METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR INTEGRATING TELEVISION BRAND ADVERTISING WITH PROMOTIONAL MARKETING

• US 20110225604A1
• Filed: 05/20/2011
• Published: 09/15/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/23/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Quotient Technology Inc.
• Original Assignee: Quotient Technology Inc.
• Inventors: Bova, Alfred T.
• Granted Patent: US 8,739,203 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/23
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0207 Discounts or incentives, e.g. coupons or rebates
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0211 Determining the effectiveness of discounts or incentives
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0212 Chance discounts or incentives
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0222 During e-commerce, i.e. online transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0225 Avoiding frauds
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0249 based upon budgets or funds
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/93 which locates resources of other pieces of information, e.g. URL [Uniform Resource Locator]
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/63 for services of sales data processing systems or methods specially adapted for electronic commerce G06Q30/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/235 Processing of additional data, e.g. scrambling of additional data or processing content descriptors
• 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 21/4117 for generating hard copies of the content, e.g. printer, electronic paper interfaces to printers G06F3/12; printing data G06K15/02
• 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 21/4784 receiving rewards
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6175 involving transmission via Internet broadcast-related systems characterised by the transmission system being the Internet H04H60/82
• 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 5/445 for displaying additional information H04N5/50 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/088 : the inserted signal being digital
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/16 : Analogue secrecy systems; Analogue subscription systems

Abstract

A method for integrating television brand advertising with promotional marketing includes providing an image to be displayed in different television commercials for products from different advertisers, the image indicating a website; and providing at the website coupon offers for the products from the different advertisers. The image will alert a viewer of the television commercial that a special coupon offer is available at a website. The viewer will go to the website and be able to select from one or more coupon offers available to consumers in their market area. The consumer then prints the coupons, or adds credit to a coupon card, which is then redeemed at the retailer. The system allows for Point Of Sale (POS) redemption, or more traditional redemption through a coupon clearinghouse. The television commercials may be encoded with information to be used at a television signal processing location for selecting the images, and different images may be provided to television signal processing locations associated with different market areas.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

communicating to a video signal processing location first data indicating a plurality of commercials into which to insert indicators comprising a first image that indicates that a coupon is available via a web-based server;

communicating to the video signal processing location second data indicating, for each commercial in the plurality of commercials, a particular one of a plurality of price points;

wherein the first data and the second data collectively indicate at least that, prior to transmitting a first commercial, the video signal processing location is to insert into the first commercial an indicator comprising the first image and a second image that indicates a first price point of the plurality of price points;

wherein the first data and the second data collectively indicate at least that, prior to transmitting a second commercial, the video signal processing location is to insert into the second commercial an indicator comprising the first image and a third image that indicates a second price point of the plurality of price points and different than the first price point;

wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the first price point and the second price point are one of a coupon discount or coupon value.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

subsequent to the first commercial being transmitted with the first price point, receiving updated coupon information that includes an update to the first price point; and

communicating to the video signal processing location updated second data indicating the update to the first price point;

wherein the first data and the updated second data collectively indicate at least that, prior to retransmitting a first commercial, the video signal processing location is to insert into the first commercial an indicator comprising the first image and a fourth image that indicates the update to the first price point of the plurality of price points.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

transmitting to a coupon provider coupon statistics for a first coupon corresponding to the first price point, the coupon statistics including at least one of;

redemption statistics for the first coupon, print statistics for the first coupon, or storage statistics for the first coupon;

receiving the updated coupon information from the coupon provider in response to the coupon statistics.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving coupon information from a plurality of coupon providers, the coupon information describing a plurality of coupon offers, the coupon information further indicating the plurality of price points and a second plurality of commercials associated with the plurality of coupon offers;

wherein the coupon information further indicates, for each coupon offer of a plurality of coupon offers, a first parameter corresponding to one or more geographic market areas that are desired by the advertiser;

using the first parameter for each coupon offer of the plurality of coupon offers to determine, for each of the multiple video signal processing locations, into which of the second plurality of commercials the first image is to be inserted;

determining the plurality of commercials into which the video signal processing location is to insert the first image based on the first parameter for each of the plurality of commercials.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

