Scheduling and presenting IPG ads in conjunction with programming ads in a television environment

• US 10,034,062 B1
• Filed: 03/11/2014
• Issued: 07/24/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 02/18/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Prime Research Alliance E, LLC
• Original Assignee: Prime Research Alliance E., Inc.
• Inventors: Flickinger, Gregory
• Primary Examiner(s): Salce, Jason
• Application Number:
  US14/204,062
• Time in Patent Office: 1,596 Days
• Field of Search: 725 32- 36, 725 39, 725 41- 47, 725 51
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/10 Arrangements for replacing or switching information during the broadcast or the distribution
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/40 Arrangements for broadcast specially adapted for accumulation-type receivers
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/31 Arrangements for monitoring the use made of the broadcast services
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/72 using electronic programme guides [EPG] focusing on identifying broadcast space time H04H60/39 ; menu type display of EPG in television receivers H04N21/47
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/82 the transmission system being the Internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23106 involving caching operations prefetching while addressing of a memory level in which the access to the desired data or data block requires associative addressing means within memory systems or architectures G06F12/0862; caching at an intermediate stage in a data network H04L67/568
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/235 Processing of additional data, e.g. scrambling of additional data or processing content descriptors
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25883 being end-user demographical data, e.g. age, family status or address arrangements for identifying locations of users in broadcast systems H04H60/52
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25891 being end-user preferences retrieval of video data in a video database based on user preferences G06F16/739; arrangements for recognizing users' preferences H04H60/46; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306; processing of user preferences or user profiles in wireless networks H04W8/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/26233 involving content or additional data duration or size, e.g. length of a movie, size of an executable file
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/26241 involving the time of distribution, e.g. the best time of the day for inserting an advertisement or airing a children program
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2668 Creating a channel for a dedicated end-user group, e.g. insertion of targeted commercials based on end-user profiles information retrieval from the Internet by querying with filtering and personalisation G06F16/9535; arrangements for replacing or switching information during the broadcast H04H20/10; push services over packet-switching network H04L12/1859; adaptation of message content in packet-switching networks H04L51/063
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42684 Client identification by a unique number or address, e.g. serial number, MAC address, socket ID network arrangements, protocols or services for addressing or naming H04L61/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4331 Caching operations, e.g. of an advertisement for later insertion during playback
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/435 Processing of additional data, e.g. decrypting of additional data, reconstructing software from modules extracted from the transport stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4532 involving end-user characteristics, e.g. viewer profile, preferences monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306; processing of user preferences or user profiles in wireless networks H04W8/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/454 Content or additional data filtering, e.g. blocking advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47 End-user applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/478 Supplemental services, e.g. displaying phone caller identification, shopping application
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4821 : using a grid, e.g. sorted out by channel and broadcast time
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 : involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/84 : Generation or processing of descriptive data, e.g. content descriptors systems specially adapted for using meta-information in broadcast systems H04H60/73
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8586 : by using a URL processing chained hypermedia data for information retrieval G06F16/94; information retrieval from the Internet by using URLs G06F16/955; URL in broadcast information H04H20/93; Web-based protocols H04L67/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/165 : Centralised control of user terminal subsequent to an upstream request signal H04N7/17345; Registering at central by two-way working H04N7/17309
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17354 : in an intermediate station common to a plurality of user terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17363 : at or near the user terminal

Abstract

A method and system whereby conventional television advertisements (i.e., those delivered to viewers while they watch television programming) can be delivered in conjunction with and correlated with advertisements that are presented to viewers in the Interactive Program Guide (IPG). Moreover, the invention described herein provides for delivering highly targeted ads to viewers in both conventional programming avails and in the IPG, and for linking the targeted ads in these two media to provide for enhanced and highly effective advertising campaigns.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of displaying programming ads and content portal advertisements, the computer-implemented method comprising:

scheduling a programming ad for display based upon a channel being watched and a viewer'"'"'s profile;

placing advertisements having content related to the scheduled programming ad into a content portal ad queue having a display sequence of the advertisements;

determining a correlation between the scheduled programming ad and the related content of each of the advertisements on a scale representing extremely tight to extremely loose;

prioritizing the display sequence of the advertisements in the content portal ad queue by ordering each correlation on the scale; and

displaying in a content portal, a next scheduled related advertisement from the content portal ad queue, when the viewer invokes the content portal prior to, during or after the scheduled programming ad being displayed.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the advertisements and at least one programming ad is a targeted advertisement.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein user interaction with the related content portal advertisement allows a user to request additional information regarding the displayed programming ad.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, wherein the request for additional information causes the user'"'"'s Internet browser to be directed to a web page associated with the displayed programming ad.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein user interaction with the related content portal advertisement causes the programming ad to be rescheduled.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the scheduling of a programming ad is organized into a programming ad queue.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein the programming ad queue is reordered based on the displaying of the content portal advertisement.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the correlation is one of tight, loose or non-existent.

9. A content portal advertisement system for displaying content portal advertisements and program ads, the system comprising:

a storage device suitable for storing a plurality of ads scheduled to be displayed during a program and a content portal advertisement queue containing an ordered list of content portal advertisements to indicate a display sequence of the advertisements, each advertisement having content related to one or more of the plurality of program ads;

a processor suitable for determining a correlation between each program ad with content of the at least one portal advertisement on a scale representing extremely tight to extremely loose and prioritizing the display sequence of the advertisements in the content portal ad queue by ordering each correlation on the scale;

a server suitable for displaying the next ordered related advertisement from the content portal ad queue when a user invokes a content portal prior to, during or after the scheduled program ad being displayed.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the storage device is operable connected to the server.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the processing module is further suitable for reordering the content portal advertisement queue by placing the delivered content portal advertisement at the bottom of the content portal advertisement queue after the content portal advertisement has been displayed.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein at least one of the content portal advertisements or at least one of the program ads is a targeted advertisement.

13. The system of claim 9, further comprising:

an input module to receive user interaction data obtained from the correlated at least one content portal advertisement, allowing the user to request additional information regarding the displayed program ad.

14. The system of claim 9, wherein the correlation is one of tight, loose or non-existent.

15. A non-transitory computer program product, comprising a computer usable medium having a computer readable program code embodied therein, said computer readable program code adapted to be executed to implement a method of displaying content portal advertisements and programming ads, the method comprising:

scheduling a programming ad for display based upon a channel being watched and a viewer'"'"'s identity;

placing advertisements having content related to the scheduled programming ad into a content portal ad queue having a display sequence of the advertisements;

determining a correlation between the scheduled programming ad and the related content of each of the advertisements on a scale representing extremely tight to extremely loose;

prioritizing the display sequence of the advertisements in the content portal ad queue by ordering each correlation on the scale; and

displaying in a content portal, a next scheduled related advertisement from the content portal ad queue, when the viewer invokes the content portal prior to, during or after the scheduled programming ad being displayed.

16. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein at least one of the content portal advertisements or programming ads is a targeted advertisement.

17. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein viewer interaction with the related content portal advertisement allows a user to request additional information pertaining to the displayed programming ad.

18. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein the request for additional information directs the viewer to a web page associated with the related programming ad.

19. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein user interaction with the content portal advertisement causes the programming ad to be displayed.

20. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the correlation can be one of tight, loose or non-existent.