US20110202410A1 - Inventory and Revenue Maximization Method and System - Google Patents

Inventory and Revenue Maximization Method and System Download PDF

Info

Publication number
US20110202410A1
US20110202410A1 US13/096,186 US201113096186A US2011202410A1 US 20110202410 A1 US20110202410 A1 US 20110202410A1 US 201113096186 A US201113096186 A US 201113096186A US 2011202410 A1 US2011202410 A1 US 2011202410A1
Authority
US
United States
Prior art keywords
buyer
inventory
scenario
advertisement units
price
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Abandoned
Application number
US13/096,186
Inventor
Allan Ginsburg
David R. Murray
Arthur Weinberger
Jerome Williams
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
iHeartMedia Management Services Inc
Original Assignee
iHeartMedia Management Services Inc
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by iHeartMedia Management Services Inc filed Critical iHeartMedia Management Services Inc
Priority to US13/096,186 priority Critical patent/US20110202410A1/en
Assigned to CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS, INC. reassignment CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS, INC. ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS). Assignors: GINSBURG, ALLAN, WEINBERGER, ARTHUR, WILLIAMS, JEROME, MURRAY, DAVID R.
Assigned to CLEAR CHANNEL MANAGEMENT SERVICES, LP reassignment CLEAR CHANNEL MANAGEMENT SERVICES, LP ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS). Assignors: CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS, INC.
Assigned to CLEAR CHANNEL MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC. reassignment CLEAR CHANNEL MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC. CHANGE OF NAME (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS). Assignors: CLEAR CHANNEL MANAGEMENT SERVICES, LP
Publication of US20110202410A1 publication Critical patent/US20110202410A1/en
Assigned to DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS, AS COLLATERAL AGENT reassignment DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS, AS COLLATERAL AGENT SECURITY AGREEMENT Assignors: CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS, INC., CLEAR CHANNEL INVESTMENTS, INC., CLEAR CHANNEL MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC.
Assigned to IHEARTMEDIA MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC. reassignment IHEARTMEDIA MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC. CHANGE OF NAME (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS). Assignors: CLEAR CHANNEL MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC.
Assigned to DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS, AS COLLATERAL AGENT reassignment DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS, AS COLLATERAL AGENT SECURITY AGREEMENT Assignors: CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS, INC., CLEAR CHANNEL MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC., IHEARTMEDIA MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC.
Assigned to CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS, INC., CLEAR CHANNEL MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC., IHEARTMEDIA MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC., AMFM RADIO LICENSES, LLC, AMFM TEXAS BROADCASTING, LP, CAPSTAR RADIO OPERATING COMPANY, CAPSTAR TX, LLC, CITICASTERS CO., CITICASTERS LICENSES, INC., CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC., IHEARMEDIA + ENTERTAINMENT, INC. reassignment CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS, INC. RELEASE OF THE SECURITY INTEREST RECORDED AT REEL/FRAME 035109/0168 Assignors: DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS
Assigned to CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS, INC., CLEAR CHANNEL MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC., CLEAR CHANNEL INVESTMENTS, INC., AMFM RADIO LICENSES, LLC, AMFM TEXAS BROADCASTING, LP, CAPSTAR RADIO OPERATING COMPANY, CAPSTAR TX, LLC, CITICASTERS CO., CITICASTERS LICENSES, INC., CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC., IHEARMEDIA + ENTERTAINMENT, INC. reassignment CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS, INC. RELEASE OF THE SECURITY INTEREST RECORDED AT REEL/FRAME 034008/0027 Assignors: DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS
Abandoned legal-status Critical Current

Links

Images

Classifications

    • GPHYSICS
    • G06COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06QINFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q30/00Commerce
    • G06Q30/02Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
    • GPHYSICS
    • G06COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06QINFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q10/00Administration; Management
    • G06Q10/08Logistics, e.g. warehousing, loading or distribution; Inventory or stock management
    • G06Q10/087Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
    • GPHYSICS
    • G06COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06QINFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q10/00Administration; Management
    • G06Q10/08Logistics, e.g. warehousing, loading or distribution; Inventory or stock management
    • G06Q10/087Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
    • G06Q10/0875Itemisation or classification of parts, supplies or services, e.g. bill of materials
    • GPHYSICS
    • G06COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06QINFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q30/00Commerce
    • G06Q30/02Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
    • G06Q30/0201Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
    • G06Q30/0206Price or cost determination based on market factors
    • GPHYSICS
    • G06COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06QINFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q30/00Commerce
    • G06Q30/02Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
    • G06Q30/0241Advertisements
    • G06Q30/0273Determination of fees for advertising
    • GPHYSICS
    • G06COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06QINFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q40/00Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
    • GPHYSICS
    • G06COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06QINFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q40/00Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
    • G06Q40/12Accounting
    • G06Q40/123Tax preparation or submission

