Ad Jargon Intimidates New Talent. This Dictionary Makes it Less Scary

Katie Reid created something for every student too embarrassed to ask about industry terminology

Katie Reid, creative director at Founders Agency and instructor at Miami Ad School, has watched it happen too often. A student sits in a meeting, hears someone say “Let’s blue sky this” or “We need a bespoke activation,” and their face goes blank. They nod. They don’t ask. They leave feeling like maybe they don’t belong here after all.

It’s not the work that’s intimidating. It’s the words. This week—on World Dictionary Day, October 16—Katie launched The Ad Dictionary: A Collection of Scary Words That Shouldn’t Be Scary. It’s a gothic-inspired illustrated guide to the jargon that makes emerging creatives feel like outsiders before they’ve even started. Every term that’s ever made someone afraid to speak up in a room is in here, defined clearly, with a bit of dark humor to take the edge off.

Multiple copies of The Ad Dictionary, the essential advertising dictionary for decoding ad jargon, are arranged in a flat lay on a red surface.

A book titled The Ad Dictionary stands upright on a beige surface, featuring bold red and black text on a white cover—an essential advertising dictionary for new talent learning ad jargon.

The question no one wants to ask

Advertising talks about breaking barriers, but it forgets the first one: knowing what everyone’s saying. When someone throws out “WIP,” “SOW,” “OOH,” or worse—”there’s something there”—and you’re sitting there trying to decode it in real time, that’s a barrier. A silent one that makes people feel small.

Katie built this dictionary because she kept seeing students afraid to admit they didn’t know. They’d heard these terms before, but never with context. Never with permission to ask. The Ad Dictionary gives them both—pronunciation, definition and an example sentence that captures the absurdity of how these words get used in agency life.

Making the code less cryptic

From “A/B testing” to “greenwashing” to the vague “never been done,” Katie breaks it down. The book is designed like a Victorian gothic artifact—blackletter typography, eerie halftone illustrations—because if you’re going to demystify scary words, lean into the aesthetic.

But underneath the clever design is something practical: a reference guide for anyone who’s ever felt lost in a conversation they should understand. It’s the book you keep on your desk so you can look things up without asking and feeling behind.

From reference to curriculum

Miami Ad School Punta Cana is building a 10-week course around the book. Director José Guillermo Díaz frames it simply: “Before you can change the industry, you need to speak its language.” The course will teach students not just what the terms mean, but how to use them confidently—turning confusion into fluency.

Katie worked with lead designer Peyton Foley, illustrator Kolega Soberanis and 3D artist Sofi Skiendziel to make the book feel like something worth keeping. And for collectors with a sense of humor, there’s a limited run of first editions signed with ink made from Katie’s literal blood, sweat and tears. It’s a nod to the labor every creative knows—the kind where you pour everything into something and hope it helps.

What it’s really for

The book is available in hardcover ($25), softcover ($15) and ebook ($5) at TheAdDictionary.com. But the point isn’t the format. It’s what it does—gives people entering the industry a way to stop feeling like they’re on the outside.

The next time someone hears “bespoke OOH activation” in a meeting, they’ll know what it means. And more importantly, they won’t feel embarrassed for needing to look it up.