GLOSSARY

Ad Allowable: The maximum amount that you can spend on your DRTV campaign to generate a profit on a cost per order basis.

Airing: The broadcasting of DRTV infomercial in a specific time slot.

Airtime: Media time slots a station has scheduled for the broadcast of infomercial programs.

Call to Action (CTA): The segments of an infomercial designed to that specially motivate a customer to order the product, emphasising product features and benefits, guarantee, price, numbers to call, payment methods, etc.

Cost of Goods (COG): The direct cost of the manufacture and packaging of a specific product.

Cost per Order (CPO): The average media cost required to generate one product order, calculated by dividing the cost of a specific telecast by the total number of orders received as a result.

Direct Response Television (DRTV): anything sold directly over television, bypassing traditional retail outlets. DRTV has three main categories: short form, long form, (infomercials) and live home shopping.

Fulfilment: The processes required to fulfil an order places in response to DRTC campaign. This includes warehousing, packaging, labelling, shipping and tracking information, payment processing, customer service and returns.

Infomercial: A long form (30-minute) TV programme designed to motivate the viewer to respond by purchasing the featured product or service directly.

Long Form: Any television commercial longer than two minutes. (Usually, but not always 30 minutes in length.)

Media Efficiency Ratio (MER): The measure of an infomercial's overall success or failure that is calculated by dividing total sales by the media cost. Sales/Media Cost = MER.

Merchant Account: A contracted agreement between a merchant or and a credit card company responsible for processing sales order payments.

Post Production: Final integration of audio, video, and graphic elements to create a finished programme, presentation or infomercial.

Pre-production: The organisation stages of production, which include research, scripting, location spotting, auditions, set design, and production scheduling.

Producer: The person responsible for overseeing all aspects of production, and usually accountable to the client for the project's success.

Production: The actual filming of a programme or infomercial script elements.

Short-form: A DRTV commercial that is three minutes or less in length.

Telemarketing: In- or outbound telephone calls used to generate sales of a product or service.

Voice Over: The off-screen voice of an unseen narrator.