Definitions

  • the present invention relates to a method and system for providing enterprise management and bundling of perishable inventory which varies in value over its life and is susceptible to value-based pricing to achieve maximum revenue. More specifically, the present invention maximizes revenue of perishable inventory such as television (TV), radio and outdoor advertisements and entertainment industry events using multiple variables in inventory control and optionally pricing fuzzy logic algorithms to create scenario plans which present the most profitable bundling of offerings and which meet the customer's needs.
  • perishable inventory such as television (TV), radio and outdoor advertisements and entertainment industry events
  • fuzzy logic algorithms to create scenario plans which present the most profitable bundling of offerings and which meet the customer's needs.
  • Inventory or revenue management systems and methods have been in existence at least since the early 1980's when the airline and car rental industries began adopting revenue management as a regular business practice, the history of which is provided in Robert Gross, Revenue Management—Hard-Core Tactics for Market Domination, Broadway Books, New York 1997, herein incorporated by reference.
  • the basic premise is that revenue can be increased by managing the yield from inventory.
  • Yield management is the practice of maximizing profits from the sale of a perishable inventory, such as advertising time, airline seats, cruise berths, rental cars, hotel rooms, etc., through the systematic use of historical purchasing information, pricing and inventory controls and customer service improvements.
  • a yield management program reveals demand for a product that was formerly not apparent and manages this demand to maximize revenues.
  • Yield management concepts apply to many industries which are susceptible to value-based pricing.
  • a yield management system introduces a pricing structure which provides that product to customers at a price consistent with their individual evaluation or price sensitivity.
  • this value-based pricing increases the customer base and profits from sales.
  • Yield management not only works to identify appropriate locations for discounting prices in order to increase sales, but also to identify opportunities to increase the price as well.
  • product availability must be controlled so that the product is not sold out too early, or left unsold at its expiration date (e.g., air time, travel time or other time of performance).
  • U.S. Pat. No. 6,061,691 to Fox discloses a method and system for inventory management which includes a yield management system, a price forecasting system, and a traffic billing system.
  • An inventory item such as available advertising time associated with a specific time period or program is presented to a customer together with a price quotation.
  • the price quotation is generated using the price forecasting system and by a pricing strategy in the yield management system.
  • the customer requests a specific inventory item, it is placed into a traffic billing system and that inventory item is removed from inventory.
  • the Fox patent also follows the conventional practice of accounting for reservations of advertising time, which are not closed sales but rather requests that a particular advertising time be held for a customer.
  • a weight representing a probability of close is assigned to the reservation for utilization in the yield management and price forecasting systems.
  • the price forecasting system disclosed in the Fox patent is updated with the changed inventory or reservation before the next customer makes a request, instead of using batch processing of this information, such that the information effects price quotes from the price forecasting system before the next customer request.
  • Such a system is computationally intense and probably not suitable for a large enterprise system.
  • the yield management system uses simple availability curves as pricing models wherein the rate at which advertising time is sold is based on the availability of a fixed amount of advertising time and the proximity the request is to the inventory item expiring (e.g., airtime).
  • This concept has long been used in the airline industry, wherein the last minute business traveler is charged a greater rate than an incidental tourist planning ahead.
  • Simple two-dimensional sample demand curves are illustrated by two-dimensional graphs, the starting point of which and the number of units being determined in advance by management.
  • these systems can be subject to input “noise” due to managers and the like accumulating orders before entry into the traffic system. If accommodations are not made, these apparent sharp rises in unit selling rate can lead to a false impression of high or increased demand for a given set of inventory items. For instance, if a manager enters the orders accumulated over a week's time on a Friday, the price forecasting system may view Friday's traffic as a large increase in demand for the type of inventory sold and increase prices beyond what the market will accept.
  • the present invention can increase yield while improving the customer experience by taking into consideration additional factors in price forecasting.
  • the yield management can include increasing or decreasing the amount of inventory, for instance, by changing the number of commercial slots per unit of time (e.g., units per hour).
  • the inventory units whether time slots for commercials, outdoor advertisements, airline seats, berths, rental cars, or any other perishable inventory susceptible to inventory management under the present application, will be referred to as “units”.
  • the present invention uses, optimally through powerful computing and real-time aggregation, a complex set of factors applied to multiple scenarios to achieve maximum revenue.
  • the invention uses a combination of three or more primary variables to start the process. All history and inventory variables are queried at regular intervals and stored in a central repository for batch processing with filters.
  • a yield algorithm starts with a base number of units (e.g., slots of advertising per hour of air time) which is set by management, such as local managers in individual radio stations in a large enterprise composed a plurality or multitude of many radio stations.
  • a business rule is then applied to facilitate how the system can manipulate up or down the total number of commercial units per broadcast hour.
  • variables are used in the process, such as buyer history, product category, business booked to date, budgetary expectations, performance measurements such as Arbitron, Neilsen, or Traffic Audit Bureau ratings, which set the market value of the commercial units.
  • a pricing engine uses the algorithms to compute and present pricing to a customer through a selling agent.
  • scenarios are developed based on the customer's requirements of frequency (number of times an individual listener is likely to hear the same commercial), reach (number of people that are likely to hear the commercial unit), budgetary considerations of the customer, demographic considerations (typically age brackets, for instance) and psycho-graphic data (categories of listeners such as attorneys, laborers, ethnic groups, etc., wherein the specific group may be more likely to buy a particular good or service).
  • Psycho-graphic profiles are often good criteria for outdoor advertising.
  • These scenarios provide the selling agent and customer with various combinations of units (whether radio, television, outdoor advertising or combinations thereof), generally with information about one or more of stations, demographics, station format, location, population, station performance measurements, etc.
  • These scenarios and information are generally provided with further granularity such as broken out by time of day, important events, etc.
  • the present invention utilizes filters to remove input “noise” from the yield management process. These filters basically smooth the input to reflect the real demand and avoid the affects of specious spikes in demand caused by, for instance, orders building up on a manager's desk before he or she takes time to enter the orders.
  • the present invention achieves these objects and goals using an enterprise inventory management system, including a performance measurement system for measuring performance of a medium in which units of inventory are used; a revenue maximization system which determines a price for said units based on predetermined pricing considerations; a central information storage system for receiving information from said performance measurement system and revenue maximization system to generate scenarios wherein various combinations of units are grouped together to meet a buyer's criteria; and a scenario planner to display the various scenarios generated by the central information storage system.
  • a performance measurement system for measuring performance of a medium in which units of inventory are used
  • a revenue maximization system which determines a price for said units based on predetermined pricing considerations
  • a central information storage system for receiving information from said performance measurement system and revenue maximization system to generate scenarios wherein various combinations of units are grouped together to meet a buyer's criteria
  • a scenario planner to display the various scenarios generated by the central information storage system.
  • the process for inventory management comprising the steps of: a seller and a buyer identify an opportunity for purchasing units; obtaining the history of the buyer with respect to purchases of like units, if any; receiving from the buyer information about the buyer's purchase requirements; obtaining available inventory information; obtaining prices for said units from a revenue maximization system; and generating at least one scenario comprising a plurality of units based on said information obtained from said buyer, wherein said at least one scenario meets the buyers demands and reflects said available inventory and said prices.
  • the method of providing various scenarios to a purchaser of units of opportunities to advertise comprises permitting a buyer to select various markets by geographic demarcation; selecting various markets within said geographic demarcation; set appropriate filters to filter out media within the selected markets using criteria selected from a group consisting of demographics, psycho-graphics or media type; inputting buyer criteria according to at least two of following criteria: the number of persons expected to be exposed to said units, the frequency of those persons seeing said units, budget for purchase of the units, demographics, psycho graphics, gross number of times people will be exposed to said units; and compiling a scenario composed of a variety of said units based on buyer criteria.
  • FIG. 1 illustrates an inventory management system in accordance with the present invention.
  • FIG. 2 shows details of the local traffic and billing system illustrated in FIG. 1 .
  • FIG. 3 illustrates the optional components of the performance measurement system shown in FIG. 1 .
  • FIG. 4 illustrates the input information filtering process.
  • FIG. 5 illustrates the process for the enterprise management system.
  • FIG. 6 is a matrix showing an example of when to increase or decrease the number of units from a baseline set by management.
  • FIG. 7 illustrates an exemplary process flow of the scenario planner.
  • FIG. 8 is an exemplary table of daily and weekly totals for a given number of units.
  • FIG. 1 System Overview of Enterprise Inventory Management System
  • the enterprise management system and method provide for bundling a radio, TV, outdoor advertisements and entertainment inventory to achieve maximum revenue of these perishable products.
  • What is presented to the selling agent 140 , or directly to the advertising buyer 120 are a series of scenarios wherein groups of units are presented and annotated with various supplemental information.
  • this supplemental information can include station identification with hyperlinks to additional information about the station, location or other marketplace identification, population, reach, performance measurements, price, demographics, psycho-graphics, number of units, frequency.
  • the various selected information can be segregated by time of day, day of week, month, etc. Important media events, such as sports events, can also be displayed. Whatever information is generally of interest to sellers and buyers can be presented as part of the scenarios.
  • the selling agent 140 can present these scenarios to the buyer 120 during negotiations for selection by the buyer 120 .
  • the seller 140 is given options in the form of different combinations of radio airtimes, TV commercial times, outdoor advertising and combinations thereof, for instance, that satisfy the buyer's 120 requirements.
  • the system can also be a self-service system particularly if the sellers 140 are perceived as not adding sufficient value to the over all system and users experience.
  • the buyer 120 typically specifies the budget for the advertisement campaign, the desired range or number of people who will hear the advertisement, the frequency any one person is likely to hear the same advertisement, as well as demographics, psycho-graphics or other factors which tend to identify market penetration.
  • the buyer 120 may not be as interested in or concerned about the precise times, shows, market segments, locations, etc. the advertisements appear as he or she is in the overall effect (e.g., frequency, reach, demographics and price) particularly if advertising on a national scale. Hence, revenue can be maximized by selecting inventory that otherwise might go unsold but fit the buyer's criteria.
  • the system will also allow a buyer 120 to select particular times, shows, locations, etc. to build various scenarios if the buyer 120 has preferences or requirements in this regard.
  • An electronic central information storage system 110 collects influencing factors for the probability and price sensitivity of a particular advertising buyer 120 .
  • the central information storage system 110 also collects business rules for inventory scaling (increasing or decreasing the number of units in response to demand), available inventory to sell, budgetary goal information, advertiser payment history (e.g., indications on what the buyer has been willing to pay in the past, promptness of payment, collection problems, and any other factor which tend to indicate the price sensitivity of the buyer and/or the cost of doing business with the buyer).
  • Station performance data e.g., Arbitron ratings for radio, Nielsen ratings for television, Traffic Audit Bureau for outdoor advertising, or any other appropriate performance measurement service or system
  • a scenario planner 130 is fed to a scenario planner 130 to be presented to the advertising customer 120 through a seller 140 .
  • the inventory is scaled to reflect changes in perceived demand and/or rate of increasing demand by, e.g., increasing the number of units in a period of time when demand seems to be high or increasing and decreasing inventory when demand is perceived to be below from a baseline.
  • FIG. 6 is a matrix showing when to increase or decrease the number of units from a baseline set by management.
  • the inventory can be scaled in a physical sense.
  • this aspect of the present invention can be used to change the number of seats available on a give flight route at a given time by changing the number of seats on a plane or changing the plane type or model to change the number of seats, or more planes can be used for a given route, etc. Similar concepts apply to the number of berths on a ship, etc.
  • output of the scenario planner 130 is reviewed by a local station manager 150 before the seller 140 is authorized to present the various scenarios to an advertising buyer 120 , although this review process and communication with the manager 150 can be omitted for pre-approved scenarios or altogether.
  • the scenario planner 130 establishes a two-way communication with the enterprise central information storage system 110 and to the performance measurement system 170 , although the performance measurement information can also be obtained through the enterprise central information storage system 110 .
  • inventory and pricing fuzzy logic algorithms creates scenario plans to present the most profitable bundle of offerings via the scenario planner 130 , through the local station manager 150 and the seller 140 to the advertising buyer 120 . Even where the scenarios are typically pre-approved, it may still be appropriate to present them to the local business units 150 for detection of abnormalities.
  • the main systems that interact to build these scenarios are the enterprise central information storage system 110 , which receives and transmits data to the revenue maximization system 160 , the performance measurement system 170 and the enterprise traffic and accounts receivable system 180 .
  • the enterprise traffic and accounts receivable system 180 provides information to the local traffic and billing systems for periods of limited duration such as twelve weeks or even two years.
  • the local traffic and billing systems 190 then provide information to the enterprise central information storage system 110 for updating the algorithms used to determine price.
  • the specific algorithms can change from time to time and are generally optimized with experience and objective measures.
  • a business rules engine in the central information storage system 110 provides the local rule definitions for scaling inventory and price to provide the most profitable combination.
  • Scaling inventory is a multi-step process.
  • the enterprise central information storage system 110 tracks six quantities on a day part basis. These six quantities are spots sold-to-date Sd, forecasted spots sold Sf, maximum/beginning inventory Sm, revenue-to-date Rd, forecasted revenue Rf, and projected revenue at maximum sell-out Rm. These quantities can be summed over a calendar month to get monthly totals. If the date of inquiry is within the same calendar month, then some day parts will already be in the past. It is convenient to discard this “spoiled inventory,” which of course can no longer be sold, from the maximum/beginning inventory Sm and from the projected revenue at maximum sell-out Rm. Hence, at any point in the month, the maximum/beginning inventory is at the maximum inventory that could be sold and the projected revenue at a maximum sell-out Rm is the projected revenue at its maximum sell-out existing at the time of inquiry.
  • the spots sold-to-date Sd are equal to or less than the forecasted spots sold Sf, and less than or equal to the maximum/beginning inventory Sm (Sd.1toreq.Sf.1toreq.Sm) and the revenue-to-date Rd is less than or equal to the forecasted revenue Rf, which is less than or equal to the projected revenue at maximum sell-out Rm (Rd.1toreq.Rf.1toreq.Rm).
  • case 1 revenue-to-date is greater than or equal to the budget (Rd.gtoreq.Budget). If the budget has already been made, it is no longer possible to change the percent of inventory that is to be used to make the budget. However, the system can still find the percent of inventory sold when budget was made, by doing a binary search of the enterprise central information system storage system 110 for the day on which the estimated revenue exceeded budget. This can facilitate future planning and adjustment of the total inventory for pricing of the budget.
  • the system can estimate ratio of inventory to budget as follows
  • InventoryToBudget (( Sf ⁇ Sd )/( Rf ⁇ Rd )).times.(Budget ⁇ Rd )+ Sd.
  • the percent inventory to budget is 100 times the inventory to budget divided by the total number monthly beginning inventory.
  • the system can estimate inventory to budget as follows:
  • InventoryToBudget (( Sm ⁇ Sf )/( Rm ⁇ Rf ).times.(Budget ⁇ Rf )+ Sf.
  • the inventory must be sold without making budget. It is still possible to estimate that inventory would have been needed with the following equation.
  • InventoryToBudget ( Sm/Rm ).times.Budget
  • the scale factors computed as follows:
  • the inventory is sold out and the system should return an error message.
  • the system scales the rates of all available (unspoiled) inventory in the time period by the scale factor that was just computed.
  • the traffic and accounts receivable system 190 in each station, and the enterprise traffic and accounts receivable system 180 includes connections to a selling agent 182 ( 140 in FIG. 1 ), various accounts receivable software 184 , and the pricing functions 186 which are typically downloaded or accessed through the enterprise central information storage system 110 .
  • the pricing functions 186 optimally include budgetary goals 186 a , performance measurements 186 b (e.g., Arbitron, Neilsen ratings, and Traffic Audit Bureau) for various programs or outdoor advertisements, payment history and price sensitivity of an individual or category of customer or advertiser 186 c and product type 186 d .
  • Product type 186 d is important since some industries are willing to pay more for acquiring inventory units, i.e., some industries have less price sensitivity than others.
  • This information is sent in the central information storage system 110 for processing via the business rules engine to provide the local rule definitions for scaling inventory and price to provide for the most profitable combination or scenario of advertising time.
  • An advantage of this system is that a customer typically comes to the purveyor of the inventory, such as a TV or radio station, with the desire for his advertisement to be heard a given frequency of times by each listener or viewers, a given number listeners or viewers customers (reach) and to a given demographic or psycho graphic of the consuming public.
  • the present invention recognizes, unlike previous systems, that the customer may not be the best informed or even be concerned about what program his advertisement appears on, provided that his or her commercial is heard and/or seen by the proper listeners or viewers of a given reach a given number of times in a given interval.
  • the present invention facilitates the customer's desire by utilizing the performance measurements for the number of listening or viewing public that listens to and/or views a particular show in a particular time frame. It also analyzes the product type to determine whether the given advertised product has a particular repetition frequency that is optimal or a particular demographic.
  • revenue management is improved by evaluating the history of the buyer 120 to determine their payment history, in particular. Slow paying buyers 120 are not worth as much as buyers who pay promptly. Accordingly, buyers 120 that tend to have poor payment histories and infrequent buyers 120 from the inventory management system are priced differently than buyers 120 that pay promptly and/or who are frequent buyers. Also, the history of the buyer 120 indicates the buyer price sensitivity by showing what he or she has been willing to pay, and perhaps more importantly, what he or she has been unwilling to pay. Hence, the history of the buyer 186 c is utilized as part of the pricing function 186 . Additionally, each local station has a budgetary goal 186 d which is set by management.
  • the present inventory management system determines how many units of advertising must be sold at what rate and at what time to achieve such a goal which establishes a base line.
