Advertisement insert apparatus and advertisement insert method, and storage medium

• US 20030177490A1
• Filed: 05/19/2003
• Published: 09/18/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 06/06/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Hoshino, Masaaki, Tsunoda, Tomohiro
• Granted Patent: US 7,650,617 B2
• 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: H04N 21/254 Management at additional data server, e.g. shopping server, rights management server arrangements for maintenance or administration in data networks H04L41/00; network services using third party service providers H04L67/53
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25866 Management of end-user data customer care in data networks H04L41/5077
• 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 21/4331 Caching operations, e.g. of an advertisement for later insertion during playback
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4622 Retrieving content or additional data from different sources, e.g. from a broadcast channel and the Internet web site content organization and management for information retrieval from the Internet G06F16/958; transmission by internet of broadcast information H04H60/82; stock exchange data over packet-switching network H04L12/1804; push services including data channel over packet-switching network H04L12/1859
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4782 Web browsing , e.g. WebTV
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

An objective function and a constraint expression are established by a scheme of the invention as conditions for selecting advertisement information to be inserted into a slot in a content. The objective function is used to maximize a total of cost values held by the advertisements selected to be inserted into slots. The constraint expression is used to equalize totaled lengths of the selected advertisements with the length of the slots. The objective function and constraint expression making up the selection conditions are solved as a mathematical programming assignment problem, whereby advertisement information is selected for insertion into predetermined slots in a manner maximizing the benefits of the parties participating in the scheme. In a setup of moving picture streaming distribution, the scheme allows suitable advertisement information to be inserted selectively into slots of contents.

Claims

1. An advertisement inserting apparatus for selecting advertisement information from a plurality of candidate advertisements having a cost value each for insertion into a slot in a content, said advertisement inserting apparatus comprising:

selection condition establishing means for establishing an objective function and a constraint expression as selection conditions, said objective function being used to maximize a total of cost values held by the advertisements to be inserted into said slot, said constraint expression for equalizing totaled lengths of said advertisements to be inserted with a length of said slot; and

advertisement information selecting means for selecting said advertisement information to be inserted into said slot from said plurality of candidate advertisements by solving the established selection conditions using linear programming.

2. An advertisement inserting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said cost value of said advertisement information is a value representative of a degree of satisfaction for an entire system having an information-providing space made up of a content provider providing said content, of a commercial sponsor offering advertisement information to be attached to said content, and of a subscriber viewing said content.

3. An advertisement inserting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein, in an information-providing space made up of a content provider providing said content, of a commercial sponsor offering advertisement information to be attached to said content, and of a subscriber viewing said content, attribute information held by said content, by said advertisement information, and by said subscriber is compared with requirements of each of said content provider, said commercial sponsor, and said subscriber regarding the selection of advertisements so as to obtain a degree of satisfaction for each of said content provider, said commercial sponsor, and said subscriber, the obtained degrees of satisfaction being used as a basis for calculating said cost value of said advertisement information.

4. An advertisement inserting apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising cost value scoring means for scoring said cost value depending on the length of said advertisement information.

5. An advertisement inserting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said content includes a plurality of slots allowing the same advertisement information to appear a plurality of times in a single content, said advertisement inserting apparatus further comprising expanded redefining means for redefining in expanded fashion the same advertisement information as a different candidate advertisement as many times as a repeatable insertion count of the advertisement in question.

6. An advertisement inserting apparatus according to claim 5, wherein said expanded redefining means supplements said selection conditions selected by said selection condition establishing means with a restricting condition for inhibiting the same advertisement information allowed to appear repeatedly from appearing more than once in the same slot.

7. An advertisement inserting apparatus according to claim 5, wherein said expanded redefining means reduces a score of the cost value of any redefined candidate advertisement so that the same advertisement information will not be selected preferentially for repeated insertion.

8. An advertisement inserting apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising candidate advertisement count judging means for judging whether the number of candidate advertisements is at least the same as the number of slots;

wherein, if the candidate advertisement count is judged by said candidate advertisement count judging means to fall short of the slot count, then said advertisement information selecting means selects said advertisement information using integer programming regarding each slot.