transmitting to a coupon provider coupon statistics for a first coupon corresponding to the first price point, the coupon statistics including at least one of;

redemption statistics for the first coupon, print statistics for the first coupon, or storage statistics for the first coupon;

receiving updated coupon information from the coupon provider in response to the coupon statistics, the updated coupon information including updated first parameters; and

re-selecting the multiple video signal processing locations based on and responsive to receiving the update of the one or more parameters.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, at the web-based server, a request from a particular computing device;

determining that the particular computing device is in a geographic area that corresponds to the video signal processing location;

selecting a set of coupon offers for the particular computing device based at least on which of a plurality of coupon offers are associated with the plurality of commercials into which the video signal processing location was instructed to insert indicators comprising a first image;

in response to the request from the particular computing device, providing a user of the particular computing device with access to the selected set of coupon offers via the web-based server.

8. The method of claim 9, further comprising providing the user, via the web-based server, with one or more of:

a printable coupon corresponding to the first price point, or an electronically stored coupon corresponding the first price point.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the first image indicates at least a portion of a Uniform Resource Locator.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the second data comprises the first image and the second image.

11. A method comprising:

receiving a plurality of commercials;

receiving a first image that indicates that a coupon is available via a web-based server;

receiving advertisement information that at least identifies a set of commercials in the plurality of commercials into which to insert indicators comprising the first image prior to transmission of the commercials, and at least indicates, for each particular commercial of the identified set of commercials, a separate image to include with the first image in a particular indicator to be inserted in the particular commercial, wherein the separate image indicates a price point;

based on the advertisement information, prior to transmitting a first commercial, inserting into the first commercial an indicator comprising the first image and a second image that indicates a first price point;

based on the advertisement information, prior to transmitting a second commercial, inserting into the second commercial an indicator comprising the first image and a second image that indicates a second price point, wherein the second price point is different than the first price point;

wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein each of the first price point and the second price point are one of a coupon discount or coupon value.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the first image indicates at least a portion of a Uniform Resource Locator.

14. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

subsequent to transmitting the first commercial with the first price point, receiving updated advertisement information that includes an update to the first price point; and

based on the updated advertisement information, prior to retransmitting the first commercial, inserting into the first commercial an indicator comprising the first image and a fourth image that indicates an updated first price point;

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the advertisement information comprises the first image and the second image.

16. A method comprising:

communicating, across one or more networks, to multiple video signal processing locations, advertisement information configured to facilitate identification of a particular commercial into which the multiple video signal processing locations are to insert indicators prior to transmission of the particular commercial, wherein the indicators indicate that a coupon offer is available via a web-based server;

communicating to a first video signal processing location a first indicator to insert into the particular commercial, the first indicator depicting a first price point;

communicating to a second video signal processing location a second indicator to insert into the same particular commercial, the second visual indicator depicting a second price point different than the first price point;

wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.

17. The method of claim 16,

wherein communicating the first indicator comprises communicating to the first video signal processing location a first image that indicates that a coupon is available via a web-based server and information indicating the first price point;

wherein the first video signal processing location is configured to build the first indicator using the first image and the information indicating the first price point.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the information indicating the first price point is a second image.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the first image indicates at least a portion of a Uniform Resource Locator.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein each of the first price point and the second price point are one of a coupon discount or coupon value.

21. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

receiving coupon information from a coupon provider, the coupon information describing the coupon offer, the coupon information further indicating that the coupon offer is associated with the particular commercial;

wherein the coupon information further indicates, for each particular price point of a plurality of price points, including the first price point and the second price point, a first parameter corresponding to one or more geographic market areas that are targeted for the particular price point offer;

using the first parameter for each particular price point of a plurality of price points to determine which of the plurality price points to indicate to which of the multiple video signal processing locations.

22. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

receiving, at the web-based server, a request from a particular computing device;

determining that the particular computing device is in a geographic area that corresponds to the first video signal processing location;

in response to the request from the particular computing device, providing a user of the particular computing device with access to the coupon offers via the web-based server at the first price point.

23. The method of claim 22, further comprising providing the user, via the web-based server, with one or more of:

a printable coupon corresponding to the first price point, or an electronically stored coupon corresponding the first price point.