  • the inventory management system varies the number of units from this base line to meet or exceed this goal without unduly adversely affecting performance, for instance.
  • the budgetary considerations not only form a starting point, but are utilized throughout the process such that the budget can be achieved.
  • the performance measurement system 170 shown in FIG. 3 can be of any form which gives a measure of the extent of the audience. Surveys are used by Nielsen and Arbitron rating services, for instance. It is also possible to detect the turning frequencies of passing cars to survey the extent of the audience for radio stations. Nielsen ratings uses set-top boxes to monitor channel selection and TV viewer ship of cross-sections of the audience. Internet listener ship can be easily tracked. Anecdotal indicators, such as listener call-in frequency, and countless other mechanisms for tracking the performance of a business unit 150 , can be used. This information can be provided directly to the scenario planners 130 and the rate management subsystem 160 , in addition to the enterprise central information storage system 110 .
  • the revenue maximization system 180 such as shown in FIG. 3 utilizes algorithms, as explained above, to take into consideration the station's budget 186 a , the performance measurements 186 b , the history of the customer 186 c and the product type 186 d in determining at what price the advertising time should be sold. While traditional aspects are used, such as increasing price as inventory diminishes as the inventory nears performance, other factors such as the customer history 186 c , measured performance of the show 186 b and product type 186 d are utilized to impact pricing, in addition to the station's budget.
  • yield management is achieved with the following functions: sellout forecasting, revenue forecasting, fuzzy rules and pricing adjustment.
  • the central information storage or data mart 110 will provide rate management system 160 with units sold and beginning inventory for a number of days. This information is filtered to remove noise and used to compute the current sell pace, using the process shown in FIG. 4 . The sellout to date and sell pace are combined with historical data to estimate the sellout forecast.
  • the revenue maximization system 160 stores a price for each unit of inventory. To compute a revenue forecast, the revenue maximization system 160 will sum all of the prices from the first spot up to the forecasted sellout. It will also provide actual revenue on a weekly basis but this will arrive after the week is over and thus it will be too late to utilize as a forecasting aid.
  • the output of fuzzy rules is a determination of whether the current prices are too high, too low or just right.
  • the input is composed of two fuzzy measurements: (a) forecasted revenue compared to the monthly budget and (b) the rate of change of the forecasted revenue.
  • the fuzzy rules are generally as follows: The price is “low” and must be raised when the forecasted revenue is increasing, and the price is “high” and must be lowered when the forecasted revenue is decreasing and the forecast is lower than the budget and the forecasted is not increasing.
  • the price is adjusted once a day (or other suitable time period) to correct the problem.
  • the size and type of correction is determined by the user.
  • the type of correction can be either a percent correction or an absolute dollar correction. For example the user can select values so that strong demand causes a $5 increment and weak demand causes a 2% decrement in rates for remaining inventory to give but one of many combinations of possible types of adjustments.
  • FIG. 4 shows a process diagram for obtaining accurate results in the revenue maximization system 160 .
  • the input of the process includes economic factors that influence demand, such as Miler Kaplan Market buying data and the Consumer Price Index (CPI). This type of input is another variable used in the pricing algorithm which affects the budget data by forecasting up and forecasting down budgets
  • Process noise is due to adverting buyers buying spots in both discrete and random manners.
  • the output of the process 160 a is the state of the current sellout and sellout pace.
  • measure noise also has to be considered. Measure noise is caused, for example, by orders sitting on the desks of managers, etc.
  • the measurement is the current sellout read from the traffic systems 180 , 190 via the scenario planner 130 .
  • the filter requirements in the process diagram of FIG. 4 include that the filter be able to remove high frequency noise such as orders collecting on desks to be entered all at once.
  • the filter can be a low-pass filter which ignores or attenuates frequencies of one cycle per week or higher.
  • the filter should also be causal, since it cannot use future (and therefore unavailable) data to derive a current estimate.
  • the filter has to be unbiased and without lag in the output.
  • It can be on one or more of the following criteria (1) on the basis of sellout to date compared to current time frame historical sellout added to final historical sellout, (2) by historical increments added to the sellout to date, and/or (3) by trend projections to final without regard to historical data.
  • the filtering is accomplished with the use of a filter kernel which is used to remove the measurement noise from various input signals. If k[i] denotes the filter kernel where 0.1toreq.i.1toreq.19, the filter kernel can be computed once and stored for use in future filter iterations. This filter kernel is computed as follows:
  • this pre-filtering should end and future zeros should be allowed into the main filter formula. This allows for the possibility that a manager has designated a time period (a day or day part) as commercial free without skewing the filter too much.
  • step (1) find the filtered historical final average number of spots sold for a given day part
  • step (2) find the filtered historical average number of spots sold for that day part at the current number of lead days;
  • step (3) determine the tentative forecast as the current sellout minus the value of step
  • step (4) determine the final forecast as the value of step (3) limited to at least the current sell-out and at most the quantity sold.
  • the result of step (4) is summed over all day parts in the range.
  • the enterprise central information storage system or datamart 110 is the hub of information which gathers data from the rate management system 160 , the performance measurement system 170 , the enterprise traffic and accounts receivable system 180 , as well as the local traffic and billing system 190 .
  • This information is downloaded in batches and algorithms generated using a neural network, for example, to improve accuracy over time.
  • the present invention will receive information about the customer's budget and design a scenario by the scenario planner 130 to present the customer 120 with a list of all units and additional information which meet the buyer's 120 budget as well as desire for the number of times a given listener hears or sees the commercial the reach of the station, and the compatible demographics for the given advertised product or other criteria, for example.
  • the process for the enterprise management system shown in FIG. 5 begins (step 500 ) with the seller 130 and buyer 120 identifying an opportunity for advertising at step 502 . If the customer or buyer 120 is a current customer, at step 504 , the process proceeds to obtaining the buyer history and calculating and assigning a probability that the buyer will close on the deal from the enterprise account management system, as shown in step 508 . However, if the customer 120 is determined at step 504 to be a new customer, then the new customer is processed in step 506 to gather information about the customer, including such information as contact information, types of products being sold, the types of advertisement that are to be aired, credit ratings and/or history, etc.
  • the system obtains available inventory information (AV) from the local enterprise traffic and accounts receivable systems 180 , as shown in step 510 . Thereafter, either the system generates prices for standard inventory range (SI) from the revenue maximization system 160 as shown in step 512 , or in the alternative, generates prices for expanded inventory range (EI) from the revenue maximization system 160 at step 514 . Thereafter, at step 516 , scenarios are generated using fuzzy rule sets. At step 518 , the prices and schedule are negotiated. To permit time for negotiation, at step 520 the prices and schedules in the scenarios are typically frozen for a period of time, such as ten calendar days.
  • AV available inventory information
  • step 520 it is determined whether the purchase is placed outside the freeze period, and if so, the process returns to obtain inventory from the local inventory management system at step 510 . If the purchase is not placed outside the period in which the schedule is frozen, then process proceeds to step 522 where it is determined whether the purchase is placed inside the freeze period. If it has been placed inside the freeze period, then the order is processed, at step 524 . If it is not placed within the freeze period, as determined at step 522 , the purchase is canceled at step 526 and the process terminates at step 528 .
  • Step 701 an extended intranet such as a virtual private network or a closed intranet
  • the seller 140 is prompted to begin selecting various markets (Step 701 ), generally by state in the U.S., but any geographic demarcation might be acceptable.
  • a computer screen can display a map of the U.S. and permit a selection of various states via clicking on cursor locations on the map.
  • the various markets within the states and adjacent states are displayed for selection (Step 702 ).
  • Florida markets may include Albany, Ga.; Dothan and Ft. Myers-Naples, Fla. etc.
  • the various markets are either selected or excluded.
  • the screen displayed to the seller 140 can include graphics to illustrate progress through the process of developing a scenario, this process including customer search to locate the customer information or input relevant information for new customers, customer selection via the index of current and new customers, proposal setup, and station filters, for example.
  • radio station filters operate, for instance, by identifying primary, secondary and tertiary demographics.
  • the primary demographics can include both men and women in the age bracket of 25 to 54, with the secondary and tertiary demographics being exclusive to men and women, respectively, for instance. This might be appropriate for restaurants catering to a specific demographic, for instance.
  • various radio stations that do not appeal to the demographic selected by the buyer 120 would be excluded from further selection.
  • station selection is prompted (Step 704 ) and, from the market list previously identified, such as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, each individual market is then explored (Step 705 ).
  • a filtered list for a given geographic demarcation, such as Florida, is then provided to the seller 140 .
  • Florida the seller can look at the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale market.
  • the seller can input a gross number of stations he may wish to look at in the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale market, which are then listed.
  • Various stations can be listed to include various statistics regarding its audience by the primary, secondary and tertiary demographics, as well as identifying the format of the station (e.g., urban contemporary, adult contemporary, Spanish topical, etc.).
  • the station identification is listed and hyperlinks can be provided to information about the stations as well as performance measurement information. Other stations in the geographic market may be listed even though they have been filtered out as not compatible with the selection of demographics in case there is some exceptional reason for choosing one of these stations.
  • the large number of stations fitting the demographics is then resorted and re-ranked according to whatever criteria in which the seller 140 is currently interested (Step 706 ).
  • Hyperlinks can connect to a station information page which identifies various aspects about the station, such as call letters, various contact information, various demographics or psycho-graphics, geographic location, and other marketing information.
  • the information can include current inventory and rate information. For instance, for a given station, cross-market rates are provided and show demarcations between morning, midday, afternoon, evening and overnight segments, including the number of units available and the current rates for those units.
  • the information is generally presented in a table with date information on one axis and time information on the other axis with the rest of the information appearing in the cells of the table, and perhaps color coded for clarity and information density. Naturally, any future date can be selected.
  • the inventory management system will display the rates generated by the revenue management system 160 as conveyed through the enterprise central information storage system 110 . These rates will be for the current year and even the following year, for instance. Thereafter, various other geographic markets can be selected using the same procedure until all desired stations in all desired markets have been selected.
  • a cross-market schedule or scenario for a customer is built (Step 707 ).
  • the schedule includes information including the reach, on a weekly or all weeks basis, the frequency on a current week or all weeks basis, the gross number of impressions (reach times frequency), as well as other rate information and ultimately the price. Additionally, a table is set up for the customer 120 or seller 140 to enter the number of units on a given day in a given time frame.
  • gross impressions indicates the efficiencies of particular units, such as the AM time slot on a summer Monday, which may be significantly different than a Friday afternoon time slot during the winter.
  • a selected schedule of slots for a given day can be applied across the week, and across all weeks of interest, or different schedules can be designed for each day and each week.
  • the overall reach, frequency and gross impressions can be provided to the customer as a measure of the efficiency of the selections.
  • a summary of the information is provided by identification of the station, their required fees, the number of units requested, the gross price, as well as providing an opportunity for the buyer 120 and seller 140 to deselect various stations or add various stations or markets (Step 708 ).
  • scenarios are built first by choosing geographic locations, choosing markets within those geographic locations, filtering out stations that are inappropriate for the selected demographics of the advertisement buyer 120 , identifying appropriate locations for slots using performance measurements such as reach and frequency, as well as gross impressions and thereafter providing a price on a station-by-station basis, market-by-market basis, or by geographical location, or any combination thereof.
  • advertising buyers 120 who use market definitions encompassing various media markets easily select scenarios where key factors such as reach and frequency can be maximized for a given budget. This facilitates the sale of these units, which can be beneficial to revenue maximization insofar as units that may otherwise go unsold will be sold and all units sold at optimal prices. Also, certain percentages of units can be withheld from sale in one time frame so that the withheld units can be sold later at a higher price. Additionally, there may be opportunities where a single station serves more than one geographical market, for which the present enterprise inventory management system would facilitate the identification thereof.
  • the inventory management system identifies monetary data regarding each individual station, or of all stations collectively. This information can be used as budgetary information, management performance, and planning purposes.
  • the revenue maximization system 160 takes the information and the scenarios, whether reserved with an appropriate weight assigned to the scenario, or ordered by the buyer 120 , to calculate the price of various time slots.
  • the revenue maximization system 160 is designed to offer the right price for the right customer at the right time. It presents information in table form, such as calendar form, where the days and time segments during the day are listed. Within each cell in the table, the price, remaining inventory, total inventory and percent sold can be explained in a meaningful fashion. Daily and weekly totals for given time slots, as well as overall weekly totals, can be provided in the same graphic display. An example of such a table is shown in FIG. 8 .
  • various information can be mined from the central storage system 110 .
  • the budget, the forecast in meeting that budget, the revenue-to-date and the percent of budget can be displayed by station manager or by individual salesperson.
  • the granularity of the information can be on a monthly basis, weekly basis, daily basis, or even time frame during a day basis.
  • information regarding individual salespeople, managers, radio stations, geographic locations and markets can be displayed in tabular form to review the success rate of the yield.
  • various stations within a geographic location can be listed adjacent numbers indicating the calendar budget, the forecast in meeting that budget, the current revenue-to-date and percent of budget, the inventory both sold and projected, and when inventory is projected to sell-out, as well as the number of unsold available units.
  • the revenue factors also provided for both the current and budget to identify the success of the yield management system and the salespeople.
  • the amount of money either exceeding budget or below budget can be indicated, as well as other information in any appropriate format.
  • the information can be presented in various formats, such as by station, by calendar segments for a geographic location or across the entire enterprise, for instance.
  • the current demand rates can be easily displayed on segment of daily, weekly and monthly bases, indicating whether they are considered high, normal or low, as well as the actual rate, again in proper graphic and tabular form.
  • the following information for each month in the year can be used to compute changes in the budget.
  • intersection column above indicates that the time period is for the intersection of the calendar and broadcast months. For example the intersection for October 2001 starts on Oct. 1, 2001 and ends on Oct. 28, 2001.
  • iRf iRd +(ScaleFactor)( iRf ⁇ iRd )
  • RRF (ScaleFactor)( RRF ).
  • While every listed quantity can be a floating-point number, the displayed value should generally be rounded to the nearest whole number.
  • iRf iRd +(ScaleFactor)( iRf ⁇ iRd )
  • bRm bRd +(ScaleFactor)( bRm ⁇ bRd ).
  • Weekly percentages can be calculated based as the following quantities for each week in the month:
  • RRF Remaining Revenue Factor
  • RRF Remaining Revenue Factor
  • wRf wRd +(ScaleFactor)( wRf ⁇ wRd );
  • wRf is the forecast for the selected week. So it should be subscripted to select the week of the slider.
  • cP (ScaleFactor) cP ;
  • mP (ScaleFactor) mP.
  • the system is generally provided with the following values for all 35 day parts in the week:
  • RRF Remaining Revenue Factor
  • the system can get the Forecasted Revenue for the week (wRf).
  • a scale factor can be computed by dividing the new value of by the prior value. Then the following values can be updated: Rf, Pmin, Pcurr, Pmax, and wRf.
  • Rf Rd +(ScaleFactor)( Rf ⁇ Rd );
  • N.sub.i 1 +.sup.( 1 ⁇ 1) I/.sub. 10 where 1.1 toreq.i. 1 toreq. 11.
  • N.sub.i Represents the spot number whose price is displayed by the ith slider from the right.
  • P.sub.i represent the price of spot number N.sub.i.
  • So P.sub.i is the value displayed by the ith slider from the right.
  • the ASP code should build a JavaScript variable containing I and an array containing the 11 values of P.sub.i. If there is a special range number i such that N.sub.i ⁇ Sd ⁇ N.sub.i+1 ⁇ , then the ASP code should build a JavaScript variable for the Revenue within the last partially sold range (Rr).
  • the value of Rr can be obtained from the Sum_Rates_By_Range method of the COM object for spot numbers N.sub.i through Sd ⁇ 1 inclusive.
  • the ASP code should also build a JavaScript variable to hold the last sold spot price (P1).
  • the value of P1 can be obtained from the Get_Spot_Price method of the COM object.
  • a JavaScript function can also be made available to the client. This function should compute the Revenue by Range given the spot numbers for the endpoints of the range and the prices for those spot numbers.
  • the Revenue by Range is just the sum of the prices in the range assuming a straight-line price curve.
  • Num.sub.1 is the spot number for the first spot in the range and Num.sub.2 is the spot number for the next spot after the end of the range.
  • Price.sub.1 and Price.sub.2 are the prices for spot number Num.sub.1 and Num.sub.2 respectively. Note that the formula assumes that Num.sub.2>Num.sub.1.
  • the slider When a Slider is moved, the slider will control the Rate for that spot number and indirectly it will also control all of the spots in the range to the left and the range to the right by setting the prices along straight lines.
  • Slider number i is allowed to move if Sd ⁇ N.sub.i. Note that this means slider 11 can always move.
  • some JavaScript code can change the price P.sub.i according to the new slider position. Next the following psuedo-code should be used.
  • the revenue for range i is RevByRange(N.sub.i, N.sub.i+1, P.sub.i, P.sub.i+1
  • the revenue for range i ⁇ 1 is Rr+RevByRanage(Sd, N.sub.i, P1, P.sub.i)
  • the revenue for range i ⁇ 1 is RevByRange(N.sub.i ⁇ 1, N.sub.i, P.sub.i ⁇ 1, P.sub.i)
  • CalBdgt[i] be the calendar budget for month number i where 1 ⁇ i ⁇ 12;
  • BcastBdgt[i] be the broadcast budget for month number i;
  • Week[1,i] be the ratio of revenue for month i that will be achieved in the first (broadcast) week of the month. If this quantity is not known it can be set as follows:
  • Week[1 ,i] 1 /.sub .Num B castWeeks[i]
  • G denote the annual budget growth factor in percent. So next January's budget is expected to be (1+G/.sub.100)CalBdgt[ ].
  • alerts can be generated as well as where it is projected that the inventory will not sell-out, or would oversell.
  • Information like forecast revenue or revenue-to-date, remaining available units, remaining additional units that could be added can all be provided in appropriate graphical form. Additionally, various events such as sports events, can be identified in calendars so as to provide the seller with information regarding whether the price should be changed given the nature of the event appearing on the media.
  • Various revenue forecasts can be provided in graphical form to show the effects of having more or less available slots, increasing or decreasing the rate, and reviewing the revenue forecasts by the range or cumulative revenue forecasts.
  • fuzzy controls in the form of slide switches to move up cost per unit or number of units, or to move-up percentage, are provided to manipulate the fuzzy logic. These controls can be in any convenient graphical or non-graphical format.