9. An advertisement inserting apparatus according to claim 5, further comprising candidate advertisement count judging means for judging whether the number of candidate advertisements is at least the same as the number of slots;

wherein, if the candidate advertisement count is judged by said candidate advertisement count judging means to fall short of the slot count, then said advertisement information selecting means generates a set of candidate advertisements using integer programming for each slot so that the advertisement information to be inserted into each slot may be selected from said set of candidate advertisements with said repeatable insertion count of each advertisement in said set taken into consideration.

10. An advertisement inserting method for selecting advertisement information from a plurality of candidate advertisements having a cost value each for insertion into a slot in a content, said advertisement inserting method comprising the steps of:

establishing an objective function and a constraint expression as selection conditions, said objective function being used to maximize a total of cost values held by the advertisements to be inserted into said slot, said constraint expression for equalizing totaled lengths of said advertisements to be inserted with a length of said slot; and

selecting said advertisement information to be inserted into said slot from said plurality of candidate advertisements by solving the established selection conditions using linear programming.

11. An advertisement inserting method according to claim 10, wherein said cost value of said advertisement information is a value representative of a degree of satisfaction for an entire system having an information-providing space made up of a content provider providing said content, of a commercial sponsor offering advertisement information to be attached to said content, and of a subscriber viewing said content.

12. An advertisement inserting method according to claim 10, wherein, in an information-providing space made up of a content provider providing said content, of a commercial sponsor offering advertisement information to be attached to said content, and of a subscriber viewing said content, attribute information held by said content, by said advertisement information, and by said subscriber is compared with requirements of each of said content provider, said commercial sponsor, and said subscriber regarding the selection of advertisements so as to obtain a degree of satisfaction for each of said content provider, said commercial sponsor, and said subscriber, the obtained degrees of satisfaction being used as a basis for calculating said cost value of said advertisement information.

13. An advertisement inserting method according to claim 10, further comprising the step of scoring said cost value depending on the length of said advertisement information.

14. An advertisement inserting method according to claim 10, wherein said content includes a plurality of slots allowing the same advertisement information to appear a plurality of times in a single content, said advertisement inserting method further comprising the step of redefining in expanded fashion the same advertisement information as a different candidate advertisement as many times as a repeatable insertion count of the advertisement in question.

15. An advertisement inserting method according to claim 14, wherein said expanded redefining step supplements said selection conditions selected in said selection condition establishing step with a restricting condition for inhibiting the same advertisement information allowed to appear repeatedly from appearing more than once in the same slot.

16. An advertisement inserting method according to claim 14, wherein said expanded redefining step reduces a score of the cost value of any redefined candidate advertisement so that the same advertisement information will not be selected preferentially for repeated insertion.

17. An advertisement inserting method according to claim 10, further comprising the step of judging whether the number of candidate advertisements is at least the same as the number of slots;

wherein, if the candidate advertisement count is judged in said judging step to fall short of the slot count, then said advertisement information selecting step selects said advertisement information using integer programming regarding each slot.

18. An advertisement inserting method according to claim 14, further comprising the step of judging whether the number of candidate advertisements is at least the same as the number of slots;

wherein, if the candidate advertisement count is judged in said judging step to fall short of the slot count, then said advertisement information selecting step generates a set of candidate advertisements using integer programming for each slot so that the advertisement information to be inserted into each slot may be selected from said set of candidate advertisements with said repeatable insertion count of each advertisement in said set taken into consideration.

19. A storage medium which stores physically, in a computer-readable format, computer software for causing a computer system to select advertisement information from a plurality of candidate advertisements having a cost value each for insertion into a slot in a content, said computer software comprising the steps of:

establishing an objective function and a constraint expression as selection conditions, said objective function being used to maximize a total of cost values held by the advertisements to be inserted into said slot, said constraint expression for equalizing totaled lengths of said advertisements to be inserted with a length of said slot; and

selecting said advertisement information to be inserted into said slot from said plurality of candidate advertisements by solving the established selection conditions using linear programming.