Movie advertising placement optimization based on behavior and content analysis

• US 10,491,935 B2
• Filed: 03/06/2017
• Issued: 11/26/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 05/23/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ip Ot Sub Ulc
• Original Assignee: Open Text Sa Ulc (Open Text Corporation)
• Inventors: Gilley, Thomas S., Hoffert, Eric, Nassar, Rabih, Soukup, Paul
• Primary Examiner(s): Castro, Alfonso
• Application Number:
  US15/450,836
• Publication Number:
  US 20170180771A1
• Time in Patent Office: 995 Days
• Field of Search: 725 14
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0206 Price or cost determination based on market factors
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0253 During e-commerce, i.e. online transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0254 based on statistics
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0255 based on user history
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0257 User requested
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0273 Determination of fees for advertising
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/10 Arrangements for replacing or switching information during the broadcast or the distribution
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/33 Arrangements for monitoring the users' behaviour or opinions
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/59 of video recognising characters or patterns in general G06F18/00, G06V20/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/66 for using the result on distributors' side
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23418 involving operations for analysing video streams, e.g. detecting features or characteristics television picture signal circuitry for scene change detection H04N5/147; filtering for image enhancement G06T5/00; methods or arrangements for recognising scenes G06V20/00; arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of video in broadcast systems H04H60/59
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23424 involving splicing one content stream with another content stream, e.g. for inserting or substituting an advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2393 involving handling client requests scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests H04L67/60
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2547 Third Party Billing, e.g. billing of advertiser
• 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 21/44213 Monitoring of end-user related data arrangements for monitoring the users' behaviour or opinions in broadcast systems H04H60/33
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44224 Monitoring of user activity on external systems, e.g. Internet browsing
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4756 for rating content, e.g. scoring a recommended movie
• 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 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 7/17318 : Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

An ad is placed in a movie, by analyzing inherent characteristics of the movie, analyzing viewed characteristics of the movie, analyzing viewer characteristics of a viewer of the movie, obtaining advertiser preferences for placement of the ad in the movie, determining costs of placing the ad in the movie based on the inherent characteristics of the movie, the viewed characteristics of the movie, the viewer characteristics and the advertiser preferences, and placing the ad in the movie in accordance with the inherent characteristics of the movie, the viewed characteristics of the movie, the viewer characteristics, the advertiser preferences and the determined costs.

Claims

1. A video processing system, comprising:

a transcoder having a processor, a non-transitory computer memory, and stored instructions translatable by the processor for providing a plurality of services, the plurality of services including an ad placement service, the ad placement service provided by the transcoder of the video processing system comprising;

responsive to receiving a request from a viewer to view a video,

determining whether the video has been viewed before by any user of the video processing system, the determining comprising comparing a number of views of the video with a threshold;

responsive to the number of views of the video not less than the threshold, indicating that the video has been viewed before, analyzing popularity characteristics of the video, the analyzing comprising;

obtaining statistics of the video from play trails that track viewer viewing behavior, each play trail representing a timestamped sequence of actions that a viewer takes in playing the video, each play trail stored on the video processing system as a data structure, the data structure having a head that serves as a first statistical unit, the first statistical unit pointing to a next sequential statistical unit corresponding to a next sequential portion of the video, the statistics of the video including a number of playback events; and

determining the popular characteristics of the video utilizing the statistics of the video;

responsive to the number of views of the video being less than the threshold, obtaining and analyzing inherent characteristics of the video, the inherent characteristics of the video including scenes in the video, the analyzing including determining scene changes;

determining whether the video processing system is operating in a real-time ad placement mode, a non-real-time ad placement mode or a hybrid ad placement mode;

responsive to the video processing system operating in the real-time ad placement mode or the hybrid ad placement mode, analyzing viewer characteristics in context of the viewer, the viewer characteristics including demographic information of the viewer;

retrieving advertiser ad placement preferences, the advertiser ad placement preferences specifying advertiser-preferred video inherent characteristics, advertiser-preferred video popularity characteristics, advertiser-preferred viewer characteristics, and a price setting mechanism specific to an advertiser;