Abstract

A method is provided for enterprise management and bundling of inventory to maximize revenue on perishable products. An electronic data-mart collects factors for the probability and price sensitivity of a buyer. The data-mart also collects rules for inventory scaling, available inventory to sell, budget (goal) information, advertiser payment history, and station performance data to feed to a scenario planner. Once three or more variables exist, algorithms create scenario plans to present the most profitable bundle of offerings. The scenarios are typically pre-approved although presented to local business units for an abnormality failsafe. Once processed by local business units, the scenarios are presented to the buyer. Negotiations typically cause the process to restart. The main systems that interact to build scenarios are: an enterprise data-mart, a scenario planner, a performance measurement system, a rate or yield management subsystem, a traffic and accounts receivable system, and a local inventory booking system.

Description

    CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
  • This is a continuation application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/081,905, filed Apr. 23, 2008, entitled “INVENTORY AND REVENUE MAXIMIZATION METHOD AND SYSTEM,” which is a continuation application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/045,089, filed Jan. 15, 2002, entitled “INVENTORY AND REVENUE MAXIMIZATION METHOD AND SYSTEM,” the subject matter of which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety.
  • BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
  • The present invention relates to a method and system for providing enterprise management and bundling of perishable inventory which varies in value over its life and is susceptible to value-based pricing to achieve maximum revenue. More specifically, the present invention maximizes revenue of perishable inventory such as television (TV), radio and outdoor advertisements and entertainment industry events using multiple variables in inventory control and optionally pricing fuzzy logic algorithms to create scenario plans which present the most profitable bundling of offerings and which meet the customer's needs.
  • DISCUSSION OF RELATED ART
  • Inventory or revenue management systems and methods have been in existence at least since the early 1980's when the airline and car rental industries began adopting revenue management as a regular business practice, the history of which is provided in Robert Gross, Revenue Management—Hard-Core Tactics for Market Domination, Broadway Books, New York 1997, herein incorporated by reference. The basic premise is that revenue can be increased by managing the yield from inventory. Yield management is the practice of maximizing profits from the sale of a perishable inventory, such as advertising time, airline seats, cruise berths, rental cars, hotel rooms, etc., through the systematic use of historical purchasing information, pricing and inventory controls and customer service improvements. A yield management program reveals demand for a product that was formerly not apparent and manages this demand to maximize revenues.
  • Yield management concepts apply to many industries which are susceptible to value-based pricing. When different sets of potential recurring customers value a product or service differently, a yield management system introduces a pricing structure which provides that product to customers at a price consistent with their individual evaluation or price sensitivity. By designing products that meet the specific needs of potential customers and charging multiple prices, this value-based pricing increases the customer base and profits from sales. Yield management not only works to identify appropriate locations for discounting prices in order to increase sales, but also to identify opportunities to increase the price as well. Ideally, when the profitability of inventory sales varies, product availability must be controlled so that the product is not sold out too early, or left unsold at its expiration date (e.g., air time, travel time or other time of performance).
  • Previously, informal yield inventory management systems operated by the intuition of managers who had sufficient experience and confidence to make decisions as to who to sell to, when to sell and at what price. However, such approaches were haphazard at best, and the actual yield largely depended upon the talent of individuals who were managing the inventory, their stability and experience.
  • More recently, inventory management has utilized increasing capabilities of computer technology. However, existing automated systems tend to follow simple two-dimensional pricing models for local markets. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 6,061,691 to Fox discloses a method and system for inventory management which includes a yield management system, a price forecasting system, and a traffic billing system. An inventory item such as available advertising time associated with a specific time period or program is presented to a customer together with a price quotation. The price quotation is generated using the price forecasting system and by a pricing strategy in the yield management system. When the customer requests a specific inventory item, it is placed into a traffic billing system and that inventory item is removed from inventory. The Fox patent also follows the conventional practice of accounting for reservations of advertising time, which are not closed sales but rather requests that a particular advertising time be held for a customer. A weight representing a probability of close is assigned to the reservation for utilization in the yield management and price forecasting systems.
  • The price forecasting system disclosed in the Fox patent is updated with the changed inventory or reservation before the next customer makes a request, instead of using batch processing of this information, such that the information effects price quotes from the price forecasting system before the next customer request. Such a system is computationally intense and probably not suitable for a large enterprise system.
  • In these types of inventory management systems, the yield management system uses simple availability curves as pricing models wherein the rate at which advertising time is sold is based on the availability of a fixed amount of advertising time and the proximity the request is to the inventory item expiring (e.g., airtime). Generally speaking, the closer to the time an advertisement is to be aired or the more urgent the request, the higher the price the advertising time can be since the potential customer values the air time to a greater extent than a customer who is planning ahead. This concept has long been used in the airline industry, wherein the last minute business traveler is charged a greater rate than an incidental tourist planning ahead. Simple two-dimensional sample demand curves are illustrated by two-dimensional graphs, the starting point of which and the number of units being determined in advance by management.
  • While these simple demand curves can prove adequate for many applications such as serving local markets, it does not take into consideration other factors that could greatly influence and improve the customer's experience while maximizing monetary yield from the inventory. Information beyond mere demand curves and available inventory might be important in a customer's decision. The gathering of the appropriate information is left to the talent and experience of the selling agent or even the customer him or herself in these preexisting systems. For instance, a customer may want to know the Arbitron® ratings of various radio shows, and the potential frequency an advertisement might be heard by an individual listener and the number of people by whom the advertisement is heard. This information typically comes from the selling agent, but an individual agent can only know, gather and/or keep up-to-date on so much information and generally only about a single local market.
  • Also, these conventional systems presuppose a fixed amount of advertising time as its total inventory for a time period, and pricing is the single major variable used to maximize revenue. In fact, some commentators have indicated that adding units is not appropriate at all, let alone on a dynamic basis in reaction to demand. See, Fox, Pricing and Inventory Management in Today's Broadcast Environment, National Association of Broadcasters, 1997, pp. 30-31.
  • These conventional systems, because they depend on the skills and knowledge of a selling agent, tend not to be suitable for an enterprise made up of a number of business units in the same and/or different markets or for customers desiring to reach multiple markets.
  • Additionally, these systems can be subject to input “noise” due to managers and the like accumulating orders before entry into the traffic system. If accommodations are not made, these apparent sharp rises in unit selling rate can lead to a false impression of high or increased demand for a given set of inventory items. For instance, if a manager enters the orders accumulated over a week's time on a Friday, the price forecasting system may view Friday's traffic as a large increase in demand for the type of inventory sold and increase prices beyond what the market will accept.
  • SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
  • A need exists for redesigned and improved inventory management system which takes a very different approach to maximizing yield. The present invention can increase yield while improving the customer experience by taking into consideration additional factors in price forecasting. The yield management can include increasing or decreasing the amount of inventory, for instance, by changing the number of commercial slots per unit of time (e.g., units per hour). Herein, the inventory units, whether time slots for commercials, outdoor advertisements, airline seats, berths, rental cars, or any other perishable inventory susceptible to inventory management under the present application, will be referred to as “units”.
  • An additional need persists to manipulate inventory to maximize revenue using a combination of four prime variables: total hourly units, product category, buyer history and price. The present invention uses, optimally through powerful computing and real-time aggregation, a complex set of factors applied to multiple scenarios to achieve maximum revenue. The invention uses a combination of three or more primary variables to start the process. All history and inventory variables are queried at regular intervals and stored in a central repository for batch processing with filters. When a request for inventory is made, a yield algorithm starts with a base number of units (e.g., slots of advertising per hour of air time) which is set by management, such as local managers in individual radio stations in a large enterprise composed a plurality or multitude of many radio stations. A business rule is then applied to facilitate how the system can manipulate up or down the total number of commercial units per broadcast hour. Next, variables are used in the process, such as buyer history, product category, business booked to date, budgetary expectations, performance measurements such as Arbitron, Neilsen, or Traffic Audit Bureau ratings, which set the market value of the commercial units. As scenarios are built according to customer specifications, a pricing engine uses the algorithms to compute and present pricing to a customer through a selling agent.
  • In marked distinction to the prior art, rather than individual commercial units being presented to the selling agent, scenarios are developed based on the customer's requirements of frequency (number of times an individual listener is likely to hear the same commercial), reach (number of people that are likely to hear the commercial unit), budgetary considerations of the customer, demographic considerations (typically age brackets, for instance) and psycho-graphic data (categories of listeners such as attorneys, laborers, ethnic groups, etc., wherein the specific group may be more likely to buy a particular good or service). Psycho-graphic profiles are often good criteria for outdoor advertising. These scenarios provide the selling agent and customer with various combinations of units (whether radio, television, outdoor advertising or combinations thereof), generally with information about one or more of stations, demographics, station format, location, population, station performance measurements, etc. These scenarios and information are generally provided with further granularity such as broken out by time of day, important events, etc.
  • Additionally, the present invention utilizes filters to remove input “noise” from the yield management process. These filters basically smooth the input to reflect the real demand and avoid the affects of specious spikes in demand caused by, for instance, orders building up on a manager's desk before he or she takes time to enter the orders.
  • The present invention achieves these objects and goals using an enterprise inventory management system, including a performance measurement system for measuring performance of a medium in which units of inventory are used; a revenue maximization system which determines a price for said units based on predetermined pricing considerations; a central information storage system for receiving information from said performance measurement system and revenue maximization system to generate scenarios wherein various combinations of units are grouped together to meet a buyer's criteria; and a scenario planner to display the various scenarios generated by the central information storage system.
  • The process for inventory management comprising the steps of: a seller and a buyer identify an opportunity for purchasing units; obtaining the history of the buyer with respect to purchases of like units, if any; receiving from the buyer information about the buyer's purchase requirements; obtaining available inventory information; obtaining prices for said units from a revenue maximization system; and generating at least one scenario comprising a plurality of units based on said information obtained from said buyer, wherein said at least one scenario meets the buyers demands and reflects said available inventory and said prices.
  • The method of providing various scenarios to a purchaser of units of opportunities to advertise, comprises permitting a buyer to select various markets by geographic demarcation; selecting various markets within said geographic demarcation; set appropriate filters to filter out media within the selected markets using criteria selected from a group consisting of demographics, psycho-graphics or media type; inputting buyer criteria according to at least two of following criteria: the number of persons expected to be exposed to said units, the frequency of those persons seeing said units, budget for purchase of the units, demographics, psycho graphics, gross number of times people will be exposed to said units; and compiling a scenario composed of a variety of said units based on buyer criteria.
  • BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
  • The present invention will now be described by way of exemplary embodiments shown in the various figures, to which it is not limited. Throughout the figures, like elements will be labeled with identical or similar reference numbers.
  • FIG. 1 illustrates an inventory management system in accordance with the present invention.
  • FIG. 2 shows details of the local traffic and billing system illustrated in FIG. 1.
  • FIG. 3 illustrates the optional components of the performance measurement system shown in FIG. 1.
  • FIG. 4 illustrates the input information filtering process.
  • FIG. 5 illustrates the process for the enterprise management system.
  • FIG. 6 is a matrix showing an example of when to increase or decrease the number of units from a baseline set by management.
  • FIG. 7 illustrates an exemplary process flow of the scenario planner.
  • FIG. 8 is an exemplary table of daily and weekly totals for a given number of units.
  • DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
  • System Overview of Enterprise Inventory Management System (FIG. 1)
  • The enterprise management system and method provide for bundling a radio, TV, outdoor advertisements and entertainment inventory to achieve maximum revenue of these perishable products. What is presented to the selling agent 140, or directly to the advertising buyer 120, are a series of scenarios wherein groups of units are presented and annotated with various supplemental information. For instance, this supplemental information can include station identification with hyperlinks to additional information about the station, location or other marketplace identification, population, reach, performance measurements, price, demographics, psycho-graphics, number of units, frequency. The various selected information can be segregated by time of day, day of week, month, etc. Important media events, such as sports events, can also be displayed. Whatever information is generally of interest to sellers and buyers can be presented as part of the scenarios.
  • The selling agent 140 can present these scenarios to the buyer 120 during negotiations for selection by the buyer 120. In this way the seller 140 is given options in the form of different combinations of radio airtimes, TV commercial times, outdoor advertising and combinations thereof, for instance, that satisfy the buyer's 120 requirements. The system can also be a self-service system particularly if the sellers 140 are perceived as not adding sufficient value to the over all system and users experience.
  • The buyer 120 typically specifies the budget for the advertisement campaign, the desired range or number of people who will hear the advertisement, the frequency any one person is likely to hear the same advertisement, as well as demographics, psycho-graphics or other factors which tend to identify market penetration. The buyer 120 may not be as interested in or concerned about the precise times, shows, market segments, locations, etc. the advertisements appear as he or she is in the overall effect (e.g., frequency, reach, demographics and price) particularly if advertising on a national scale. Hence, revenue can be maximized by selecting inventory that otherwise might go unsold but fit the buyer's criteria. The system will also allow a buyer 120 to select particular times, shows, locations, etc. to build various scenarios if the buyer 120 has preferences or requirements in this regard.
  • An electronic central information storage system 110 collects influencing factors for the probability and price sensitivity of a particular advertising buyer 120. The central information storage system 110 also collects business rules for inventory scaling (increasing or decreasing the number of units in response to demand), available inventory to sell, budgetary goal information, advertiser payment history (e.g., indications on what the buyer has been willing to pay in the past, promptness of payment, collection problems, and any other factor which tend to indicate the price sensitivity of the buyer and/or the cost of doing business with the buyer). Station performance data (e.g., Arbitron ratings for radio, Nielsen ratings for television, Traffic Audit Bureau for outdoor advertising, or any other appropriate performance measurement service or system) is fed to a scenario planner 130 to be presented to the advertising customer 120 through a seller 140. The inventory is scaled to reflect changes in perceived demand and/or rate of increasing demand by, e.g., increasing the number of units in a period of time when demand seems to be high or increasing and decreasing inventory when demand is perceived to be below from a baseline. FIG. 6 is a matrix showing when to increase or decrease the number of units from a baseline set by management. Naturally, there are limits on how many units can be added (measured, for instance, by downward changes in performance measurements) and on how many should be cut (budgetary restraints versus increased performance measurements for example). In areas other than selling advertising opportunities, the inventory can be scaled in a physical sense. For instance, this aspect of the present invention can be used to change the number of seats available on a give flight route at a given time by changing the number of seats on a plane or changing the plane type or model to change the number of seats, or more planes can be used for a given route, etc. Similar concepts apply to the number of berths on a ship, etc.
  • In some embodiments as shown in FIG. 1, output of the scenario planner 130 is reviewed by a local station manager 150 before the seller 140 is authorized to present the various scenarios to an advertising buyer 120, although this review process and communication with the manager 150 can be omitted for pre-approved scenarios or altogether. The scenario planner 130 establishes a two-way communication with the enterprise central information storage system 110 and to the performance measurement system 170, although the performance measurement information can also be obtained through the enterprise central information storage system 110. Once three or more variables exist, inventory and pricing fuzzy logic algorithms creates scenario plans to present the most profitable bundle of offerings via the scenario planner 130, through the local station manager 150 and the seller 140 to the advertising buyer 120. Even where the scenarios are typically pre-approved, it may still be appropriate to present them to the local business units 150 for detection of abnormalities.
  • Once processed by the local business units, e.g., the local station manager 150, they are presented to the advertising buyer 120. Negotiations typically take place as explained below with reference to FIG. 4 (described in greater detail below). The main systems that interact to build these scenarios are the enterprise central information storage system 110, which receives and transmits data to the revenue maximization system 160, the performance measurement system 170 and the enterprise traffic and accounts receivable system 180. The enterprise traffic and accounts receivable system 180 provides information to the local traffic and billing systems for periods of limited duration such as twelve weeks or even two years. The local traffic and billing systems 190 then provide information to the enterprise central information storage system 110 for updating the algorithms used to determine price. The specific algorithms can change from time to time and are generally optimized with experience and objective measures.
  • A business rules engine in the central information storage system 110 provides the local rule definitions for scaling inventory and price to provide the most profitable combination.
  • Scaling inventory is a multi-step process. The enterprise central information storage system 110, for instance, tracks six quantities on a day part basis. These six quantities are spots sold-to-date Sd, forecasted spots sold Sf, maximum/beginning inventory Sm, revenue-to-date Rd, forecasted revenue Rf, and projected revenue at maximum sell-out Rm. These quantities can be summed over a calendar month to get monthly totals. If the date of inquiry is within the same calendar month, then some day parts will already be in the past. It is convenient to discard this “spoiled inventory,” which of course can no longer be sold, from the maximum/beginning inventory Sm and from the projected revenue at maximum sell-out Rm. Hence, at any point in the month, the maximum/beginning inventory is at the maximum inventory that could be sold and the projected revenue at a maximum sell-out Rm is the projected revenue at its maximum sell-out existing at the time of inquiry.
  • With these criteria in mind, it should be noted that the following are always true: the spots sold-to-date Sd are equal to or less than the forecasted spots sold Sf, and less than or equal to the maximum/beginning inventory Sm (Sd.1toreq.Sf.1toreq.Sm) and the revenue-to-date Rd is less than or equal to the forecasted revenue Rf, which is less than or equal to the projected revenue at maximum sell-out Rm (Rd.1toreq.Rf.1toreq.Rm).
  • There are four cases that should be considered. In case 1, revenue-to-date is greater than or equal to the budget (Rd.gtoreq.Budget). If the budget has already been made, it is no longer possible to change the percent of inventory that is to be used to make the budget. However, the system can still find the percent of inventory sold when budget was made, by doing a binary search of the enterprise central information system storage system 110 for the day on which the estimated revenue exceeded budget. This can facilitate future planning and adjustment of the total inventory for pricing of the budget.
  • In the second case, the revenue-to-date Rd is less than the budget and (Rd<Budget) and the budget is less than or equal to the forecasted revenue Rf (Budget.1toreq.Rf), or the revenue-to-date is less than the forecasted revenue Rf and forecasted revenue Rf is equal to the projected revenue Rd at maximum sell-out Rm, (Rd<Rf and Rf=Rm). In this case, the system can estimate ratio of inventory to budget as follows

