SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ENCOURAGING VIEWERS TO WATCH TELEVISION PROGRAMS

• US 20110067045A1
• Filed: 11/22/2010
• Published: 03/17/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 05/08/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Zigmond, Daniel J., Matheny, John R.
• Granted Patent: US 8,621,501 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/13
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0226 Incentive systems for frequent usage, e.g. frequent flyer miles programs or point systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0235 constrained by time limit or expiration date
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/38 Arrangements for distribution where lower stations, e.g. receivers, interact with the broadcast
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/82 the transmission system being the Internet
• 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 21/435 Processing of additional data, e.g. decrypting of additional data, reconstructing software from modules extracted from the transport stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4758 for providing answers, e.g. voting
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4784 receiving rewards
• 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 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 7/17309 Transmission or handling of upstream communications

Abstract

Methods and apparatus for encouraging viewers to pay attention to commercials by incentivizing viewers to watch. Viewers are notified that they can receive rewards for answering one or more questions during or at the conclusion of the commercial. To verify that the viewer paid attention to the commercial, the answer to the question may be based on the content of the commercial. A sponsor might ask, for example, that the viewer identify the name of the sponsor or the color of an announcer'"'"'s shirt. A correct answer indicates that the viewer watched the commercial, and the viewer is therefore entitled to some reward. For example, viewers who watch the commercial may be entered in a prize drawing, or may receive prize points, such as frequent-flier miles. In other embodiments, viewers may verify that they watched a given program by selecting an icon or pressing a button on a remote control.

Claims

1. At a television set-top box receiver that is configured to display video television programming that is broadcast from a broadcast signal source to one or more viewers and to receive, display, and store web content encoded in the broadcast from the broadcast signal source, a method for offering reward incentives for the one or more viewers to watch video commercial programs broadcast during commercial breaks, the method comprising:

at a set-top box receiver, and during a commercial break, receiving a broadcast signal from a broadcast signal source, the broadcast including a video commercial program;

detecting a reward notice trigger in the received broadcast signal, the reward notice trigger storing a location and identity of a reward template stored on the set-top box receiver and at least some text for display to the viewer as notice that the reward notice trigger has been received;

upon detecting the reward notice trigger, generating a reward notice alerting the viewer of a reward for viewing the video commercial program, wherein the reward notice is associated with the reward notice trigger and has a graphical form as defined by the reward template;

detecting a query trigger in the received broadcast signal, the query trigger being received after the reward notice trigger and including a question field storing a question, wherein the question is about content of the video commercial program and a correct answer to the question generally requiring prior viewing of the video commercial program;

displaying the reward notice and, after receiving viewer selection of the reward notice, generating a query interface allowing the viewer to input an answer to the question in the question field of the query trigger, the query interface being based on the query trigger; and

transmitting the answer input by the viewer to a central server for a determination as to whether the viewer is entitled to a reward, entitlement to the reward being based at least in part on the central server determining that the viewer watched the video commercial program as a result of the viewer providing a correct answer to the question from the query trigger.

2. The method for offering reward incentives as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

upon receiving the viewer selection of the reward notice trigger, displaying the query interface, the query interface providing a solicitation for the viewer to verify that the viewer watched the video commercial program.

3. The method for offering reward incentives as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

receiving viewer selection of the reward notice;

displaying a solicitation for a viewer response in the query interface; and

receiving a reply responsive to the displayed solicitation.

4. The method for offering reward incentives as recited in claim 3, wherein the solicitation is a request that the viewer to input information derived from the video commercial program.

5. The method for offering reward incentives as recited in claim 1, wherein displaying the reward notice comprises displaying the reward notice at a time closer to a beginning of the video commercial program than to an end of the video commercial program.

6. The method for offering reward incentives as recited in claim 1, wherein the reward notice trigger includes at least one time element.

7. The method for offering reward incentives as recited in claim 6, wherein the at least one time element includes an expiration date after which the set-top box receiver should not display the reward notice trigger to the viewer.

8. The method for offering reward incentives as recited in claim 6, wherein the at least one time element includes a length of the video commercial program.

9. The method for offering reward incentives as recited in claim 6, wherein the at least one time element includes

10. The method for offering reward incentives as recited in claim 6, detecting a reward notice trigger comprises detecting a plurality of repeated reward notice triggers during the video commercial program, wherein the at least one time element in each of the repeated reward notice triggers includes a timestamp that is different than the timestamp from each other of the repeated reward notice triggers.

11. The method for offering reward incentives as recited in claim 10, wherein the reward notice selected by the viewer corresponds to a particular one of the repeated reward notice triggers, the method further comprising:

using the timestamp of the particular one of the repeated reward notice triggers in determining a point in time at which the viewer tuned into the video commercial program.

12. The method for offering reward incentives as recited in claim 1, wherein the query trigger defines at least one time element.

13. The method for offering reward incentives as recited in claim 12, wherein the at least one time element defines a time period before which the viewer must input an answer in the query interface.

14. The method for offering reward incentives as recited in claim 12, wherein the at least one time element includes a length parameter identifying when the set-top box receiver is to stop display of the query interface.

15. The method for offering reward incentives as recited in claim 1, wherein at least one of the reward notice trigger or the query trigger is specific to a particular broadcast market.

16. The method for offering reward incentives as recited in claim 1, wherein the query trigger stores a location and identity of a query template stored on the set-top box receiver.

17. The method for offering reward incentives as recited in claim 16, wherein the query trigger stores each of:

a URI with a local address of the query template;

a length parameter specifying when to stop display of the query interface; and

an identification parameter identifying the video commercial program to which the question in the question field corresponds.

18. The method for offering reward incentives as recited in claim 1, wherein the video commercial program is a first video commercial program, the query trigger is a first query trigger, and the query interface is a first query interface, the method further comprising:

at the set-top box receiver, receiving a second video commercial program from a broadcast source;

detecting a second query trigger in the received broadcast signal, the second query trigger being received during or after the second video commercial program; and

generating and displaying a second query interface, the second query interface corresponding to the second query trigger and the second query interface being generated and displayed without receipt of a reward notice trigger corresponding to the second query trigger.

19. A computer program product comprising one or more computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions for implementing the method recited in claim 1.

20. A system comprising:

a broadcast signal source configured to broadcast a video signal in a broadcast video channel, the video signal conveying a programming sequence including at least regularly scheduled programming and commercial programming;

a database including a list of viewers, identifications of set-top box receivers corresponding to the list of viewers, and a list of reward values corresponding to the viewers; and

a set-top box receiver tuned to the video signal and including computer-readable media having stored thereon computer-executable instructions for implementing the method recited in claim 1.