performing an ad placement price determination procedure which comprises positioning ads at various places in the video as a function of the advertiser-preferred video inherent characteristics relative to the inherent characteristics of the video that the viewer has requested to view, the advertiser-preferred video popularity characteristics relative to the popularity characteristics of the video analyzed by the transcoder, the advertiser-preferred viewer characteristics relative to the viewer characteristics of the viewer, and the price setting mechanism specific to the advertiser; and

automatically placing an ad into the video at a location and size within at least one frame of the video selected based on an outcome from the ad placement price determination procedure, wherein the video is delivered with the ad automatically placed in the video to a user device associated with the viewer.

2. The video processing system of claim 1, wherein the transcoder is external to the user device.

3. The video processing system of claim 2, wherein the transcoder resides on a video server communicatively connected to the user device over a network.

4. The video processing system of claim 1, wherein the transcoder is local to the user device.

5. The video processing system of claim 1, wherein responsive to the number of views of the video being less than the threshold, the transcoder is operable to perform an ad placement procedure to place ads so that the ads are uniformly distributed in time throughout the video.

6. The video processing system of claim 1, wherein responsive to the number of views of the video being less than the threshold, the transcoder is operable to perform an ad placement procedure comprising clustering ads into groups between portions of the video of two to three minutes duration, permitting four to six ads to be inserted for every eight to ten minutes of the video.

7. The video processing system of claim 1, wherein responsive to the number of views of the video being less than the threshold, the transcoder is operable to perform an ad placement procedure to place ads at the scene changes in the video or at mid-scene in the video.

8. A video processing method, comprising:

responsive to receiving a request from a viewer to view a video, determining whether the video has been viewed before by any user of a video processing system, the determining comprising comparing a number of views of the video with a threshold, the determining performed by a transcoder of the video processing system, the transcoder having a processor, a non-transitory computer memory, and stored instructions translatable by the processor, the transcoder configured for providing a plurality of services;

responsive to the number of views of the video not less than the threshold, indicating that the video has been viewed before, the transcoder analyzing popularity characteristics of the video, the analyzing comprising;

obtaining statistics of the video from play trails that track viewer viewing behavior, each play trail representing a timestamped sequence of actions that a viewer takes in playing the video, each play trail stored on the video processing system as a data structure, the data structure having a head that serves as a first statistical unit, the first statistical unit pointing to a next sequential statistical unit corresponding to a next sequential portion of the video, the statistics of the video including a number of playback events; and

determining the popular characteristics of the video utilizing the statistics of the video;

responsive to the number of views of the video being less than the threshold, obtaining and analyzing inherent characteristics of the video, the inherent characteristics of the video including scenes in the video, the analyzing including determining scene changes;

determining, by the transcoder, whether the video processing system is operating in a real-time ad placement mode, a non-real-time ad placement mode, or a hybrid ad placement mode;

responsive to the video processing system operating in the real-time ad placement mode or the hybrid ad placement mode, the transcoder analyzing viewer characteristics in context of the viewer, the viewer characteristics including demographic information of the viewer;

retrieving advertiser ad placement preferences, the retrieving performed by the transcoder, the advertiser ad placement preferences specifying advertiser-preferred video inherent characteristics, advertiser-preferred video popularity characteristics, advertiser-preferred viewer characteristics, and a price setting mechanism specific to an advertiser;

performing, by the transcoder, an ad placement price determination procedure which comprises positioning ads at various places in the video as a function of the advertiser-preferred video inherent characteristics relative to the inherent characteristics of the video that the viewer has requested to view, the advertiser-preferred video popularity characteristics relative to the popularity characteristics of the video analyzed by the transcoder, the advertiser-preferred viewer characteristics relative to the viewer characteristics of the viewer, and the price setting mechanism specific to the advertiser; and

automatically placing, by the transcoder, an ad into the video at a location and size within at least one frame of the video selected based on an outcome from the ad placement price determination procedure, wherein the video is delivered with the ad automatically placed in the video to a user device associated with the viewer.