  • InventoryToBudget=((Sf−Sd)/(Rf−Rd)).times.(Budget−Rd)+Sd.
  • The percent inventory to budget is 100 times the inventory to budget divided by the total number monthly beginning inventory.
  • In case 3, the forecasted revenue Rf is less than the budget and forecasted revenue Rf is also less than the projected revenue at maximum sell-out Rm, (Rf<budget and RF<Rm). In this case, the system can estimate inventory to budget as follows:

  • InventoryToBudget=((Sm−Sf)/(Rm−Rf).times.(Budget−Rf)+Sf.
  • In the fourth case, the forecasted revenue Rf is less than budget and the revenue-to-date Rd is equal to the forecasted revenue Rf and the revenue at maximum sell-out Rm, (Rf<budget and Rd=Rf=Rm). In this case, the inventory must be sold without making budget. It is still possible to estimate that inventory would have been needed with the following equation.

  • InventoryToBudget=(Sm/Rm).times.Budget
  • With these numbers, it is possible to define a new percent inventory to budget. For instance, if it is desired to define a new value for the inventory to budget, than the system can do so by scaling rates for all remaining inventory that is un-sold and un-spoiled. This is possible if the estimated revenue-to-date is less than budget in a preferred embodiment of the present invention.
  • The system can compute the scale factor as follows. First compute the inventory to budget by using the new desired percent inventory to budget and beginning inventory, i.e., InventorytoBudget=(PctInventorytoBu-dget)(BeginningInventory)/100. There are four cases to consider under this scenario. In case one, the inventory to budget is less than or equal to the spots sold-to-date (InventorytoBudget.1toreq.Sd). In this case, an error has occurred insofar as the system indicates that there is a desire to make budget without selling anymore spots or by returning spots that have already sold. In case two, the spots sold-to-date is less than the inventory to budget and the inventory to budget is less than or equal to the forecasted spots sold, or the spots sold-to-date is less than the forecasted spots sold and the forecasted spots sold is equal to the maximum/beginning inventory (Sd<InventoryToBudget) and ((InventoryToBudget.1toreq.Sf) or (Sd<Sf and Sf=Sm)). In this case, the scale factors computed as follows:

  • Scale Factor=(Budget−Rd)(Sf−Sd)/(Rf−Rd)(InventoryToBudget−Sd).
  • In the third case, if forecasted spots sold is less than the inventory to budget and the forecasted spots sold is less than the maximum/beginning inventory (Sf<InventoryToBudget) and (Sf<Sm). In this case, scale factors computed using the following:

