Today I received a email from an advertising agency who are keen to put some ads on Omniglot. The jargon used in such emails is sometimes difficult to decipher. Some examples include:

“All companies are white”
– Presumably this means that the don’t engage in any dodgy or shady practices. I’ve heard of white hat and black hat hackers, and white and black magic, but not of companies being white.

“We can buy your unsold inventory”
– Not sure what this means. I think that inventory is any places on my site where you could place an ad, and unsold inventory is probably places that don’t already contain ads.

“We encourage you to place our banners, sticky cat-fish and pre-rolls.”
– I know what banners are, but sticky cat-fish and pre-rolls??

A catfish ad “appears (slides in or fades in) as a horizontal area at the bottom of a page. The term likely comes from the image of a catfish coming up to the water surface for air.” [source].

I suppose a sticky catfish ad is one that sticks around and can’t be minimised or dismissed. If you’re viewing this site on a phone or other small-screened device, you might spot some catfish, which are not sticky, as far as I know.

A pre-roll ad “is a video advertisement that automatically plays directly before a featured video.” [source].

Is there similar advertising jargon in other languages?