9. The video processing method according to claim 8, wherein the transcoder is external to the user device.

10. The video processing method according to claim 9, wherein the transcoder resides on a video server communicatively connected to the user device over a network.

11. The video processing method according to claim 8, wherein the transcoder is local to the user device.

12. The video processing method according to claim 8, wherein responsive to the number of views of the video being less than the threshold, the transcoder is operable to perform an ad placement procedure to place ads so that the ads are uniformly distributed in time throughout the video.

13. The video processing method according to claim 8, wherein responsive to the number of views of the video being less than the threshold, the transcoder is operable to perform an ad placement procedure comprising clustering ads into groups between portions of the video of two to three minutes duration, permitting four to six ads to be inserted for every eight to ten minutes of the video.

14. The video processing method according to claim 8, wherein responsive to the number of views of the video being less than the threshold, the transcoder is operable to perform an ad placement procedure to place ads at the scene changes in the video or at mid-scene in the video.

15. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions translatable by a processor of a transcoder of a video processing system to perform an ad placement service comprising:

responsive to receiving a request from a viewer to view a video,

determining whether the video has been viewed before by any user of the video processing system, the determining comprising comparing a number of views of the video with a threshold;

responsive to the number of views of the video not less than the threshold, indicating that the video has been viewed before, analyzing popularity characteristics of the video, the analyzing comprising;

obtaining statistics of the video from play trails that track viewer viewing behavior, each play trail representing a timestamped sequence of actions that a viewer takes in playing the video, each play trail stored on the video processing system as a data structure, the data structure having a head that serves as a first statistical unit, the first statistical unit pointing to a next sequential statistical unit corresponding to a next sequential portion of the video, the statistics of the video including a number of playback events; and

determining the popular characteristics of the video utilizing the statistics of the video;

responsive to the number of views of the video being less than the threshold, obtaining and analyzing inherent characteristics of the video, the inherent characteristics of the video including scenes in the video, the analyzing including determining scene changes;

determining whether the video processing system is operating in a real-time ad placement mode, a non-real-time ad placement mode, or a hybrid ad placement mode;

responsive to the video processing system operating in the real-time ad placement mode or the hybrid ad placement mode, analyzing viewer characteristics in context of the viewer, the viewer characteristics including demographic information of the viewer;

retrieving advertiser ad placement preferences, the advertiser ad placement preferences specifying advertiser-preferred video inherent characteristics, advertiser-preferred video popularity characteristics, advertiser-preferred viewer characteristics, and a price setting mechanism specific to an advertiser;

performing an ad placement price determination procedure which comprises positioning ads at various places in the video as a function of the advertiser-preferred video inherent characteristics relative to the inherent characteristics of the video that the viewer has requested to view, the advertiser-preferred video popularity characteristics relative to the popularity characteristics of the video analyzed by the transcoder, the advertiser-preferred viewer characteristics relative to the viewer characteristics of the viewer, and the price setting mechanism specific to the advertiser; and

automatically placing an ad into the video at a location and size within at least one frame of the video selected based on an outcome from the ad placement price determination procedure, wherein the video is delivered with the ad automatically placed in the video to a user device associated with the viewer.

16. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the transcoder is external to the user device and wherein the transcoder resides on a video server communicatively connected to the user device over a network.

17. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the transcoder is local to the user device.

18. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein if the video has not been viewed before, the transcoder is operable to perform an ad placement procedure to place ads so that the ads are uniformly distributed in time throughout the video.

19. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein responsive to the number of views of the video being less than the threshold, the transcoder is operable to perform an ad placement procedure comprising clustering ads into groups between portions of the video of two to three minutes duration, permitting four to six ads to be inserted for every eight to ten minutes of the video.

20. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein responsive to the number of views of the video being less than the threshold, the transcoder is operable to perform an ad placement procedure to place ads at the scene changes in the video or at mid-scene in the video.