  • Scale factor=(Budget−Rd)(Sm−Sf)/(Rm−Rf)(InventoryToBudget−Sf)+(Sm−Sf)(Rf−R−−d).
  • In the fourth case, the forecasted spots sold is less than the inventory to budget and the spots sold-to-date is equal to the forecasted spots sold which equal to maximum/beginning inventory ((Sf>InventoryToBudget) and (Sd=Sf=Sm)). In this case, the inventory is sold out and the system should return an error message. At this point, the system scales the rates of all available (unspoiled) inventory in the time period by the scale factor that was just computed.
  • a) Traffic and Accounts Receivable System 190 (FIG. 2)
  • As illustrated in FIG. 2, the traffic and accounts receivable system 190 in each station, and the enterprise traffic and accounts receivable system 180 includes connections to a selling agent 182 (140 in FIG. 1), various accounts receivable software 184, and the pricing functions 186 which are typically downloaded or accessed through the enterprise central information storage system 110. The pricing functions 186 optimally include budgetary goals 186 a, performance measurements 186 b (e.g., Arbitron, Neilsen ratings, and Traffic Audit Bureau) for various programs or outdoor advertisements, payment history and price sensitivity of an individual or category of customer or advertiser 186 c and product type 186 d. Product type 186 d is important since some industries are willing to pay more for acquiring inventory units, i.e., some industries have less price sensitivity than others. This information is sent in the central information storage system 110 for processing via the business rules engine to provide the local rule definitions for scaling inventory and price to provide for the most profitable combination or scenario of advertising time.
  • An advantage of this system is that a customer typically comes to the purveyor of the inventory, such as a TV or radio station, with the desire for his advertisement to be heard a given frequency of times by each listener or viewers, a given number listeners or viewers customers (reach) and to a given demographic or psycho graphic of the consuming public. The present invention recognizes, unlike previous systems, that the customer may not be the best informed or even be concerned about what program his advertisement appears on, provided that his or her commercial is heard and/or seen by the proper listeners or viewers of a given reach a given number of times in a given interval.
  • The present invention facilitates the customer's desire by utilizing the performance measurements for the number of listening or viewing public that listens to and/or views a particular show in a particular time frame. It also analyzes the product type to determine whether the given advertised product has a particular repetition frequency that is optimal or a particular demographic.
  • Additionally, revenue management is improved by evaluating the history of the buyer 120 to determine their payment history, in particular. Slow paying buyers 120 are not worth as much as buyers who pay promptly. Accordingly, buyers 120 that tend to have poor payment histories and infrequent buyers 120 from the inventory management system are priced differently than buyers 120 that pay promptly and/or who are frequent buyers. Also, the history of the buyer 120 indicates the buyer price sensitivity by showing what he or she has been willing to pay, and perhaps more importantly, what he or she has been unwilling to pay. Hence, the history of the buyer 186 c is utilized as part of the pricing function 186. Additionally, each local station has a budgetary goal 186 d which is set by management. The present inventory management system determines how many units of advertising must be sold at what rate and at what time to achieve such a goal which establishes a base line. The inventory management system varies the number of units from this base line to meet or exceed this goal without unduly adversely affecting performance, for instance. Hence, the budgetary considerations not only form a starting point, but are utilized throughout the process such that the budget can be achieved.
  • b) Performance Measurement System 170 (FIG. 3)
  • The performance measurement system 170 shown in FIG. 3 can be of any form which gives a measure of the extent of the audience. Surveys are used by Nielsen and Arbitron rating services, for instance. It is also possible to detect the turning frequencies of passing cars to survey the extent of the audience for radio stations. Nielsen ratings uses set-top boxes to monitor channel selection and TV viewer ship of cross-sections of the audience. Internet listener ship can be easily tracked. Anecdotal indicators, such as listener call-in frequency, and countless other mechanisms for tracking the performance of a business unit 150, can be used. This information can be provided directly to the scenario planners 130 and the rate management subsystem 160, in addition to the enterprise central information storage system 110.
  • c) Revenue Maximization System 180
  • The revenue maximization system 180 such as shown in FIG. 3 utilizes algorithms, as explained above, to take into consideration the station's budget 186 a, the performance measurements 186 b, the history of the customer 186 c and the product type 186 d in determining at what price the advertising time should be sold. While traditional aspects are used, such as increasing price as inventory diminishes as the inventory nears performance, other factors such as the customer history 186 c, measured performance of the show 186 b and product type 186 d are utilized to impact pricing, in addition to the station's budget.
  • Hence yield management is achieved with the following functions: sellout forecasting, revenue forecasting, fuzzy rules and pricing adjustment. With respect to sellout forecasting, the central information storage or data mart 110 will provide rate management system 160 with units sold and beginning inventory for a number of days. This information is filtered to remove noise and used to compute the current sell pace, using the process shown in FIG. 4. The sellout to date and sell pace are combined with historical data to estimate the sellout forecast.
  • With respect to revenue forecasting, the revenue maximization system 160 stores a price for each unit of inventory. To compute a revenue forecast, the revenue maximization system 160 will sum all of the prices from the first spot up to the forecasted sellout. It will also provide actual revenue on a weekly basis but this will arrive after the week is over and thus it will be too late to utilize as a forecasting aid.
  • The output of fuzzy rules is a determination of whether the current prices are too high, too low or just right. The input is composed of two fuzzy measurements: (a) forecasted revenue compared to the monthly budget and (b) the rate of change of the forecasted revenue. The fuzzy rules are generally as follows: The price is “low” and must be raised when the forecasted revenue is increasing, and the price is “high” and must be lowered when the forecasted revenue is decreasing and the forecast is lower than the budget and the forecasted is not increasing.
  • With respect to pricing adjustment, if the price is deemed too low or two high then the price is adjusted once a day (or other suitable time period) to correct the problem. The size and type of correction is determined by the user. The type of correction can be either a percent correction or an absolute dollar correction. For example the user can select values so that strong demand causes a $5 increment and weak demand causes a 2% decrement in rates for remaining inventory to give but one of many combinations of possible types of adjustments.
  • FIG. 4 shows a process diagram for obtaining accurate results in the revenue maximization system 160. The input of the process includes economic factors that influence demand, such as Miler Kaplan Market buying data and the Consumer Price Index (CPI). This type of input is another variable used in the pricing algorithm which affects the budget data by forecasting up and forecasting down budgets Process noise is due to adverting buyers buying spots in both discrete and random manners. The output of the process 160 a is the state of the current sellout and sellout pace. For an accurate measure in the measure processes 160 b, measure noise also has to be considered. Measure noise is caused, for example, by orders sitting on the desks of managers, etc. until the end of a period (e.g., the week) and then entered into the system, or the traffic system moves spots from one day part to another (e.g., morning to afternoon). The measurement is the current sellout read from the traffic systems 180, 190 via the scenario planner 130.
  • The filter requirements in the process diagram of FIG. 4 include that the filter be able to remove high frequency noise such as orders collecting on desks to be entered all at once. The filter can be a low-pass filter which ignores or attenuates frequencies of one cycle per week or higher. The filter should also be causal, since it cannot use future (and therefore unavailable) data to derive a current estimate. The filter has to be unbiased and without lag in the output. For example the filter can be a finite impulse response filter using for example a 20 sample response such as sin c filter Sin(.omega.x)/x where .omega.=0.33. There are several ways the filtered data can be used to project the final sellout. It can be on one or more of the following criteria (1) on the basis of sellout to date compared to current time frame historical sellout added to final historical sellout, (2) by historical increments added to the sellout to date, and/or (3) by trend projections to final without regard to historical data.
  • The filtering is accomplished with the use of a filter kernel which is used to remove the measurement noise from various input signals. If k[i] denotes the filter kernel where 0.1toreq.i.1toreq.19, the filter kernel can be computed once and stored for use in future filter iterations. This filter kernel is computed as follows:
  • Let.omega.=0.33 and t[i]=sin(.omega.i)/i for all 0<i.1toreq. 19. Further, let t[0]=.omega.
  • Then, let 1 k[i]=t[i]i=0 19 t[i]
  • Prefiltering on an input folder x[i] where x.gtoreq.1 and assumed that it is indexed so that the more recent measurements occur with the lower values of i, then the higher values of i indicate earlier measurements up to the first measurement x[n]. If there are missing data values or dropped to 0 in the input screen than the input is prefiltered by replacing the missing values or 0 values with at least one good value. This should be repeated for up to 7 data values, in at least one preferred embodiment of the present invention. For example:
  • 1 Index 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 . . . Input 6 5 0 0 0 3 2 1 . . . Pre-6 5 3 3 3 3 2 1 . . . Filt
  • After, e.g., seven missing or zero values this pre-filtering should end and future zeros should be allowed into the main filter formula. This allows for the possibility that a manager has designated a time period (a day or day part) as commercial free without skewing the filter too much.
  • The main filter formula can now be defined as follows: 2 Filt(x)[i]=(j=ii+19.times.[j]k[j−i].times.[i] if i>n−19 if i n−19
  • The basic approach can be expressed as follows:
  • step (1) find the filtered historical final average number of spots sold for a given day part;
  • step (2) find the filtered historical average number of spots sold for that day part at the current number of lead days;
  • step (3) determine the tentative forecast as the current sellout minus the value of step
      • minus the value of step (1);
  • step (4) determine the final forecast as the value of step (3) limited to at least the current sell-out and at most the quantity sold. The result of step (4) is summed over all day parts in the range.
  • d) Enterprise Central Information Storage System or Data Mart 110
  • The enterprise central information storage system or datamart 110 is the hub of information which gathers data from the rate management system 160, the performance measurement system 170, the enterprise traffic and accounts receivable system 180, as well as the local traffic and billing system 190. This information is downloaded in batches and algorithms generated using a neural network, for example, to improve accuracy over time.
  • e) Scenario Planner 130
  • Rather than present advertising units one at a time, or in groups which match the customer's budget and other criteria and desired air time, the present invention will receive information about the customer's budget and design a scenario by the scenario planner 130 to present the customer 120 with a list of all units and additional information which meet the buyer's 120 budget as well as desire for the number of times a given listener hears or sees the commercial the reach of the station, and the compatible demographics for the given advertised product or other criteria, for example.
  • 2) Process for Enterprise Management System (FIG. 5)
  • The process for the enterprise management system shown in FIG. 5 begins (step 500) with the seller 130 and buyer 120 identifying an opportunity for advertising at step 502. If the customer or buyer 120 is a current customer, at step 504, the process proceeds to obtaining the buyer history and calculating and assigning a probability that the buyer will close on the deal from the enterprise account management system, as shown in step 508. However, if the customer 120 is determined at step 504 to be a new customer, then the new customer is processed in step 506 to gather information about the customer, including such information as contact information, types of products being sold, the types of advertisement that are to be aired, credit ratings and/or history, etc.
  • After step 508, the system obtains available inventory information (AV) from the local enterprise traffic and accounts receivable systems 180, as shown in step 510. Thereafter, either the system generates prices for standard inventory range (SI) from the revenue maximization system 160 as shown in step 512, or in the alternative, generates prices for expanded inventory range (EI) from the revenue maximization system 160 at step 514. Thereafter, at step 516, scenarios are generated using fuzzy rule sets. At step 518, the prices and schedule are negotiated. To permit time for negotiation, at step 520 the prices and schedules in the scenarios are typically frozen for a period of time, such as ten calendar days. At step 520, it is determined whether the purchase is placed outside the freeze period, and if so, the process returns to obtain inventory from the local inventory management system at step 510. If the purchase is not placed outside the period in which the schedule is frozen, then process proceeds to step 522 where it is determined whether the purchase is placed inside the freeze period. If it has been placed inside the freeze period, then the order is processed, at step 524. If it is not placed within the freeze period, as determined at step 522, the purchase is canceled at step 526 and the process terminates at step 528.
  • 3) Exemplary Scenario Planner Process (FIG. 7)
  • To facilitate an understanding of the functionality of the enterprise inventory management system, functionality as viewed through the scenario planner screen shots and process flow will be explained with reference to FIG. 7. After entering into the appropriate location on a network, such as the Internet, an extended intranet such as a virtual private network or a closed intranet, the seller 140 is prompted to begin selecting various markets (Step 701), generally by state in the U.S., but any geographic demarcation might be acceptable. For instance, a computer screen can display a map of the U.S. and permit a selection of various states via clicking on cursor locations on the map. Once the states are selected, the various markets within the states and adjacent states are displayed for selection (Step 702). For instance, Florida markets may include Albany, Ga.; Dothan and Ft. Myers-Naples, Fla. etc. Through simple graphic user interface checkboxes or other appropriate mechanisms, the various markets are either selected or excluded.
  • The screen displayed to the seller 140 can include graphics to illustrate progress through the process of developing a scenario, this process including customer search to locate the customer information or input relevant information for new customers, customer selection via the index of current and new customers, proposal setup, and station filters, for example.
  • Next, appropriate filters are set up (Step 703). For example, radio station filters operate, for instance, by identifying primary, secondary and tertiary demographics. For instance, the primary demographics can include both men and women in the age bracket of 25 to 54, with the secondary and tertiary demographics being exclusive to men and women, respectively, for instance. This might be appropriate for restaurants catering to a specific demographic, for instance. By this mechanism, various radio stations that do not appeal to the demographic selected by the buyer 120 would be excluded from further selection.
  • Thereafter, station selection is prompted (Step 704) and, from the market list previously identified, such as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, each individual market is then explored (Step 705). A filtered list for a given geographic demarcation, such as Florida, is then provided to the seller 140. For instance, after selecting Florida, the seller can look at the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale market. The seller can input a gross number of stations he may wish to look at in the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale market, which are then listed. Various stations can be listed to include various statistics regarding its audience by the primary, secondary and tertiary demographics, as well as identifying the format of the station (e.g., urban contemporary, adult contemporary, Spanish topical, etc.). Of course, the station identification is listed and hyperlinks can be provided to information about the stations as well as performance measurement information. Other stations in the geographic market may be listed even though they have been filtered out as not compatible with the selection of demographics in case there is some exceptional reason for choosing one of these stations. The large number of stations fitting the demographics is then resorted and re-ranked according to whatever criteria in which the seller 140 is currently interested (Step 706). Hyperlinks, for instance, can connect to a station information page which identifies various aspects about the station, such as call letters, various contact information, various demographics or psycho-graphics, geographic location, and other marketing information.
  • Additionally, the information can include current inventory and rate information. For instance, for a given station, cross-market rates are provided and show demarcations between morning, midday, afternoon, evening and overnight segments, including the number of units available and the current rates for those units. The information is generally presented in a table with date information on one axis and time information on the other axis with the rest of the information appearing in the cells of the table, and perhaps color coded for clarity and information density. Naturally, any future date can be selected. The inventory management system will display the rates generated by the revenue management system 160 as conveyed through the enterprise central information storage system 110. These rates will be for the current year and even the following year, for instance. Thereafter, various other geographic markets can be selected using the same procedure until all desired stations in all desired markets have been selected.
  • Based on this information, a cross-market schedule or scenario for a customer, given the customer's desire for a particular demographic for instance, is built (Step 707). The schedule includes information including the reach, on a weekly or all weeks basis, the frequency on a current week or all weeks basis, the gross number of impressions (reach times frequency), as well as other rate information and ultimately the price. Additionally, a table is set up for the customer 120 or seller 140 to enter the number of units on a given day in a given time frame.
  • For instance, gross impressions indicates the efficiencies of particular units, such as the AM time slot on a summer Monday, which may be significantly different than a Friday afternoon time slot during the winter. A selected schedule of slots for a given day can be applied across the week, and across all weeks of interest, or different schedules can be designed for each day and each week. As various markets and radio stations, for instance, are selected and time slots designated, the overall reach, frequency and gross impressions can be provided to the customer as a measure of the efficiency of the selections. Thereafter, a summary of the information is provided by identification of the station, their required fees, the number of units requested, the gross price, as well as providing an opportunity for the buyer 120 and seller 140 to deselect various stations or add various stations or markets (Step 708).
  • Hence, it can be seen that scenarios are built first by choosing geographic locations, choosing markets within those geographic locations, filtering out stations that are inappropriate for the selected demographics of the advertisement buyer 120, identifying appropriate locations for slots using performance measurements such as reach and frequency, as well as gross impressions and thereafter providing a price on a station-by-station basis, market-by-market basis, or by geographical location, or any combination thereof.
  • As should be apparent from the foregoing description, advertising buyers 120 who use market definitions encompassing various media markets easily select scenarios where key factors such as reach and frequency can be maximized for a given budget. This facilitates the sale of these units, which can be beneficial to revenue maximization insofar as units that may otherwise go unsold will be sold and all units sold at optimal prices. Also, certain percentages of units can be withheld from sale in one time frame so that the withheld units can be sold later at a higher price. Additionally, there may be opportunities where a single station serves more than one geographical market, for which the present enterprise inventory management system would facilitate the identification thereof.
  • As management tools, the inventory management system identifies monetary data regarding each individual station, or of all stations collectively. This information can be used as budgetary information, management performance, and planning purposes.
  • The revenue maximization system 160 takes the information and the scenarios, whether reserved with an appropriate weight assigned to the scenario, or ordered by the buyer 120, to calculate the price of various time slots. For instance, the revenue maximization system 160 is designed to offer the right price for the right customer at the right time. It presents information in table form, such as calendar form, where the days and time segments during the day are listed. Within each cell in the table, the price, remaining inventory, total inventory and percent sold can be explained in a meaningful fashion. Daily and weekly totals for given time slots, as well as overall weekly totals, can be provided in the same graphic display. An example of such a table is shown in FIG. 8.
  • 4) Enterprise Level Data Mining
  • At the enterprise level, various information can be mined from the central storage system 110. For instance, for any given calendar month or day, the budget, the forecast in meeting that budget, the revenue-to-date and the percent of budget, can be displayed by station manager or by individual salesperson. The granularity of the information can be on a monthly basis, weekly basis, daily basis, or even time frame during a day basis. Additionally, information regarding individual salespeople, managers, radio stations, geographic locations and markets can be displayed in tabular form to review the success rate of the yield. For instance, various stations within a geographic location can be listed adjacent numbers indicating the calendar budget, the forecast in meeting that budget, the current revenue-to-date and percent of budget, the inventory both sold and projected, and when inventory is projected to sell-out, as well as the number of unsold available units. The revenue factors also provided for both the current and budget to identify the success of the yield management system and the salespeople. The amount of money either exceeding budget or below budget can be indicated, as well as other information in any appropriate format. Naturally, the information can be presented in various formats, such as by station, by calendar segments for a geographic location or across the entire enterprise, for instance. The current demand rates can be easily displayed on segment of daily, weekly and monthly bases, indicating whether they are considered high, normal or low, as well as the actual rate, again in proper graphic and tabular form.
  • The following information for each month in the year can be used to compute changes in the budget.
  • 2 Calendar Intersection Broadcast Budget (cB) Rev. To Date (iRd) Spots Sold-to-date (bSd) Forecast Rev (cRf) Forecasted Rev. (iRf) Forecasted Spots Sold (bSf) Rev To Date (cRd) Maximum Spots Sold (bSm=Sold+Avail) Revenue-to-date (bRd) Forecasted Revenue (bRf) Maximum Revenue (bRm=Rev at bSm) Budget (bB) % Inventory to Budget (PctInv) Remaining Revenue Factor (RRF) Beginning Inventory (I)
  • The intersection column above indicates that the time period is for the intersection of the calendar and broadcast months. For example the intersection for October 2001 starts on Oct. 1, 2001 and ends on Oct. 28, 2001.
  • Of the values above the following are actually displayed on the page (in order): cB, bB, PctInv, cRf, bRf, RRF, cRd, bRd.
  • When the Pct Inventory to budget for a month changes and after receiving a new value for PctInv, the following values are generally updated: cRf, iRf, bRf, bRm, RRF. Of those the following values must be redisplayed: cRf, bRf, RRF. Here are formulas (in order) which can be used to recompute these values:

  • cRf=cRd+(ScaleFactor)(iRf−iRd)

  • iRf=iRd+(ScaleFactor)(iRf−iRd)

  • bRf=bRd+(ScaleFactor)(bRf−bRd)

