts with the world. It is also very popular as a marketing tool.
BROADBAND: a type of Internet connection. When someone says they have a broadband connection, it means they are connecting using a service that provides greater speed. ADSL is one example of a broadband connection. Broadband connection also often offers greater reliability, because users will not experience as many timeouts and also because more people can use a broadband connection at the same time without it causing "traffic congestion," which slows everything up, just as it does when you are driving on a busy road.
BROWSER: refers to how a web site appears when viewed on a PC. Web sites look very different in reality to what you see when you visit it. Everything is, in fact, encoded. A browser is the software that decodes everything so that what the viewer sees is an attractive page rather than a lot of coding. Most people use the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser, which comes with all Windows software. Look at the top right of the screen right now, just under the "X" is a little picture. This picture tells which browser is being used. If the picture is a wavy square with smaller squares in red, green, blue and yellow, that is IE (Internet Explorer).
BROWSER WINDOW: the type of software used to view items on the Internet (see above). The browser window is the actual screen that the software displays everything on. When someone opens a browser window, they are activating a browser so that an Internet window opens up on their computer. Clicking on an icon on the computer screen or task bar (at the bottom of the screen usually does this).
CMS: stands for Content Management System and is defined as a dynamic web site that is normally database driven and allows the owner/user to manage the content of the web site. The owner/user can make changes without needing to know any coding at all.
CONVERSION: a marketing term that refers to the number of web site visitors who convert to buyers. For example, if one out of every 100 visitors to a site end up buying something, there is a 1:100 (or 1%) conversion rate.
DATABASE DRIVEN: a web site in which the information is not stored on the page, but in a database. Each time someone visits a particular page, the information is drawn from the database in order to display it on the page. Information can therefore be easily cross-referenced and the same information applied in many different ways, using formulas and different variables. With a normal "static" web site, the information that is seen is on the page itself. It does not change unless someone manually edits the page.
DIRECTORY or SEARCH ENGINE DIRECTORY: serves much like the Yellow Pages, serve land line telephones. A directory stores information about hundreds, thousands and millions of web sites, to allow people to easily and quickly find information and/or resources. Yahoo is an example of a search engine directory.
DOMAIN: a person or organization's unique space on the Internet. In layman's terms, domain is commonly used to mean the name of a web site.
DOMAIN NAME: identified by the number assigned to its unique space. To make it easier to use, however, the number is given the name of one's choice and this name is assigned to the number. In this way, people do not need to remember the number (IP, see below) in order to visit a web site, but can use the easier-to-remember domain name.
FTP CLIENT: the software program that's used to upload a web site to a host server.
GIF: a type of file used for images, especially animated graphics and line-drawn images (as opposed to photographs). A .gif image can be saved with a transparent background, making it ideal for graphic overlays.
HOST/HOSTING: to have an email address or a web site, a computer somewhere, with all the necessary software, must provide three things: an IP (domain) address, physical space to store the information and bandwidth that accommodates the flow of information that is taking place on your behalf. The company that provides these facilities is the host and a fee is paid for hosting your site and/or email address.
HTML: stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and is the base language that is used for creating web sites. Common uses of the term are "html coding" and "html web site.” A web site created in pure html is also referred to as a static web site. In other words, it does not interact with the visitor. It stores no data and cannot return data other than what is consistently on the page itself. Emails that use different fonts, colors, borders, backgrounds and graphics are also generally coded in html, with the alternative being plain text.
HTTP: stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol and is the method used to transfer information on the Internet and normally precedes the "description" of the actual resource being accessed and transferred. For example, web sites and web pages are one type of resource, identified by their domain name (www.domain.co.za).
HYPERLINK: a reference or simply a link in a hypertext document to another document or other resource. As such, is similar to a citation in literature. However, combined with a data network and suitable access protocol, it can be used to fetch the resource referenced. This can then be saved, viewed, or displayed as part of the referencing document.
IP: stands for Internet Protocol or IP ADDRESS and is the address or actual number to which a web address name translates. (Also see "domain".) The IP number is the real address.
ISP: stands for Internet Service Provider and is the organization that provides Internet access (connection) and its related services.
