Monitoring advertisement impressions

• US 8,751,310 B2
• Filed: 09/30/2005
• Issued: 06/10/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: van Datta, Glen, Zalewski, Gary
• Primary Examiner(s): Myhre, James W
• Application Number:
  US11/240,655
• Publication Number:
  US 20070078706A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,175 Days
• Field of Search: 705/14, 705/14.58
• US Class Current: 705/14.58
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/50 Controlling the output signals based on the game progress
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/61 using advertising information
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/79 involving player-related data, e.g. identities, accounts, preferences or play histories
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/5506 using advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/6684 by dynamically adapting its position to keep a game object in its viewing frustrum, e.g. for tracking a character or a ball
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0246 Traffic
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0252 based on events or environment, e.g. weather or festivals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0261 based on user location
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0272 Period of advertisement exposure

Abstract

A targeted in-game advertising system is provided where advertising content may be delivered to a video game network environment. Advertisements may be delivered through the tagging of advertising assets in the video game environment according to one or more characteristics including user geographical location, personal preferences, a personal profile, video game preferences or video game genre. Methodologies for tracking advertising impressions are also provided based on monitoring the video game environment to determine the quality of impression to which the user is exposed in the video game environment.

Claims

1. A method for delivering and tracking advertising content in an end-user client device, the method comprising:

determining at an advertising server that a video game environment includes an advertising asset, the advertising asset comprising a tagged area for rendering the advertising image, and the video game environment is associated with a video game accessible by a plurality of end-user client devices located in a plurality of different real-world geographic regions;

delivering advertising content from the advertising server to the plurality of end-user client devices within the video game environment, the advertising content including an advertising image for rendering in the advertising asset in the video game environment and specified parameters associated with the advertising image rendered in the advertising asset, including a parameter specifying that the end-user be located within a specified real-world geographic location in order to be calculated against a total ad buy;

receiving ad impressions sent from the plurality of end-user client devices to the advertising server, the ad impressions indicating user movements and user exposures to the advertising asset in the video game environment;

determining, from the received ad impressions, the end-users located within the specified real-world geographic region; and

calculating the total ad buy based on the number of end-users determined to be located within the specified real-world geographic region.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein a parameter for calculating ad impressions comprises determining that an object occludes a line-of-sight of the advertising asset.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein a parameter for calculating ad impressions comprises determining that an object does not occlude a line-of-sight of the advertising asset.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the advertising content includes element types selected from the group consisting of programs, objects, state data, control data, textures, bitmap images, compressed images, sequencing data, authentication data, public key and private key.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the advertising content further comprises a program configured to capture a user reaction to the advertising image rendered in the advertising asset, wherein the capture of the user reaction is based on specified parameters associated with the advertising image.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying a characteristic of a user of one of the end-user client devices; and

selecting the advertising content for delivery to the memory at the end-user client device associated with the user, the selection based on the characteristic of the user of the end-user client device.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the identified characteristic is from a user profile of the user.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the identified characteristic identified from the user-profile comprises a user preference.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the identified characteristic is from information provided by a network service provider.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein the identified characteristic is associated with a network address of the end-user client device associated with the user.

11. The method of claim 6, wherein the selected advertising content comprises geographic advertising content.

12. The method of claim 6, wherein the identified characteristic is from a user profile of the user, and the identified characteristic from the user-profile comprises geographic information.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying a characteristic of the video game environment at a first end-user client device of the end-user client devices; and

selecting the advertising content for delivery to the memory at the first end-user client device, the selection based on the characteristic of the video game environment at the first end-user client device.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the characteristic of the video game environment comprises a demographic associated with the video game.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the characteristic of the video game environment comprises a genre of the video game.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

informing a payment processing center of the rendering of the advertising content in the video game environment; and

processing a payment associated with the rendering of the advertising content in the video game environment.

17. A system for delivering and tracking advertising content in a video game environment, the system comprising:

a plurality of end-user client devices in a plurality of different real-world geographic regions for rendering the video game environment, the video game environment comprising a tagged advertising asset, each end-user client device configured to;

render the advertising content comprising an advertising image in the tagged advertising asset, and

monitor the video game environment to calculate ad impressions in response to user movements and user exposures to the advertising asset in the video game environment, the calculation based on specified parameters associated with the advertising image rendered in the advertising asset, the specified parameters associated with the advertising image rendered in the advertising asset, including a parameter specifying that the end-user be located within a specified real-world geographic location in order to be calculated against a total ad buy; and

an advertising server coupled to a database comprising advertising content, the advertising server configured to;

identify the existence of tagged advertising assets in the video game environment at the end-user client device,

deliver the advertising content from the database to the end-user client device;

determine, from the ad impressions, the end-users located within the specified real-world geographic region; and

calculate thr total ad buy based on the number of end-users determined to be located within the specified real-world geographic region.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the advertising server is further configured to identify a characteristic associated with a user of one of the end-user client devices.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the advertising content delivered to the end-user client device associated with the user comprises targeted advertisement content associated with the characteristic of the user of the end-user client device.

20. The system of claim 17, wherein the advertising server is further configured to identify a characteristic associated with the video game environment at a first end-user client device of the end-user client devices.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the advertising content delivered to the first end-user client device comprises targeted advertising content associated with the characteristic of the video game environment at the first end-user client device.

22. The system of claim 17, wherein the database comprising advertising content further comprises targeted advertising content.

23. The system of claim 17, further comprising a payment processing center configured to process a payment associated with the delivery of the advertising content to the end-user client device.

24. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium having embodied thereon a program being executable by a machine to perform a method, the method comprising:

determining that a video game environment includes an advertising asset, the advertising asset comprising a tagged area for rendering the advertising image, and the video game environment associated with a video game accessible by end-user client devices in a plurality of different geographic regions;

delivering advertising content from the advertising server to the plurality of end-user client devices within the video game environment, the advertising content including an advertising image for rendering in the advertising asset in the video game environment and specified parameters associated with the advertising image rendered in the advertising asset, including a parameter specifying that the end-user be located within a specified real-world geographic location in order to be calculated against a total ad buy;

receiving ad impressions sent from the plurality of end-user client devices to the advertising server, the ad impressions indicating user movements and user exposures to the advertising asset in the video game environment;

determining, from the received ad impressions, the end-users located within the specified real-world geographic region; and

calculating a total ad buy based on the number of end-users determined to be located within the specified real-world geographic region.

25. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 24, further comprising instructions executable to:

identify a characteristic of a user of one of the end-user client devices; and

select the advertising content for delivery to the memory at the end-user client device associated with the user, wherein the selected advertising content is associated with the characteristic of the user of the end-user client device.

26. A system for delivering advertising content to a video game environment, the system comprising:

a content server for delivering content, the content including a video game, wherein a video game environment of the video game comprises a tagged advertising asset;

an ad server for delivering advertising content comprising an advertising image for rendering in the tagged advertising asset; and

a plurality of end-user client devices in a plurality of different real-world geographic regions, each end-user client device configured to;

receive the video game from the content server and the advertising content from the advertising server; and

execute instructions stored in a memory, wherein execution of the instructions by a processor of the end-user client device;

renders the received advertising content comprising the advertising image in the tagged advertising asset of the video game environment, and

monitors the video game environment to calculate ad impressions in response to user movements and user exposure to the advertising assets in the video game environment, the calculation based on specified parameters associated with the advertising image rendered in the advertising asset, including a parameter specifying that the end-user be located within a specified real-world geographic region in order for the ad impressions to be calculated against a total ad buy.