Marketing Agency, Advertising Agency & Design Agency Glossary

A misleading ploy used by advertising agencies intended to mislead the prospective customer into thinking that the company is selling a product at a price which the company has no intention of doing so. The purpose is to increase enquiries and to switch an individual so that they buy products or services from the new company instead. Ethical marketing agencies or marketing services companies view this as unethical marketing.

The Balance of Trade is a measure of the difference between a country's exports and imports every month. This is not a marketing services term but merely a term used to measure the effectiveness of an economy of the country.

Used by marketing services companies, advertising agencies and web design agencies, banner adverts are small rectangular adverts placed by companies on other web sites The hosting web site owner is paid revenue for the number of page impressions or the number of click through to the client web site.

Method of networking whereby companies with complimentary products or services exchange banner adverts to increase traffic to their respective web sites. A cost-neutral marketing initiative employed by marketing services organisations and marketing consultants.

The Broadcasters' Audience Research Board is responsible for providing estimates of the number of people watching television. This includes the channels and programmes being watched, at what time, and the type of people who are watching. The BARB results may have a significant impact on marketing campaigns or advertising agency spend.

A term used by marketing consultants and marketing services companies, barriers to competition are the market forces which make entering a particular market difficult for the competition. Branding, advertising & promotion, patents, market entry restrictions and tariffs are examples of this. Marketing consultants and investors often cite barrier to competition as a measure used to look at long term investment opportunity or revenue generation opportunity.

When bringing a new product or service to market 'barriers to market entry' are the factors making successful new product development difficult to bring to market like the economy, laws and technical knowledge and ability. Barriers to market entry can often be increased for competitors by the successful acquisition of intellectual property rights such as patents or trademarks. These barriers to market entry can stop or slow down competition. This is a technique extensively used by marketing consultants, marketing services companies, marketing agencies and patent advisors to prevent competition in the short-medium term.

Behavioural targeting is an internet marketing term used by marketing consultants. Previous browsing behaviour is used to target prospective customers. This can be a very powerful tool for Internet marketing is used extensively by marketing companies and web design agencies utilising in-house marketing consultancy knowledge to improve online marketing budget spend efficiency for clients

In video production, any cost not itemised in a production budget when making a film or video is said to be 'below the line'. When used as an advertising agency term used by a marketing company, non-media advertising or promotion where no commission has been paid to the advertising agency is said to be below the line. Some advertising agencies where traditionally above the line while some advertising agency companies traded purely below the line. Full service marketing services agencies such as thinktank or provide both below the line and above the line marketing services. Examples of below the line services include direct mail, point of sale displays, giveaways, where commission there is a fee charged for marketing services rather than a commission on advertising placement.

Marketing companies defied prospects and customers into groups based on their individual group needs for a product or service.. For example, some people choose bottled beers due to their perceived better taste whereas others may choose to drink them for 'trend or image' reasons. Benefit segmentation provides a better way to target marketing services and marketing communications directly at a specific target groups who will respond to the benefits that they associate with most.

Benefit selling is the process of using benefits determined by marketing agencies or a marketing Department to promote goods or services. Benefit selling in force a salesperson closely matching the prospective customers needs in order to win the sale. Marketing agencies employing senior or expert marketing consultants with a solid understanding of marketing principles will often work with clients to make sure that these benefit messages are relevant and successful when employed.

Beta product testing is commonly used by software houses which freely distribute an early working version of a new product to a large number of users who test the product for free in exchange for being allowed to use the product before anybody else. As a marketing tool this can be highly effective in addition to the useful information gained during beta testing. Some major organisations do not use beta testing programmes and there is much debate about the effectiveness of beta programme testing. Beta testing can be regarded as a marketing technique as well is a product development technique.

Used by online marketing companies and marketing consultants, blended e-learning is an integrated programme using a mix of classroom workshops at a college or training centre, online learning and assignments. Marketing services organisations claim that blended e-learning provides a good balance between traditional education and pure distance learning.

Used by marketing consultants within a retail setting, a block plan is a retail store layout plan detailing shapes, sizes and location of store goods. The plans can be used for companies operating from major retail settings such as the Trafford Centre in Manchester or Liverpool's Liverpool One.

A blog is a marketing term used by individuals or which refers to an online web log. This term has been shortened to blog or blogging and it allows any individual or company to express their views. As amarketing this tool, marketing services companies, web design companies or online marketing consultants can tailor a blog to be an effective business communication tool.

Bluetooth is the name invented by a marketing services organisation for the open specification of short range communication devices which communicate wirelessly. Bluetooth and WiFi should not be confused and Bluetooth generally has a shorter range than WiFi.

