Interactive product placement system and method therefor

• US 8,312,486 B1
• Filed: 01/30/2009
• Issued: 11/13/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 01/30/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Aibuy Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Cinsay Incorporated
• Inventors: Briggs, Christian, McBurnett, Heath, Galindo, Delfino Jr., Knuth, Freddy
• Primary Examiner(s): CORBO, NICHOLAS T
• Application Number:
  US12/363,713
• Time in Patent Office: 1,383 Days
• Field of Search: 725/32
• US Class Current: 725/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/237 Communication with additional data server
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2393 involving handling client requests scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests H04L67/60
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2542 for selling goods, e.g. TV shopping payment schemes, payment architectures or payment protocols for electronic shopping systems G06Q20/12
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/26603 for automatically generating descriptors from content, e.g. when it is not made available by its provider, using content analysis techniques
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4316 for displaying supplemental content in a region of the screen, e.g. an advertisement in a separate window
• 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 21/44222 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 21/47205 for manipulating displayed content, e.g. interacting with MPEG-4 objects, editing locally
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47217 for controlling playback functions for recorded or on-demand content, e.g. using progress bars, mode or play-point indicators or bookmarks specific graphical features in visual interfaces H04N21/4312
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4722 for requesting additional data associated with the content
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4725 using interactive regions of the image, e.g. hot spots details of information retrieval from the Internet by using URLs G06F16/955; processing chained hypermedia data for information retrieval G06F16/94
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47815 Electronic shopping payment schemes, payment architectures or payment protocols for electronic shopping systems G06Q20/12
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8133 specifically related to the content, e.g. biography of the actors in a movie, detailed information about an article seen in a video program
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8455 involving pointers to the content, e.g. pointers to the I-frames of the video stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8545 for generating interactive applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8547 involving timestamps for synchronizing content
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/858 Linking data to content, e.g. by linking an URL to a video object, by creating a hotspot

Abstract

A method for presenting advertisements for commercial products in video productions, whereby the commercial product is placed in the video production as an element of the video production. A viewer is enabled to interact with the video production to select the product. Information is then displayed about the selected product; and the viewer is enabled to purchase the selected product.

Claims

1. A method for advertising in video productions, the method comprising:

transmitting, from one or more servers, a video production to a video player, the transmitted video production associated with a plurality of pre-defined cue points, the plurality of pre-defined cue points representing a time at which an advertisement is to be displayed relative to a time of the video production being played, the time for each respective cue point contained within cue point metadata;

transmitting an advertisement, from the one or more servers, for display in the video player, the advertisement corresponding to at least one of the plurality of pre-defined cue points and including a selection enabled portion that allows a viewer of the video player to interactively retrieve further information about a product or service;

wherein the video player is configured to display the video production; and

wherein the video player is configured upon a triggering of the at least one of the plurality of pre-defined cue points to display at least one of a visual calling cue point for the advertisement, information concerning the advertisement, or the advertisement in a timeline of the video player to the viewer of the player.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the cue point metadata is transmitted either with at least a portion of the video production or separate from the video production.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein

an advertisement is displayed in the timeline, and

the advertisement displayed in the timeline overlays at least a portion of the video.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the visual calling cue point, information concerning the advertisement, or the advertisement displayed in the timeline represents a location of an item displayed within the video with respect to an entire length of the video.

5. A system for advertising in video productions, the system comprising:

one or more servers configured to;

transmit a video production to a video player, the transmitted video production associated with a plurality of pre-defined cue points, the plurality of pre-defined cue points representing a time at which an advertisement is to be displayed relative to a time of the video production being played in the video player, the time for each respective cue point contained within cue point metadata;

transmit an advertisement for display in the video player, the advertisement corresponding to at least one of the plurality of pre-defined cue points and including a selection enabled portion that allows a viewer of the video player to interactively retrieve further information about a product or service;

wherein the video player is configured to display the video production; and

wherein the video player is configured upon a triggering of the at least one of the plurality of pre-defined cue points to display at least one of a visual calling cue point for the advertisement, information concerning the advertisement, or the advertisement in a timeline of the video player to the viewer of the player.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the cue point metadata is transmitted either with at least a portion of the video production or separate from the video production.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein

an advertisement is displayed in the timeline, and

the advertisement displayed in the timeline overlays at least a portion of the video.

8. The system of claim 5, wherein the visual calling cue point, information concerning the advertisement, or the advertisement displayed in the timeline represents a location of an item displayed within the video with respect to an entire length of the video.

9. A method for advertising in video productions, the method comprising:

transmitting, from one or more servers, a video production to a video player, the transmitted video production associated with a plurality of pre-defined cue points, the plurality of pre-defined cue points representing a time at which an advertisement is to be displayed relative to a time of the video production being played, the time for each respective cue point contained within cue point metadata, the cue point metadata transmitted separate from the video production;

transmitting an advertisement, from the one or more servers, for display in the video player, the advertisement corresponding to at least one of the plurality of pre-defined cue points and including a selection enabled portion that allows a viewer of the video player to interactively retrieve further information about a product or service;

wherein the video player is configured to display the video production;

wherein the video player is configured upon a triggering of the at least one of the plurality of pre-defined cue points to display the advertisement in the video player; and

wherein information concerning the advertisement, a calling cue point corresponding to the advertisement, or the advertisement displayed in a timeline upon a triggering of the at least one of the plurality of pre-defined cue points.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the advertisement is displayed as a transparent overlay over the video production.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the information concerning the advertisement, the calling cue point corresponding to the advertisement, or the advertisement is also visually displayed in the timeline of the video player to the viewer of the video player.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the information concerning the advertisement, the calling cue point corresponding to the advertisement, or the advertisement displayed in the timeline represents a location of an item displayed within the video with respect to an entire length of the video.

13. A system for advertising in video productions, the system comprising:

one or more servers configured to;

transmit a video production to a video player, the transmitted video production associated with a plurality of pre-defined cue points, the plurality of pre-defined cue points representing a time at which an advertisement is to be displayed relative to a time of the video production being played in the video player, the time for each respective cue point contained within cue point metadata, the cue point metadata transmitted separate from the video production;

transmit an advertisement for display in the video player, the advertisement corresponding to the pre-defined cue point and including a selection enabled portion that allows a viewer of the video player to interactively retrieve further information about a product or service;

wherein the video player is configured to display the video production;

wherein the video player is configured upon a triggering of at least one of the plurality of pre-defined cue points to display the advertisement in the video player; and

wherein information concerning the advertisement, a calling cue point corresponding to the advertisement, or the advertisement displayed in a timeline upon a triggering of the at least one of the plurality of pre-defined cue points.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the advertisement is displayed as a transparent overlay over the video production.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the information concerning the advertisement, the calling cue point corresponding to the advertisement, or the advertisement displayed in the timeline represents a location of an item displayed within the video with respect to an entire length of the video.

16. The system of claim 13, wherein at least one calling cue point is visually displayed in the timeline of the video player to the viewer of the video player, the at least one calling point visually displaying the location of the at least one of the plurality of pre-defined cue points for the video production.