JAVASCRIPT: a coding language used to achieve effects and functions on web sites that normal html and its variants cannot achieve. These bits of coding (or scripts) are normally embedded into a web page and will automatically activate as soon as someone arrives on the page. Please note that JavaScript is distinctly different from Java.
JPG: a type of file used for images, especially photographs. Images used on web pages work best as jpg or gif files. When referenced, many say, "jay peg."
KEYWORD or KEY PHRASE: an Internet marketing term that refers to the main topics or subjects visitors might use when searching for products or services on the Internet. For example, a topic may be "Quantifiable Analysis of the Strategic Business Model" but the average person searching for this information may simply search for "planning business strategies." Key phrases are at the core of any web site marketing strategy and need to relate to the target market's thinking rather than to the owner's.
LAN: stands for Local Area Network and is a method of connecting a small network of computers to each other. Using LAN enables file sharing between different computers and provides the ability to connect multiple computers to the Internet using the same connection.
META TAG: a meta tag provides information about a web page, such as topic (title), keywords, description and also instructions to search engine robots and visitor browsers.
OPTIMIZE: has two possible meanings in web design. The first is web site/page optimization, which relates to how the page is structured (both code and content) with regard to search engines. A well-optimized web site is search engine friendly. The second meaning relates to graphics and pictures that are used on web sites. An optimized graphic is one that has been compressed as far as possible without sacrificing acceptable quality. This allows the image to load more quickly when someone visits a web site.
PARKED DOMAIN: a domain name that sits on the same server space as another. If someone types in the address of either the main domain or the parked domain, they will arrive at the same web site.
PPC: stands for Pay per Click and is a common term in Internet advertising. Advertising space is purchased on someone's web site, but instead of paying a flat monthly rate, a small amount is paid each time someone clicks on the advertisement. This "small amount", however, can be quite high, depending on the deemed value of the link. This is a very simplified explanation, but the principle is that one ostensibly "pays for what you get", which is not entirely accurate. False clicks can in fact make this much more expensive than a fixed advertising cost.
PROPAGATION: occurs when an IP is changed, either because you have started up a new web site or moved your web site from one hosting company to another. Every name server across the entire Internet globally must update its records to know where to find you. This process is called propagation and can take up to 48 hours. The time frame varies, since name servers do not all update at the same time.
RANKING: a term related to search engines. When someone searches the Internet using a search engine, they will receive pages and pages of results. Where a specific site appears in those results is its ranking. There is a second meaning as well, more commonly used with regard to marketing and SEO (see below), and related specifically to Google. Each page of a web site is given a ranking by Google, from 1-10. This ranking is the value that Google places on that particular page in relation to its subject matter and how relevant it is. The more relevant a page is believed to be, the higher its ranking.
RECIPROCAL LINKS: occur when web site A links to web site B, B links back to A, and both link to the other on the condition that they receive a link back. This is reciprocal linking. The principle is that if site A ever removes the link to site B, site B will remove its link to site A and vice versa. This is a tactic for gaining more links pointing to a web site in hopes that Google or other search engines (see below) will increase the site's ranking as a result.
SEARCH ENGINES: are complex computer programs. These programs collect, store, arrange and normally rank the various resources available on the Internet. Nearly 90% of all web site visitors find a web site via a search engine. There are many search engines available and each is different in their scope, search protocols, and appearance. Some common search engines include: Alta Vista, Google, Yahoo, Excite, Lycos, msn and HotBot.
SEARCH-ENGINE FRIENDLY: relates to how well a site has been built. A search-engine friendly web site is one that search engines can easily read and find by links AND which search engines "like" because it is properly optimized and not breaking any of their rules.
SEARCH-ENGINE RANKING: is different than a search engine listing because a listing means the site appears anywhere on the list. Ranking relates to exactly where on the list it appears. Nearer to the top means a web site has a higher ranking—a critical consideration in having a web site found on the Internet.
SEO: stands for Search Engine Optimization and is very simply the practice of tweaking web site coding and content to achieve the highest possible search engine ranking.
SERP: stands for Search Engine Results Page and is the process of achieving a high ranking position on the search results page. This is what every good business web site is trying to achieve. Search engines return a list of page titles according to the relevant information the web pages contain. The more focused, relevant text (topic specific information) the web page contains, the higher it will rank in the search results for a specific search phrase.