Body copy is a term used by marketing services companies, marketing agencies, advertising agencies and design companies. Body copy refers to the main text in an advert, company literature or web site. The body copy is used by marketing consultants, NLP specialist marketing consultants or marketing companies to engage with client / customer groups in a way which persuades customers to use a particular product or service. 'You will buy from thinktank, because body copy is written in a way which will win you more business.' this is an example of body copy.

A bonus pack is a pack or carton used for giving extra product to customers for free or a reduced price. A Classic marketing tactic employed by marketing companies to enable customers to experience the product for the first time or to get more for free!

The boomerang method can be an extremely persuasive marketing consultancy technique for training sales staff to turn an objection into a reason for acting immediately with the intention of strengthening the possibility of winning the sale.

An analytical tool used in portfolio management by marketing consultants, marketing companies, marketing directors and product managers to categorise products into four areas - cash cows, stars, problem child (question mark) and dogs. This tool devised by the Boston Consulting Group is used to look for possible problems or opportunities and helps with divesting and harvesting of products. When used effectively by an experienced marketing consultant, it can be a highly effective marketing tool.

The brand is the name, logo and any special property that identifies a product or service in its own right. Legally it is referred to as a trademark if a company has applied for Trademark status. The brand can be a single product, a group of products or the entire offer of a company (e.g., McDonald's, Coca Cola, etc ' these are all registered trademarks of their respective companies). The brand is also referred to as a brand identity or logo. When used for a company that brand identity can also be used to refer to the corporate identity, although there are slight nuances between other terms used, especially when used by a marketing consultants or marketing company.

Brand awareness is the level of customer awareness of a brand's existence within a market. Experienced marketing consultants will know the difference between brand awareness and brand equity.

The purchase of one brand instead of another where a choice exists. Marketing services agencies know the power of brand choice by consumers or B2B customers and a good marketing consultant or advertising agency will include brand choice as a decisive factor when tweaking strategic marketing plans or marketing communications such as advertising, company literature, brochures or for copy used in websites.

The weakening of brand image by launching too many line extensions or using the brand name across a wide variety of areas. There are rare examples of this actually working in practise like Virgin, however, other factors have contributed to the success of brands like Virgin and are beyond the scope of this text. Brand dilution as classically defined is not as relevant as it once was during the pre-internet era and much of the traditional text written by marketing consultants or marketing companies is now much less relevant.

Developed by expertise within a marketing company or marketing department and nurtured by the client, brand equity is a highly important is a measure of a brand. Brand equity is the value or perception of the qualities of a brand within a market, based on attitudes, beliefs and favourable consequences of using the brand. Marketing consultants understand the power of brand equity. There are many examples of how brands with a strong brand equity can lose value quickly. For example, in the UK Perrier water enjoyed high market share until the product was forced temporarily from sale due to safety fears. The product never recovered its true market potential. Within the same market a major organisation launched a bottled water which was attacked by the media for being reprocessed water from Peckham. And, because of the comedy link with 'Only Fools & Horses' the brand was removed from the market very quickly. This illustrates the importance of using a good marketing company or marketing consultant for managing brand equity.

(Also called line extension) A common marketing services technique, the brand extension is a product launch of a new product line using an existing brand name and adding a 'tag' to identify it with. For example Blackcurrant Tango is a line extension of the Tango brand.

Not the same as generic brand! A brand generic is the latter half of a brand identity. 'Hoover vacuum cleaner' - Hoover the brand and vacuum cleaner the generic description.

Brand image is the perception of the brand in the mind of a prospective customer. People's beliefs, expectations and feelings about a brand. The brand image is often created by a marketing services organisation, marketing company, marketing department or advertising agency and is often that closely aligned to brand equity which is the value of a particular brand rather than its image.

Brand indifference is every marketing consultant's nightmare scenario. This is where the customer has no preference for one brand over another for whatever reason. Often these customers will purchase brands based on convenience, price or by chance (for further reading on chance try looking up the Bernoulli Principle in marketing consultancy textbooks). Any good bookstore in Manchester, Liverpool, Chester, Warrington or Preston or stock a comprehensive range of textbooks discussing marketing services or principles.

The 'badge' of the brand, which may or may not include the brand name. A brand logo is created by a design company or design agency, however the process of developing a new logo is much improved if there is a marketing services consultant or marketing agency involved in the process itself. Thinktank marketing has designed global brand logos and also designed many brand logo is for local companies with businesses in Manchester, Liverpool, Lancashire, Cheshire and throughout in Northwest England.

