Method and system for integrating television brand advertising with promotional marketing

• US 7,962,931 B2
• Filed: 12/23/2002
• Issued: 06/14/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/23/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Quotient Technology Inc.
• Original Assignee: Quotient Technology Inc.
• Inventors: Bova, Alfred T.
• Primary Examiner(s): Saltarelli; Dominic D
• Assistant Examiner(s): Dubasky; Gigi L
• Application Number:
  US10/328,300
• Publication Number:
  US 20040123314A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,095 Days
• Field of Search: 725/23, 705/14.1, 705/14.13, 705/14.14, 705/14.23, 705/14.49
• US Class Current: 725/32
• 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 implemented using one or more computers, comprising:

receiving, at a server, coupon information communicated directly from a plurality of advertisers to the server, the coupon information defining a plurality of coupon offers for different products, wherein the coupon information from at least some of the advertisers specifies one or more parameters for distributing one or more coupon offers;

communicating, across one or more networks, from the server, to multiple television stations, a visual website indicator, wherein the visual website indicator indicates a website associated with the server at which the plurality of coupon offers are made available;

the server maintaining information about the multiple television stations, from which television commercials are broadcast to a plurality of users; and

based on the coupon information specified by the plurality of advertisers and the information about the multiple television stations, the server communicating to the multiple television stations;

(a) first data indicating a plurality of television commercials into which the same visual website indicator is to be inserted, (b) a plurality of price point indicators indicating price points for the one or more coupon offers, and (c) second data indicating, for each television commercial in the plurality of television commercials, which particular price point indicator of the plurality of price point indicators to insert into which particular television commercial in the plurality of television commercials;

wherein the first data and the second data collectively indicate that a particular television station is to

     1) insert the visual website indicator with a first price point indicator into a first television commercial prior to the particular television station broadcasting the first television commercial, and

     2) insert the visual website indicator with a second price point indicator that is different from the first price point indicator into a second television commercial prior to the particular television station broadcasting the second television commercial;

wherein the server is at a location other than locations of the multiple television stations and the advertisers;

wherein the server is logically separated from the multiple television stations and the advertisers by one or more communications networks comprising any of a local area network, wide area network, and an Internet.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the coupon information includes the server receiving from the advertisers information that indicates the price points associated with the one or more coupon offers.

3. The method of claim 1,

wherein the first price point indicator is a first price point offer image that represents a first price point offer for a first coupon offer pertaining to a first product advertised in the first television commercial.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

receiving updated coupon information that includes an update to the first price point offer; and

the server communicating to the particular television stations information for updating the first price point offer image that is displayed in the first television commercial.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the coupon information includes receiving, for each coupon offer of the plurality of coupon offers, a first parameter corresponding to one or more geographic market areas that are desired by the advertiser;

wherein the method further comprises using the first parameter for each coupon offer of the plurality of coupon offers to identify the multiple television stations and to determine, for each of the multiple television stations, into which of the plurality of television commercials the visual website indicator is to be inserted.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

responding to a given viewer of any one of plurality of television commercials that contain the visual website indicator that has accessed the website by selecting, from the plurality of coupon offers, one or more coupon offers available to the given viewer, wherein the selecting is performed using at least one or more (i) of a location of the given viewer, or (ii) one or more coupon offers that were previously redeemed by the given viewer.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the website includes providing a printable coupon at the website for redeeming at least one of the corresponding coupon offers.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein providing at the website a printable coupon includes providing an offer identifier on the printed coupon.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein providing at the website a printable coupon includes providing identification information on the printed coupon.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein providing at the website a printable coupon includes publishing one or more anti-fraud markings on the printed coupon.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the website includes enabling users of the website to credit a card device in order to redeem at least one of the coupon offers.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the card device is a customer loyalty card provided by a retailer.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying, from activity at the website, a number of instances that individual coupons provided by a corresponding advertiser have been printed by users of the website.

14. The method of claim 1,

wherein receiving the coupon information includes the server receiving, for a particular coupon offer specified by the given advertiser of a given product, a first price point offer for a first geographic market area, and a second price point offer for a second geographic market area;

and

wherein the step of communicating the first data, the price point indicators, and the second data includes;

the server selecting one or more television stations for broadcasting television commercials in each of the first geographic market area and the second geographic market area;

the server providing information, to the selected one or more television stations of the first geographic market area, for including an image of the first price point offer with the visual website indicator in a television commercials for the given product when the television commercial is broadcast from the selected one or more television stations of the first geographic market area; and

the server providing information, to the selected one or more television stations of the second geographic market area, for including a second image of the second price point offer with the visual website indicator in the same television commercial for the given product when the television commercials is broadcast from the selected one or more television stations of the second geographic market area.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the visual website indicator is an image that displays at least a portion of a Uniform Resource Locator for locating the website.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining, from a given user'"'"'s interaction with the website, which of the plurality of coupon offers to display to the given viewer; and

identifying a television commercial that contained the visual website indicator that the given viewer viewed prior to accessing the website.

17. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

interacting with a computer of a given user who accesses the website;

determining, at the website, which of the plurality of coupon offers to make available to the user based on information determined from interacting with the computer of the given user.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein interacting with the computer includes identifying a cookie stored on the given user'"'"'s computer.

19. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining, from information provided by a given user interacting with the website, one or more coupon offers the given viewer is interested in;

using the determined information to identify a geographic market area of the given user; and

selecting one or more coupon offers based on the identified geographic market area.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising identifying which television commercial the user viewed that includes the indicator to the website from the information provided by the given user.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving coupon information includes receiving, from a given advertiser, a designated geographic market area from which a corresponding coupon offer is to either be made available or provided at a given value, and then selecting the multiple television stations.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein receiving coupon information includes receiving an update of the one or more parameters for individual coupon offers, and wherein the method further comprises re-selecting the multiple television stations based on and responsive to receiving the update of the one or more parameters.

23. The method of claim 1, wherein the first data is included in the second data, wherein at least a first station of the multiple television stations receives a different set of the first data or the second data than a second station of the multiple television stations.

24. A method implemented by one or more computers and comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving, at a server associated with a website, and directly from each of a plurality of advertisers, coupon information that specifies a corresponding coupon offer on the website, the coupon offers of the plurality of advertisers being for different products, wherein the coupon information specified for each coupon offer includes one or more parameters;

(b) for each coupon offer, the server selecting, based on the one or more parameters, multiple sources from which television commercials are broadcast;

(c) for at least a particular coupon offer of the coupon offers, the server communicating, across one or more networks, to resources operated at each of the multiple sources that are selected for the particular coupon offer, advertisement information configured to facilitate selection of a particular television commercial, associated with the particular coupon offer, in which a visual indicator of the website is to be inserted prior to broadcast of the particular television commercial;

(d) the server communicating to a first source a first visual indicator to be inserted into the particular television commercial, the first visual indicator depicting a first price point;

(e) the server communicating to a second source a second visual indicator to be inserted into the same particular television commercial, the second visual indicator depicting a second price point different than the first price point;

wherein the server is at a location other than locations of the sources and the advertisers;

wherein the server is logically separated from the sources and the advertisers by one or more communications networks comprising any of a local area network, wide area network, and an Internet;

wherein communicating to the one or more sources is performed in response to an advertiser of the coupon offer providing the individual coupon offer on the website.

25. The method of claim 24, further, comprising selecting the first visual indicator for the first source and the second visual indicator for the second sources based on one or more parameters corresponding to one or more geographic market areas associated with the particular coupon offer.

26. The method of claim 24, wherein step (a) includes enabling each advertiser to specify, on the website, one or more parameters corresponding to one or more geographic market areas and one or more price points for the corresponding coupon offer of that advertiser.

27. The method of claim 24, wherein step (a) includes enabling each advertiser to associate one or more specific geographic market areas with the corresponding coupon offer of that advertiser;

and step (b) includes selecting, for one or more corresponding coupon offers, the one or more sources from which television commercials are broadcast based on the specific geographic market area associated with each of the one or more corresponding coupon offers.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein subsequent to performance of step (a) through step (c), the method further comprises steps of:

enabling the advertiser to alter the geographic market area associated with the coupon offer at the website; and

re-selecting the one or more sources based on the altered geographic market area associated with the corresponding coupon offer.

29. The method of claim 24, wherein step (a) includes enabling each advertiser to associate one or more price points with the corresponding coupon offer of that advertiser;

and wherein the first visual indicator and the second visual indicator specify different price points for the same product.

30. The method of claim 24, wherein step (a) includes enabling each advertiser to associate one or more price points and one or more geographic market areas with the corresponding coupon offer of that advertiser, including enabling each advertiser to designate a particular price point with a specific geographic region;

and for each advertiser that associates the one or more price points and the one or more geographic regions market areas the corresponding coupon offer of that advertiser, step (b) includes;

selecting the one or more sources from which television commercials are broadcast based on one or more geographic market areas associated with a coupon offer of that advertiser, and

wherein the visual indicator communicated to each particular source of the multiple sources includes a common website indicator and an indicator for the price point that is designated with the geographic market area from which that particular source is selected.