Consumer Sensitive Electronic Billboards

• US 20110035282A1
• Filed: 08/07/2009
• Published: 02/10/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 08/07/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Spatscheck, Oliver, Sen, Subhabrata
• Application Number:
  US12/537,882
• Publication Number:
  US 20110035282A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.58
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0261 based on user location
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0273 Determination of fees for advertising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0275 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: G09F 2027/001 Comprising a presence or proximity detector

Abstract

A method and system for advertising on an electronic billboard is capable of adapting over time to advertising criteria associated with actual viewers of the billboard. Mobile device users in a vicinity of the billboard are identified. User profiles indicative of fixed network and/or wireless network usage for the mobile device users are analyzed for pertinent advertising criteria. The predominant advertising criteria may be used to select the billboard content. The content may also be obtained via an auction for the billboard display and/or the advertising criteria.

Claims

1. A method of billboard advertising, comprising:

identifying mobile device users in a vicinity of an electronic billboard;

querying user profiles associated with the mobile device users to obtain advertising criteria pertinent to the mobile device users; and

based on the advertising criteria, generating content for displaying on the electronic billboard.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said identifying comprises identifying mobile device users in a vicinity comprising locations from where the electronic billboard is visible.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said identifying comprises identifying a location for at least one of the mobile device users and determining whether the identified location is within a predetermined distance from the electronic billboard.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the identified location is a predicted location.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said querying further comprises:

querying user profiles generated from information gathered by at least one of a fixed network service provider and a wireless network service provider.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein querying the user profiles further comprises:

querying user profiles indicative of at least one of a user'"'"'s home network usage, home television usage, and home telephone usage.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein querying the user profiles further comprises:

querying user profiles indicative of at least one of a user'"'"'s wireless network usage and cellular telephone usage.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein at least one of the mobile device users are identified with an account with at least one of the fixed network service provider and the wireless network service provider.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein said generating content further comprises:

receiving offers for displaying content on the electronic billboard.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the offers are received in response to an auction based on a number of mobile device users in the vicinity.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein said querying further comprises:

weighting the user profiles according to a market segment criteria.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the market segment criteria is at least one of a user'"'"'s purchasing power, income, income type, address, age, gender, employer, profession, ethnicity and wealth indicator.

13. A computing device for generating billboard advertising, comprising:

a processor; and

memory media accessible to the processor, including processor executable instructions to;

identify mobile devices in a vicinity of an electronic billboard;

obtain profiles respectively associated with at least one of the mobile devices and users of the mobile devices; and

based on the profiles, identify content for displaying on the electronic billboard.

14. The computing device of claim 13, wherein said processor instructions to identify content further comprise processor instructions to:

determine advertising criteria based on the profiles, wherein the profiles describe at least one of a user'"'"'s fixed network usage, home television usage, home telephone usage, wireless network usage, and cellular telephone usage.

15. The computing device of claim 14, wherein said processor instructions to identify content further comprise processor instructions executable to:

generate a set of advertising topics based on the determined advertising criteria;

select an advertising topic based on a number of profiles associated with each advertising topic in the set; and

obtain multimedia content associated with the selected advertising topic.

16. The computing device of claim 15, wherein the multimedia content is provided by an advertiser in response to outputting the advertising topic to the advertiser.

17. The computing device of claim 13, further comprising processor instructions to:

initiate display of the obtained multimedia content on the electronic billboard.

18. The computing device of claim 13, wherein said processor instructions to identify mobile devices further comprise processor instructions executable to:

in response to sending a request specifying a location of the electronic billboard, receive mobile device information for mobile devices in the vicinity; and

use the mobile device information to determine respective identities for the mobile device users associated with the mobile devices.

19. The computing device of claim 18, wherein the mobile device information is received from a wireless network service provider.

20. The computing device of claim 19, wherein the mobile device information includes location information.

21. A service for advertising using an electronic billboard, comprising:

determining a user identity for at least one of a plurality of mobile device users in a vicinity of the electronic billboard;

identifying at least one advertising criteria associated with each user identity;

determining a predominant advertising criteria from the identified advertising criteria; and

based on the predominant advertising criteria, selecting content for display on the electronic billboard.

22. The service of claim 21, further comprising:

initiating display of the content on the electronic billboard.

23. The service of claim 21, wherein said identifying further comprises:

accessing a user profile associated with the user identity; and

determining the advertising criteria based on information in the user profile, wherein the user profile information includes usage information collected by at least one of;

a fixed network service provider and a wireless network service provider.

24. The service of claim 23, wherein the usage information includes at least one of:

fixed network usage, home television usage, home telephone usage, wireless network usage, and cellular telephone usage.

25. The service of claim 23, wherein the home network service provider and the cellular network service provider represent a single business entity.

26. The service of claim 21, wherein the content is selected for display over a predetermined time period.

27. The service of claim 21, wherein said content is refreshed when a current time period elapses, and wherein, during the current time period, said determining a predominant advertising criteria is performed with respect to a subsequent time period.