System for broadcasting advertisements

• US 20070011700A1
• Filed: 04/05/2004
• Published: 01/11/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 04/04/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Visible World, LLC (Comcast Corporation)
• Original Assignee: John Johnson
• Inventors: Johnson, John
• Granted Patent: US 8,296,793 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/252 Processing of multiple end-users' preferences to derive collaborative data
• 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 21/2668 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 21/44222 Analytics of user selections, e.g. selection of programs or purchase activity monitoring of user selections in data processing systems G06F11/34; arrangements for monitoring the user's behaviour or opinions in broadcast systems H04H60/33
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6547 comprising parameters, e.g. for client setup
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6582 Data stored in the client, e.g. viewing habits, hardware capabilities, credit card number arrangements where receivers interact with the broadcast H04H20/38
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/16 Analogue secrecy systems; Analogue subscription systems

Abstract

A system for broadcasting inter-programme and/or intra-programme advertisements to a viewing or listening audience is disclosed. A given advertisement'"'"'s target audience profile is matched to an obtained real audience profile to dictate not only that certain advertisements shall be broadcast only between and/or during certain programmes but also that certain individual members of, or groups of members within, the programme-receiving audience may receive one advertisement, during and/or between certain programmes, whilst other audience members or member groups receive a different advertisement, in one or more of the same respective advert ‘slots’, whilst watching or listening to the same broadcast.

Claims

1-7. -7. (canceled)

8. A system for broadcasting advertisements to an audience which comprises:

means for obtaining programme-receiving audience profiles;

means for matching a given advertisement'"'"'s target audience profile to a given programme-receiving audience profile; and

means for broadcasting advertisements dependent upon target audience profiles and programme-receiving audience profiles;

wherein;

said means for obtaining programme-receiving audience profiles operate with means for interrogating set top boxes with individual IP addresses in order to determine the nature of the programs viewed by the programme receiving audience per at least one IP address;

said means for broadcasting advertisements operate with means for analysing viewer habits for particular IP addresses in order to generate a programme-receiving audience profile for at least one IP address;

and the system further comprises;

means for dictating not only that certain advertisements shall be broadcast but also that certain IP addresses within the programme-receiving audience may receive one advertisement, whilst other IP addresses receive a different advertisement, in at least one of the same respective advertisement ‘

slots’

, during the same broadcast.

9. A system according to claim 8, wherein the system collects data by using polling pulses and stores data for analysis in a data collector located remotely from the set top boxes.

10. A system according to claim 8, wherein the system uses a bank of advertising campaigns where advertising campaigns are classified by integrating numerically tagged segment codes.

11. A system according to claim 8, comprising a first server for obtaining programme-receiving profiles and at least a second server containing tagged advertisements.

12. A system according to claim 8, comprising means for receiving multiple advertisements from a broadcast network and a mechanism for allowing the play-out of only a portion of the advertisements'"'"' broadcast whilst the remaining portion expires.

13. A system according to claim 8, wherein the system stores further information such as the program buyer profile, time of broadcast and nature of broadcast and utilises an interface between the audience profiles data stored and said further information to select appropriate advertisements.

14. A system according to claim 8, wherein the system further comprises means allowing the audience to interact during an advertisement, means which store data as part of the audience profile to record any such interaction and means which may be set to trigger the release of further similarly classified advertisements to the audience.

15. A system according to claim 8, wherein during a given broadcast with a plurality of advertisement breaks, the system is adapted to record for an individual audience the series of advertisements delivered during an initial break and then adjust the content of the following series of advertisements delivered during a subsequent break.

16. A system according to claim 8, wherein during a given broadcast on a given channel with a plurality of advertisement breaks, the system is adapted to record for an individual audience whether the viewer switches to another channel during the break and the system comprises means to calculate which channel he/she is likely to switch to and tailor the advertisement delivered to said roost probable channel to correspond to the audience in question.

17. A system according to claim 8, wherein the information identified such as the audience profiles is stored remotely from the viewer/listener receiver units.