  • bRm=bRd+(ScaleFactor)(bRm−bRd); and

  • RRF=(ScaleFactor)(RRF).
  • While every listed quantity can be a floating-point number, the displayed value should generally be rounded to the nearest whole number.
  • When the Remaining Revenue Factor for a month changes, a new (whole number) value for RRF is obtained. The new value can be divided by the old (floating point) value of RRF. The result is the scale factor. Then the following values are then updated: PctInv, cRf, iRf, bRf, bRm. Of those, the following are redisplayed: PctInv, cRf, bRf. The following formulas (in order) can be used to recompute these values:
  • To recompute the PctInv as described above regarding Pct Inventory to Budget

  • cRf=cRd+(ScaleFactor)(iRf−iRd)

  • iRf=iRd+(ScaleFactor)(iRf−iRd)

  • bRf=bRd+(ScaleFactor)(bRf−bRd); and

  • bRm=bRd+(ScaleFactor)(bRm−bRd).
  • Weekly percentages can be calculated based as the following quantities for each week in the month:
  • Revenue-to-date (wRd);
  • Forecasted Revenue (wRf);
  • Remaining Revenue Factor (RRF); and
  • (# Pct).
  • Then for each day part in the month the system can give the following quantities:
  • Current Rate/Price (cP); and
  • Max Rate/Price (mP).
  • In addition the system is told the following four quantities:
  • budget for the year (yB);
  • budget for the month (mB);
  • yearly forecast (yRf); and
  • monthly forecast (mRf).
  • When a slider is moved, the Remaining Revenue Factor (RRF) for the week moves with the slider. Next a scale factor can be computed by dividing the current value of RRF by the prior value. Then update the Weekly, Monthly and Yearly forecasts as follows (in order):

  • yRf=yRf=wRf;

  • mRf=mRf−wRf,

  • wRf=wRd+(ScaleFactor)(wRf−wRd);

  • yRf=yRf+wRf; and

  • mRf=mRf+wRf
  • In the above equations wRf is the forecast for the selected week. So it should be subscripted to select the week of the slider.
  • In addition all of the day part values within the selected week should change as follows:

  • cP=(ScaleFactor)cP; and

  • mP=(ScaleFactor)mP.
  • Day Part Percentages
  • The system is generally provided with the following values for all 35 day parts in the week:
  • Ratings Value Pct;
  • Day part Value Pct;
  • Remaining Revenue Factor (RRF);
  • Revenue-to-date (Rd);
  • Forecasted Revenue (Rf);
  • Minimum Rate/Price (Pmin);
  • Current Rate/Price (Pcurr);
  • Maximum Rate/Price (Pmax); and
  • Spots Sold-To-Date (Sd).
  • In addition the system can get the Forecasted Revenue for the week (wRf).
  • When the Slider is moved, the remaining Revenue factor should change to track the slider. Next a scale factor can be computed by dividing the new value of by the prior value. Then the following values can be updated: Rf, Pmin, Pcurr, Pmax, and wRf.

  • wRf=wRf−Rf;

  • Rf=Rd+(ScaleFactor)(Rf−Rd);

  • wRf=wRf+Rf;

  • Pcurr=(ScaleFactor)Pcurr;

  • Pmax=(ScaleFactor)Pmax; and

  • wRf=wRf−Rf.
  • Note that all values from above except wRf are specific to a day part and should be subscripted by the day part. If Spots Sold-to-date is 0 (Sd=0) then Pmin should also be updated as follows:

  • Pmin=(ScaleFactor)Pmin.
  • Availability Ranges are determined as follows:
  • Let I be the beginning inventory for the selected day part;
  • Let Sd be the number of spots sold-to-date; and
  • Note: Sd.1toreq.I is assumed. If that is not the case then I needs to be updated so that I=Sd.

  • Let N.sub.i=1+.sup.(1−1)I/.sub.10 where 1.1toreq.i.1toreq.11.
  • N.sub.i Represents the spot number whose price is displayed by the ith slider from the right. Let P.sub.i represent the price of spot number N.sub.i.
  • So P.sub.i is the value displayed by the ith slider from the right.
  • Where JavaScript is used, the ASP code should build a JavaScript variable containing I and an array containing the 11 values of P.sub.i. If there is a special range number i such that N.sub.i<Sd<N.sub.i+1−, then the ASP code should build a JavaScript variable for the Revenue within the last partially sold range (Rr). The value of Rr can be obtained from the Sum_Rates_By_Range method of the COM object for spot numbers N.sub.i through Sd−1 inclusive. The ASP code should also build a JavaScript variable to hold the last sold spot price (P1). The value of P1 can be obtained from the Get_Spot_Price method of the COM object.
  • A JavaScript function can also be made available to the client. This function should compute the Revenue by Range given the spot numbers for the endpoints of the range and the prices for those spot numbers. The Revenue by Range is just the sum of the Prices in the range assuming a straight-line price curve. The formula to sum up all of the prices within a range is 3 RevByRange (Num 1, Num 2, Price 1, Price 2=Price 1+(Num 2−Num 1−1) (Price 2+Price 1 2)
  • Where Num.sub.1 is the spot number for the first spot in the range and Num.sub.2 is the spot number for the next spot after the end of the range. Price.sub.1 and Price.sub.2 are the prices for spot number Num.sub.1 and Num.sub.2 respectively. Note that the formula assumes that Num.sub.2>Num.sub.1.
  • When a Slider is moved, the slider will control the Rate for that spot number and indirectly it will also control all of the spots in the range to the left and the range to the right by setting the prices along straight lines.
  • Slider number i is allowed to move if Sd<N.sub.i. Note that this means slider 11 can always move. When slider i is moved, some JavaScript code can change the price P.sub.i according to the new slider position. Next the following psuedo-code should be used.
  • Rem Update Range on Left
  • If i.1toreq.1 then
  • The revenue for range i is RevByRange(N.sub.i, N.sub.i+1, P.sub.i, P.sub.i+1
  • End if
  • Rem Update Range on Right
  • If i.gtoreq.2 and Sd>N.sub.1−1 then
  • The revenue for range i−1 is Rr+RevByRanage(Sd, N.sub.i, P1, P.sub.i)
  • Else
  • The revenue for range i−1 is RevByRange(N.sub.i−1, N.sub.i, P.sub.i−1, P.sub.i)
  • End if.
  • Calendar Budget to Broadcast Budget Conversion is Calculated as Follows:
  • DEFINITIONS
  • Let CalBdgt[i] be the calendar budget for month number i where 1<i<12;
  • Let BcastBdgt[i] be the broadcast budget for month number i;
  • Let NumBcastWeeks[i] be the number of broadcast weeks in month number i;
  • Let FirstDOW[i] be the number of the day of week of the first day of calendar month number i. Monday should be represented by 1. For example if February starts on a Sunday then FirstDOW[2]=7;
  • Let Arb Val(k) be the Arbitron Value of the station for the day of week represented by k where 1.1toreq.k.1toreq.7. Note that 0.1toreq.ArbVal(k).1toreq.1. If Arbitron Ratings are not used then we can define ArbVal(k)=for all 7 days of week. If special consideration needs to be given to weekends that can be done too;
  • Let Week[1,i] be the ratio of revenue for month i that will be achieved in the first (broadcast) week of the month. If this quantity is not known it can be set as follows:

  • Week[1,i]=1/.sub.NumBcastWeeks[i]
  • Let G denote the annual budget growth factor in percent. So next January's budget is expected to be (1+G/.sub.100)CalBdgt[ ].
  • Common Computation
  • Now a boundary factor for each month is defined as follows: 4 B[i]=Week [1, i] k=1 FirstDOW[i]−1 ArbVal (k)
  • The boundary factor determines the percent of the broadcast month's budget that occurs before the calendar month starts. Notice that if month i starts on Monday then FirstDOW[i]−1=0. Thus B[i]=0.
  • Broadcast to Calendar Computation can be carried out as follows:

  • CalBdgt[i]=BcastBdgt[i](1−B[i]+BcastBdgt[i+1]B[i+1]
  • Calendar to Broadcast Computation can be obtained as follows:
  • The definition of B[i] can be extended to include January of the following year. But first the growth factor G is incorporated. 5 B[13]=1+G 100 Week [1,1] k=1 FirstDOW[13]−1 ArbVal (k)
  • Next the Broadcast to Calendar Matrix is defined as follows:
  • 3 1-B[1] B[2]000000000001-B[2] B[3]000000000001-B[3] B[4]000000000 001-B[4] B[5]000000000001-B[5] B[6]000000000001-B[6] B[7]00000000 0001-B[7] B[8]000000000001-B[8] B[9] 000000000001-B[9] B[10]000000 000001-B[10] B[11]000000000001-B[11] B[12] B[13]00000000001-B[12]
  • To go from Calendar to Broadcast the inverse of this matrix is computed and applied it to the calendar budgets. The following code accomplishes this:
  • 4 Function Is_Even(X) If X Mod 2=0 Then Is_Even=True Else Is_Even=False End If End Function Function Cal2Bcast(i_BC_Month As Integer, Cal_Budget As Range, First_Fraction As Range) Dim Cal_Index Dim Product_Index Dim Product Dim Sum Dim Det1, Det2 Determinant=Det1−Det2 where Det1=Prod(1−Fi) and Det2=Prod(Fi) ′Note use First_Fraction(1)) instead of First_Fraction(1) ′but (1-First_Fraction(13)) is not used instead of (1-First_Fraction(1)) Sum=0 Det1 (1-First_Fraction(1)) Det2=First_Fraction(13) For Product_Index=2 To 12 Det1=Det1*(1-First_Fraction(Product_Index)) Det2=Det2*First_Fraction(Product_Index) Next Product_Index ′Case 1: Cal<BC For Cal_Index=1 To i_BC_Month-1 If Is_Even(i_BC_Month+Cal_Index) Then Product=Cal_Budget(Cal_Index) Else Product=−Cal_Budget(Cal_Index) End If ′Case 1.1: p<=Cal<BC Product=Product*First_Fraction(13) For Product_Index=2 To Cal_Index Product=Product*First Fraction(Product_Index) Next Product_Index ′Case 1.2: Cal.1toreq.p<BC For Product_Index=Cal_Index+1 To i_BC_Month−1 Product=Product*(1−First_Fraction(Product_Index)) Next Product_Index ′Case 1.3: Cal<p=BC—Nothing Done ′Case 1.4: Cal<BC<p For Product_Index=i_BC_Month+1 To 12 Product=Product*First_Fraction(Product_Index) Next Product_Index Sum=Sum+Product Next Cal_Index ′Case 2: BC<=Cal For Cal_Index=i_BC_Month To 12 If Is_Even(i_BC_Month+Cal_Index) Then Product=Cal_Budget(Cal_Index) Else Product=−Cal_Budget(Cal_Index) End If ′Case 2.1: p<BC<=Cal For Product_Index=1 To i_BC_Month−1 Product=Product*(1-First_Fraction(Product_Index)) Next Product_Index ′Case 2.2: p=BC<=Cal ′Case 2.3: BC<p<=Cal For Product_Index=i_BC_Month+1 To Cal_Index Product=Product*First_Fraction(Product_Index) Next Product_Index ′Case 2.4: BC<=Cal<p For Product_Index=Cal_Index+1 To 12 Product=Product*(1-First_Fraction(Product_Index)) Next Product_Index Sum=Sum+Product Next Cal_Index Cal2Bcast=Sum/(Det1−Det2) End Function
  • Because this information is in a format available for processing, such functions as an administrator alert can be provided to indicate low performance of a given salesperson, market or time segment, for instance. Additionally, if it appears that the total revenue is going to be significantly less than the forecast, alerts can be generated as well as where it is projected that the inventory will not sell-out, or would oversell.
  • Various scenarios can be developed wherein the effects of increasing or decreasing rates can be measured or predicted, based on historical information, for instance. Administrative level programmers can adjust various factors, including the graphic slide switches, to manipulate data regarding weekly percentages, revenue-to-date, forecast revenue, and remaining revenue factors, as well as the unit rates on daily and hourly bases. Other information, such as the ratings value percent, day part value percent, current rate and maximum rate, can also be displayed in proper tabular format wherein the one axis is a calendar and the other includes the day part as well as the various data mentioned above. Graphic switches, etc. can be provided on the screen so that this information can be manipulated in various “what if” hypothetical scenarios. Information like forecast revenue or revenue-to-date, remaining available units, remaining additional units that could be added can all be provided in appropriate graphical form. Additionally, various events such as sports events, can be identified in calendars so as to provide the seller with information regarding whether the price should be changed given the nature of the event appearing on the media.
  • Various revenue forecasts can be provided in graphical form to show the effects of having more or less available slots, increasing or decreasing the rate, and reviewing the revenue forecasts by the range or cumulative revenue forecasts. Additionally, fuzzy controls in the form of slide switches to move up cost per unit or number of units, or to move-up percentage, are provided to manipulate the fuzzy logic. These controls can be in any convenient graphical or non-graphical format.
  • The present invention has been described by way of the foregoing description of preferred embodiments to which it is not limited. Variations and modifications of the invention will occur to those skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the invention as defined by the claims appended hereto. For instance, while radio, TV and outdoor advertising media have been emphasized, the invention is also useful in areas outside these industries, such as car rental, cruise ship and other types of businesses wherein inventory control is useful.

