Grouping of advertisements on an advertising channel in a targeted advertisement system

• US 20020144263A1
• Filed: 04/02/2001
• Published: 10/03/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/2000
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Prime Research Alliance E, LLC
• Original Assignee: Prime Research Alliance E, LLC
• Inventors: Eldering, Charles A., Schlack, John A., Flickinger, Gregory C.
• Application Number:
  US09/824,434
• Publication Number:
  US 20020144263A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/34
• 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 20/33 by plural channels
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/40 Arrangements for broadcast specially adapted for accumulation-type receivers
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/06 Arrangements for scheduling broadcast services or broadcast-related services
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/27 Arrangements for recording or accumulating broadcast information or broadcast-related information
• 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 21/4532 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 21/812 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 an apparatus for grouping targeted advertisements on an advertisement channel. The advertisements may be grouped at a head end, at a central location, and delivered as a time division or channel division multiplexed by the advertisement group to the one or more subscriber ends. In time-division multiplexing, the advertisements corresponding to the advertisement groups are temporarily grouped together when transmitted. In channel-division multiplexing, each advertising group is assigned to a different advertising channel and the STBs are instructed to download all the advertisements on the particular advertisement channel to which it corresponds. In particular, for ATM transport, encoded video streams may be sent on one or more channels such as Virtual Path Identifier/Virtual Channel Identifiers (VPI/VCIs). To achieve ad grouping, one or more dedicated channels (i.e., VPI/VCIs) may be created and assigned to carry only ads of a particular group.

Claims

1. In a television network environment, the television network environment being a switched digital video system, a cable-based system, and satellite-based system, a method for delivering targeted advertisements to one or more subscribers, the method comprising:

selecting one or more targeted advertisements to be transmitted to one or more subscribers;

grouping one or more selected advertisements in a group; and

transmitting the grouped advertisements to the subscriber equipment.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the advertisements are grouped in a time-division multiplexed channel.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the time-division multiplexed channel is a high-speed channel.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the time-division multiplexed channel is an analog channel.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the advertisements are grouped in an ATM-based channel.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the ATM-based channel is a 6 MHz digital channel.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the ATM-based channel is a Virtual Path Identifier/Virtual Channel Identifier (VPI/VCI).

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the grouped advertisements are encoded and transmitted as conventional programming.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of ad channels are comprised within a single 6 MHz digital channel.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

assigning each selected advertisement a unique AD_ID;

assigning each set-top box (STB) to one or more groups;

forming a time-division multiplexed channel by utilizing different AD_IDs;

forming a timing table associated with the time-division multiplexed channel, the timing table illustrating the timing of the various advertisement groups; and

transmitting the time-division multiplexed channel and the timing table to one or more STBs.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the STB uses the timing table used to select appropriate advertisements from the time-division multiplexed channel.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the time-division multiplexed channel comprises one or more time slots, each time slot hosting a group of advertisements.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the set-top box decodes the received time-division multiplexed channel and identifies the timing of the advertisement to be downloaded.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein the set-top box further identifies which advertisements to store, and saves the identified advertisement during one or more corresponding splice windows.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

assigning each selected advertisement a unique AD_ID;

forming one or more advertisement groups by utilizing unique AD_IDs;

assigning each advertisement group to a unique VPI/VCI, thereby creating a GROUP-VPI/VCI table; and

transmitting each group of advertisements on a selected VPI/VCI to one or more subscribers.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein each STB receives one or more advertisements for the corresponding STB.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the GROUP-VPI/VCI table comprises the identity of the STBs, the identity of the advertisement group, and the identity of the VPI/VCI channel.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the set-top box further comprises a memory for storing the selected advertisements.

20. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the advertisement channel is a VPI/VCI channel.

21. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein each STB receives one or more advertisements corresponding to the assigned VPI/VCI channel.

22. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the advertisement channel is a time-division multiplexed channel.

23. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the time-division multiplexed channel comprises timing information corresponding to each of the advertisement groups.

24. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the STB retrieves one or more advertisements by identifying the corresponding timing information.

18. In a television network environment, the television network environment being a switched digital video system, a cable-based system, and a satellite-based system, an advertisement management system comprising:

an advertisement channel generator for receiving one or more advertisements and their corresponding group information and generating an advertisement channel comprising the advertisements and the associated group information; and

a set-top box for receiving the advertisement channel and the corresponding advertisements.