SITEMAP: an index to all the content on a specific web site. It is normally accessible from at least the front page of the site and is used for two purposes: to help people find information on the site and to help search engines find all the links.
SUB-DOMAIN: a domain that is behind another, but totally separate. Using sub- domains, one can effectively have multiple "domains" on a single registered domain name and hosting account. A sub-domain address would be written like: www.something-else.yourdomain.com the "something-else" is the sub-domain.
URL: stands for Uniform Resource Locator and allows all resources on the Internet to be located in a uniform manner. A url is a web site address that has all the pertinent information for finding the exact location attached to it. For example, http://www.web-inn.com is this web site's url and http://www.web-inn.com/glossary.html is this exact page's url (notice the extra part after the .com).
WEB ANALYTICS: the study of the behavior of web site visitors. In a commercial context, web analytics especially refers to the use of data collected from a web site to determine which aspects of the web site work towards business objectives; for example, which landing pages encourage people to make a purchase? Data collected almost always includes web traffic reports. It may also include e-mail response rates, direct mail campaign data, sales and lead information, or other custom metrics as needed. This data is typically compared to key performance indicators, and is used to improve a web site or a marketing campaign’s audience response.
Key definitions within Web Analytics include:
BOUNCE RATE/% EXIT: the percentage of visits in which the visitor enters and exits at the same page without visiting any other pages on the site between entrance and exit.
DEPTH/PAGE VIEWS PER SESSION: the average number of page views a visitor undertakes before ending their session. It is calculated by dividing total number of page views by total number of sessions and is also called page views per session or PV/session.
FIRST VISIT/FIRST SESSION: indicates the initial visit from a visitor who has not made any previous visits.
FREQUENCY/SESSION PER UNIQUE VISIT: describes how often visitors come to a web site. It is calculated by dividing the total number of sessions (or visits) by the total number of unique visitors. Sometimes it is used to measure the loyalty of the web site's audience.
HIT: a request for a file from the web server. The number of hits received by a web site is frequently cited to assert its popularity, but this number is extremely misleading and dramatically overestimates popularity. A single web page typically consists of multiple—often dozens of—discrete files, each of which is counted as a hit as the page is downloaded, so the number of hits is really an arbitrary number more reflective of the complexity of individual pages on the web site than the web site’s actual popularity. The total number of visitors or page views provides a more realistic and accurate assessment of popularity.
IMPRESSION: indicates each time an advertisement loads on a user’s screen. Anytime the viewer sees a banner, that is an impression.
NEW VISITOR: a visitor that has not made any previous visits.
PAGE VIEW: a request for a file whose type is defined as a page in log analysis. This is an occurrence of the script being run in page tagging. In log analysis, a single page view may generate hits, as all the resources required to view the page are also requested from the web server.
PAGE VIEW DURATION: the average amount of time that visitors spend on each page of the web site. As with session duration, this metric is complicated by the fact that analytics programs cannot measure the length of the final page view.
REPEAT VISITOR: a visitor that has made at least one previous visit. The period between the last and current visit is called visit recency and is measured in days.
SESSION DURATION: the average amount of time that visitors spend on the site each time they visit. This metric can be complicated by the fact that analytics programs cannot measure the length of the final page view. Also, if a visitor comes back to the site after a short time away, that can be counted as a continuation of the first session, thus artificially bloating the statistic.
SINGLETONS: designate visits in which only a single page is viewed. While not a useful metric in and of itself, the number of singletons is indicative of various forms of “click fraud" used to calculate bounce rate and tracking this number can be in some cases, to identify automatons (“bots”).
VISIBILITY TIME: indicates the actual time, in minutes and seconds, a single page, blog or ad banner is viewed.
VISIT/SESSION: indicates a series of requests from the same uniquely identified client with a set timeout. A visit is expected to contain multiple hits (in log analysis) and page views.
VISITOR/UNIQUE VISITOR/UNIQUE USER: indicates the uniquely identified client generating requests on the web server (log analysis) or viewing pages (page tagging) within a defined time period (i.e. day, week or month). A unique visitor is counted once within the time period. A visitor can make multiple visits.
MAGAZINE
AVERAGE FREQUENCY: the average number of issues the cumulative audience has been exposed to for a particular schedule.
