Targeted advertising

• US 20070078706A1
• Filed: 09/30/2005
• Published: 04/05/2007
• 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: Zalewski, Gary, Datta, Glen
• Granted Patent: US 8,751,310 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.500
• 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, comprising:

identifying an advertising asset in a video game environment, the advertising asset comprising a tagged area;

delivering the advertising content to a memory at the end-user client device;

storing the advertising content in the memory at the end-user client device;

retrieving at least one advertising image from the advertising content stored in the memory and rendering the advertising image in the tagged area of the advertising asset in the video game environment; and

monitoring 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.

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

3. The method of claim 1, wherein calculating ad impressions further comprises determining whether 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 comprises a program configured to capture a user reaction to the advertising asset.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying a characteristic of a user of the end-user client device; and

selecting the advertising content for delivery to the memory at the end-user client device 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 6, wherein the identified characteristic is from information provided by a network service provider.

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

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

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

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 the end-user client device; and

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

an end-user client device for rendering the video game environment, the video game environment comprising tagged advertising assets, the end-user client device configured to render the advertising content in the tagged advertising assets, the end-user client device further configured to 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; 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, and to deliver the advertising content from the database to the end-user client device.

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

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

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

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

22. The system of claim 18, wherein the advertising content delivered to the end-user client device comprises targeted advertising content associated with the characteristic of the video game environment at the end-user client device.

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 machine readable medium having embodied thereon a program being executable by a machine to perform a method comprising:

identifying an advertising asset in a video game environment at an end-user client device, the advertising asset comprising a tagged area;

delivering advertising content to a memory at the end-user client device, the delivered advertising content configured to be rendered in the tagged area of the advertisement asset in the video game environment; and

counting ad impressions generated at the end-user client device in response to user movements and exposures to the advertising asset in the video game environment.

25. The machine readable medium of claim 24, wherein the method further comprises:

identifying a characteristic of a user of the end-user client device; and

selecting the advertising content for delivery to the memory at the end-user client device 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, comprising:

an end-user client device for rendering a video game environment, the video game environment comprising tagged advertising assets, the end-user client device for rendering the video game environment configured to render advertising content in the tagged advertising assets;

means for recognizing the existence of tagged advertising assets in the video game environment and to deliver advertising content to the means for rendering the video game environment; and

means for monitoring the video game environment to calculate ad impressions in response to user movements and user exposures to the advertising assets in the video game environment.