Brand loyalty is created by marketing services organisations and marketing departments within the client company. Brand loyalty is the bond of habit or tendency of a customer to buy a brand based on their beliefs, perception, attitudes and experience of use of that brand. Brand loyal customers have a very high barrier to 'switching' products (see brand switching). The opposite of brand indifference, this is every marketing consultants' dream scenario.

The management process carried out by a company and / or its marketing services agency responsible for developing all aspects of the brand.

Mapping the relative position of competing brands based on perceptual mapping of consumer perceptions of the brands is known as brand mapping. Used commonly by marketing consultants the term can also be referred to as perceptual mapping, position mapping and space mapping.

The part of a brand represented in letters or numerals. This does not include the logo. Nowadays the term brand name can be used by marketing consultants to mean a number of things and came should be taken when analysing the meaning of the term brand name in practice.

Brand personality is used has a term by marketing services companies or an advertising agency to describe the collection of attributes giving a brand a recognisable unique quality. A brand personality may arise as the result of contrived marketing action or by misinformed customer perception. One of the reasons large organisations use marketing consultants and marketing agencies to manage brand personalities is that a brand personality may have a direct impact upon brand equity which in turn can affect the value of a company or its products/services.

Brand switching is a term used whereby a customer changes to another brand or exhibits buying behaviour that possesses no loyalty to buying one brand over another. One of the key objectives of a marketing consultants or brand consultant is to retain brand loyalty whilst encouraging brand switching from the competition.

In its simplest form, the term brand value is the value which a brand would be given if represented on a company balance sheet. Given that marketing services and marketing consultants can directly affect the brand value by their activities, this is an important reason to ensure that an advertising agency or design company has highly experienced marketing consultants responsible for client accounts.

Following product launch, break-even point is defined as the period of time from product launch where the sales of a product are equal the total cost of production, marketing administration and distribution of that product. Marketing consultants understand the difference between break-even point and break-even profit point, the latter considers the entire cost of research & development and pre-marketing services or activities.

Marketing companies use the term break-even profit point to define the time period where total sales costs since launch equals the total cost of product development and all other associated costs since launch. This time period always comes later than the break-even point, as break-even point is a measure purely of profit equalling sales costs at a particular moment in time.

The marketing term aka high speed internet, broadband is Internet access at a high speed broadband Internet describes fast broadband speeds, however marketing services specialists within broadband companies often use headline figures to promote speed differences between suppliers. The marketing techniques used by broadband companies have been called into question because of the potentially misleading comparisons used. The differences between broadband suppliers require any technical understanding of how broadband Internet is supplied and is often beyond the marketing claims made by some ISPs.

Broadcast quality is a term used by video production companies and advertising agencies. The quality of video needed for TV broadcast - this is a much higher quality production (and therefore more expensive) than needed for multimedia or general use. A marketing services company can assist in advising you of the optimum format for your production, should they have a specialist video production facility like thinktank Manchester.

A term used when a video production company produces a corporate or product video. The B-roll is footage not included in the original video and is given to TV and the media with the intention of providing a more detailed insight into aspects of the new image or product.

Consumer electronic goods like TVs video's hi-fi or regarded as Brown goods by marketing services professionals.

The term budget can be very confusing. Companies refer to the budget as 'sales budget' or 'marketing budget'. Sales budget refers to the amount of sales forecast over a given period and marketing budget is the amount of money allocated to spend on marketing the product. Both sales and marketing budgets can be determined by a good marketing consultants or marketing services company as they are inextricably linked to each other.

A marketing strategy document or business strategy document showing cash flow, forecasts and direction of a company. The marketing plan is generally not included within the business plan except for an overall summary of the important parts of the marketing plan. A business plan can be developed by a strategist at a marketing services organisation.

Business strategy can also referred to marketing strategy, strategic objectives, exit strategy or any number of similar things. Generally speaking business strategy is regarded as the strategic means by which a business works towards achieving its stated aims. Business strategy is a commonly used term in a marketing services agency sector.

The term 'buying behaviour' is often used by marketing consultants or marketing services companies to outline the process that buyers go through when deciding whether or not to purchase goods or services. Buying behaviour can be influenced by a variety of external factors and motivations, including marketing activity. Marketing companies and marketing consultants seek to alter buying behaviour.

The buying signal is an important part of the sales process taught to sales departments by consultant marketing experts or sales trainers. Salespeople identify buying signals in order to 'close' a sale. These are often key phrases or visual signals given by customers. These signs are then used to mean that the customer wants to buy a product or service which then leads to the salesperson asking for the business, or 'closing' the sale. Marketing services companies can assist with training and development in this area.

Buzz marketing is a term which can mean fad marketing, viral marketing or simply word-of-mouth marketing. Marketing Consultants are generally involved in the creation of Buzz marketing. See also 'Viral marketing'.