AVERAGE ISSUE AUDIENCE: the measured audience of the average issue of a publication, reported in terms of specific demographics of total audience.
BLEED: to extend type or illustration to the edge of a page (no margins).
COLUMN INCH: a measurement one column wide by one inch deep.
COPY SPLIT (A/B SPLIT): a split run, where one ad is placed in every other copy of a magazine (A) and a different ad is placed in the remaining copies (B).
EFFICIENCY: the relationship of cost to audience. This is used for direct comparison of various print media.
FLAT RATE: an ad rate not subject to discounting.
ISSUE LIFE: the length of time it takes a publication to reach its maximum measurable audience. For a weekly, the issue life is generally 5 weeks; for a monthly, it's 10-12 weeks.
NEWSPAPER
AVERAGE NET PAID CIRCULATION: the average number of copies sold per issue.
COLUMN INCH: in newspapers this measure represents a space one inch deep and one column across or wide.
COST PER THOUSAND: the cost of reaching 1,000 readers, divided by overall cost and prospects.
OPEN RATE: a rate subject to discount for volume or frequency.
PRIMARY READER: the subscriber or purchaser of the newspaper.
READERSHIP: refers to who saw the ad, not to readership of the publication.
RUN OF PAPER (ROP): advertising placed anywhere in a regular section of a newspaper.
ROP COLOR: any form of color printed during a regular pressrun on standard newsprint. This includes spot color and process color.
SECONDARY READER: one who reads a publication purchased by someone else.
SHORT RATE: a charge invoiced when the advertiser fails to use as much advertising as they specified in the contract.
STANDARD (OR BROADSHEET) NEWSPAPER: a newspaper format that is 6 columns wide and 21 inches deep. The total page = 126 column inches.
TABLOID NEWSPAPER: a newspaper format that is 5 columns wide and 14 inches deep. The total page = 70 column inches.
TEARSHEET: proof to the advertiser that the ad ran in the publication as scheduled. The page with the advertiser’s ad is removed from the newspaper and provided to the advertiser.
OUTDOOR & TRANSIT
APPROACH: the distance measured along the line of travel from the point where the poster becomes fully visible to the point where the copy ceases to be readable.
AVERAGE DAILY EFFECTIVE CIRCULATION (ADEC): the average number of persons exposed to a sign or group of signs per day. ADEC is based on annual tabulations.
BILLBOARD: a poster panel for outdoor advertising.
DIORAMA: a back-lighted display located in transit terminals and sports arenas.
DISPLAY PERIOD: the period of time during which a particular poster or painted bulletin is on display. The standard poster display period is one month; for painted bulletins, it's 4-6 months.
EFFECTIVE DAILY CIRCULATION: indicates those individuals who have a reasonable opportunity to see the posting. Traditionally, this is figured as half of all pedestrians or those in cars, and 25% of all passengers on buses and other mass transit who pass a given point during 12-hours of daylight (or an 18-hour period in the case of illuminated panels).
GROSS RATING POINTS (GRPS): corresponds to the number of a “showing.” This designates ADEC of a showing as a percentage of an outdoor market’s adult population. For example, a #25 showing delivers 250,000 impression opportunities in a market with 1,000,000 adults. This number is then multiplied by 30 to determine the total GRP’s for a one-month purchase.
LOAD FACTOR: the average number of people riding in each car in the traffic flow.
PAINTED BULLETIN: an outdoor advertising medium which is generally measured 14 feet by 48 feet.
PLATFORM POSTER: located in terminals and transfer points, these are seen by commuters while they are waiting to board and usually measure 46 inches by 60 inches.
POSTER SHOWING: the unit of sale in outdoor advertising. The number of daily Gross Rating Points represented by X number of locations indicate Poster Showing. This is expressed as #25, #50, #100, etc.
POSTER (3 SHEET): a small poster with a copy area generally measuring 6 feet 8 inches by 3 feet and is usually found on the outside walls of retail stores.
POSTER (8 SHEET): a small poster with a copy area generally measuring 5 feet by 11 feet and is usually found in the vicinity of retail stores.
Sources: NBC Affiliate Advertising & Promotion Services, Cable Advertising Bureau