Claims (20)

1. A method comprising:
receiving, by executing program instructions, information indicating selected markets within a geographic demarcation;
setting filters, by executing program instructions, to filter a media within selected markets based on criteria selected from a group consisting of demographics, psycho graphics and media type;
obtaining, by executing program instructions, buyer criteria including at least two of following criteria: a number of persons expected to be exposed to advertisement units, a frequency of exposure of advertisement units to the number of persons, budget to purchase the advertisement units, demographics, psycho graphics, and desired gross number of times the number of persons will be exposed to the advertisement units;
compiling a scenario by executing program instructions in a computer system, the scenario being composed essentially of a variety of advertisement units selected based on the buyer's criteria; and
pricing the advertisement units based on the buyer criteria and a purchasing history of the buyer, by executing program instructions.
2. The method of claim 1, comprising:
assigning a probability that the buyer will make a purchase of advertisement units; and
pricing the advertisement units based on at least the probability.
3. The method of claim 1, further comprising pricing the advertisement units using inventory scaling, available inventory of advertisement units to sell, budgetary goal information, and buyer payment history.
4. The method of claim 1, the buyer's criteria including at least one criterion selected from a group consisting of marketplace, population of the marketplace, performance measurement, price, number of available advertisement units, and day parts.
5. The method of claim 1, comprising:
displaying a geographic map on a screen; and
wherein various markets are selected through a graphical user interface.
6. The method of claim 5, displaying a geographic map including displaying graphics to illustrate progress through a process of compiling a scenario.
7. The method of claim 1, comprising displaying the scenario to the buyer.
8. The method of claim 7, displaying including displaying a schedule of advertisement slots and a price for the scenario.
9. The method of claim 7, comprising permitting the buyer to edit the selected markets after the compiled scenario is displayed.
10. A computer readable medium tangibly embodying a program of computer executable instructions, the program of instructions comprising:
at least one instruction to receive, by executing program instructions, information indicating selected markets within a geographic demarcation;
at least one instruction to set filters, by executing program instructions, to filter a media within selected markets based on criteria selected from a group consisting of demographics, psycho graphics and media type;
at least one instruction to obtain, by executing program instructions, buyer criteria including at least two of following criteria: a number of persons expected to be exposed to advertisement units, a frequency of exposure of advertisement units to the number of persons, budget to purchase the advertisement units, demographics, psycho graphics, and desired gross number of times the number of persons will be exposed to the advertisement units;
at least one instruction to compile a scenario by executing program instructions in a computer system, the scenario being composed essentially of a variety of advertisement units selected based on the buyer's criteria; and
at least one instruction to price the advertisement units based on the buyer criteria and a purchasing history of the buyer, by executing program instructions.
11. The computer readable medium of claim 10, the program of instructions comprising:
at least one instruction to assign a probability that the buyer will make a purchase of advertisement units; and
at least one instruction to price the advertisement units based on at least the probability.
12. The computer readable medium of claim 10, the program of instructions further comprising at least one instruction to price the advertisement units includes using inventory scaling, available inventory of advertisement units to sell, budgetary goal information, and buyer payment history.
13. The computer readable medium of claim 10, the buyer's criteria including at least one criterion selected from a group consisting of marketplace, population of the marketplace, performance measurement, price, number of available advertisement units, and day parts.
14. The computer readable medium of claim 10, the program of instructions comprising:
at least one instruction to display a geographic map on a screen; and
wherein various markets are selected through a graphical user interface.
15. The computer readable medium of claim 10, displaying a geographic map including displaying graphics to illustrate progress through a process of compiling a scenario.
16. The computer readable medium of claim 10, the program of instructions comprising at least one instruction to display the scenario to the buyer.
17. The computer readable medium of claim 16, displaying including displaying a schedule of advertisement slots and a price for the scenario.
18. The computer readable medium of claim 16, the program of instructions comprising at least one instruction to permit the buyer to edit the selected markets after the compiled scenario is displayed.
19. An advertisement inventory management system comprising:
a memory; and
a processor, the processor configured to:
receive, by executing program instructions, information indicating selected markets within a geographic demarcation;
set filters, by executing program instructions, to filter a media within selected markets based on criteria selected from a group consisting of demographics, psycho graphics and media type;
obtain, by executing program instructions, buyer criteria including at least two of following criteria: a number of persons expected to be exposed to advertisement units, a frequency of exposure of advertisement units to the number of persons, budget to purchase the advertisement units, demographics, psycho graphics, and desired gross number of times the number of persons will be exposed to the advertisement units;
compile a scenario by executing program instructions in a computer system, the scenario being composed essentially of a variety of advertisement units selected based on the buyer's criteria; and
price the advertisement units based on the buyer criteria and a purchasing history of the buyer, by executing program instructions.
20. The apparatus of claim 19, the device configured to:
display the scenario to the buyer, wherein a display includes a schedule of advertisement slots and a price for the scenario, and
receive commands to edit the selected markets after the scenario is displayed.
US13/096,186 2002-01-15 2011-04-28 Inventory and Revenue Maximization Method and System Abandoned US20110202410A1 (en)

Priority Applications (1)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US13/096,186 US20110202410A1 (en) 2002-01-15 2011-04-28 Inventory and Revenue Maximization Method and System

Applications Claiming Priority (3)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US10/045,089 US7386492B2 (en) 2002-01-15 2002-01-15 Inventory and revenue maximization method and system
US12/081,905 US7941350B2 (en) 2002-01-15 2008-04-23 Inventory and revenue maximization method and system
US13/096,186 US20110202410A1 (en) 2002-01-15 2011-04-28 Inventory and Revenue Maximization Method and System

Related Parent Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
US12/081,905 Continuation US7941350B2 (en) 2002-01-15 2008-04-23 Inventory and revenue maximization method and system

Publications (1)

Publication Number Publication Date
US20110202410A1 true US20110202410A1 (en) 2011-08-18

Family

ID=21935931

Family Applications (4)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
US10/045,089 Expired - Lifetime US7386492B2 (en) 2002-01-15 2002-01-15 Inventory and revenue maximization method and system
US12/081,905 Expired - Lifetime US7941350B2 (en) 2002-01-15 2008-04-23 Inventory and revenue maximization method and system
US13/096,160 Expired - Fee Related US8799095B2 (en) 2002-01-15 2011-04-28 Inventory and revenue maximization method and system
US13/096,186 Abandoned US20110202410A1 (en) 2002-01-15 2011-04-28 Inventory and Revenue Maximization Method and System

Family Applications Before (3)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
US10/045,089 Expired - Lifetime US7386492B2 (en) 2002-01-15 2002-01-15 Inventory and revenue maximization method and system
US12/081,905 Expired - Lifetime US7941350B2 (en) 2002-01-15 2008-04-23 Inventory and revenue maximization method and system
US13/096,160 Expired - Fee Related US8799095B2 (en) 2002-01-15 2011-04-28 Inventory and revenue maximization method and system

Country Status (3)

Country Link
US (4) US7386492B2 (en)
AU (1) AU2003207549A1 (en)
WO (1) WO2003060647A2 (en)

Cited By (8)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US20110066487A1 (en) * 2009-09-16 2011-03-17 Verizon Patent And Licensing Inc. Advertisement revenue management
US20120203629A1 (en) * 2011-02-04 2012-08-09 Adstruc, Inc. Proposal Generator and Method for Creating a Proposal Offering One or More Outdoor Advertising Units Based on Buyer Criteria
WO2013192314A1 (en) * 2012-06-19 2013-12-27 Visible World, Inc. Systems, methods and computer-readable media for optimizing transactions in a household addressable media network
US8898184B1 (en) * 2005-03-02 2014-11-25 Kayak Software Corporation Use of stored search results by a travel search system
US20150154566A1 (en) * 2013-12-03 2015-06-04 Vmware, Inc. Productivity based meeting scheduler
US20170132717A1 (en) * 2015-11-11 2017-05-11 Fujitsu Limited Budget-management-data creating method, budget-management-data creating apparatus, and recording medium
US10157392B1 (en) * 2014-08-22 2018-12-18 Groupon, Inc. Computer system and computer-executed method for inventory valuation
US10984007B2 (en) * 2018-09-06 2021-04-20 Airbnb, Inc. Recommendation ranking algorithms that optimize beyond booking

Families Citing this family (89)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US7747507B2 (en) 1996-05-23 2010-06-29 Ticketmaster L.L.C. Computer controlled auction system
US7343355B2 (en) * 2002-03-14 2008-03-11 I2 Technologies Us, Inc. Calculating price elasticity
US9740988B1 (en) 2002-12-09 2017-08-22 Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. System and method for using unique device indentifiers to enhance security
US10366373B1 (en) 2002-12-09 2019-07-30 Live Nation Entertainment, Incorporated Apparatus for access control and processing
US9477820B2 (en) 2003-12-09 2016-10-25 Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. Systems and methods for using unique device identifiers to enhance security
TWI276006B (en) * 2003-12-02 2007-03-11 Hon Hai Prec Ind Co Ltd System and method for production diagnosing
US20040186787A1 (en) * 2003-03-21 2004-09-23 Buck Brown Method and apparatus for managing storage unit rental information
EP1618486A4 (en) * 2003-03-27 2008-10-08 Univ Washington Performing predictive pricing based on historical data
US8078483B1 (en) 2003-12-16 2011-12-13 Ticketmaster Systems and methods for queuing access to network resources
US8321286B2 (en) * 2004-02-04 2012-11-27 Marriott International, Inc. Method and apparatus for measuring revenue performance for a lodging establishment
US7873541B1 (en) * 2004-02-11 2011-01-18 SQAD, Inc. System and method for aggregating advertising pricing data
US8639548B2 (en) * 2004-03-08 2014-01-28 Sap Aktiengesellschaft System and method for assortment planning
US8285584B2 (en) * 2004-03-08 2012-10-09 Sap Ag System and method for performing assortment planning
US8108270B2 (en) * 2004-03-08 2012-01-31 Sap Ag Method and system for product layout display using assortment groups
US8392231B2 (en) 2004-03-08 2013-03-05 Sap Aktiengesellschaft System and method for performing assortment definition
US8370184B2 (en) * 2004-03-08 2013-02-05 Sap Aktiengesellschaft System and method for assortment planning
US7752067B2 (en) * 2004-03-08 2010-07-06 Sap Aktiengesellschaft System and method for assortment planning
US7584123B1 (en) 2004-04-06 2009-09-01 Ticketmaster Systems for dynamically allocating finite or unique resources
US7693801B2 (en) 2004-04-22 2010-04-06 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Method and system for forecasting commodity prices using capacity utilization data
US8719142B1 (en) * 2004-06-16 2014-05-06 Gary Odom Seller categorization
US20060161442A1 (en) * 2005-01-14 2006-07-20 Susanne Laumann System and method for analyzing or identifying customer requirements
EP1866885A4 (en) 2005-03-22 2011-12-21 Ticketmaster Apparatus and methods for providing queue messaging over a network
US9608929B2 (en) 2005-03-22 2017-03-28 Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. System and method for dynamic queue management using queue protocols
US7685063B2 (en) * 2005-03-25 2010-03-23 The Crawford Group, Inc. Client-server architecture for managing customer vehicle leasing
US7342510B2 (en) * 2005-05-18 2008-03-11 Pate Alexs D Displaying information on a gate system
US7676405B2 (en) * 2005-06-01 2010-03-09 Google Inc. System and method for media play forecasting
US8352305B2 (en) * 2005-09-30 2013-01-08 Starcom Mediavest Group, Inc. Automated broadcast advertising transaction system and method
US20070100801A1 (en) * 2005-10-31 2007-05-03 Celik Aytek E System for selecting categories in accordance with advertising
US8700586B2 (en) * 2005-10-31 2014-04-15 Yahoo! Inc. Clickable map interface
US8595633B2 (en) * 2005-10-31 2013-11-26 Yahoo! Inc. Method and system for displaying contextual rotating advertisements
US20070118416A1 (en) * 2005-11-18 2007-05-24 Developmental Disabilities Association Of Vancouver-Richmond Method and system for planning
AU2007212489B2 (en) 2006-02-07 2013-01-31 Ticketmaster Methods and systems for reducing burst usage of a networked computer system
US8484057B2 (en) * 2006-02-17 2013-07-09 Microsoft Corporation Travel information departure date/duration grid
US20070198308A1 (en) * 2006-02-17 2007-08-23 Hugh Crean Travel information route map
US8392224B2 (en) * 2006-02-17 2013-03-05 Microsoft Corporation Travel information fare history graph
US8200514B1 (en) 2006-02-17 2012-06-12 Farecast, Inc. Travel-related prediction system
US8374895B2 (en) * 2006-02-17 2013-02-12 Farecast, Inc. Travel information interval grid
US9092807B1 (en) 2006-05-05 2015-07-28 Appnexus Yieldex Llc Network-based systems and methods for defining and managing multi-dimensional, advertising impression inventory
CN101467173A (en) 2006-05-09 2009-06-24 票务专家公司 Apparatus for access control and processing
US20070288350A1 (en) * 2006-05-12 2007-12-13 Siena Holdings, Llc Automated exchange for the efficient assignment of audience items
US8719080B2 (en) * 2006-05-20 2014-05-06 Clear Channel Management Services, Inc. System and method for scheduling advertisements
US8332260B1 (en) 2006-09-18 2012-12-11 Google Inc. Automatically adaptive pricing for digital goods
US20080103875A1 (en) * 2006-10-31 2008-05-01 Michael Kokernak Methods and systems for an interactive data finder
US8255269B1 (en) * 2006-11-11 2012-08-28 Samir Aued Data processing method for maximization of present and future supply and/or demand objectives
US7797187B2 (en) * 2006-11-13 2010-09-14 Farecast, Inc. System and method of protecting prices
US8117057B2 (en) * 2006-11-30 2012-02-14 The Kroger Co. Retail production guide for store-prepared food items
US8527324B2 (en) * 2006-12-28 2013-09-03 Oracle Otc Subsidiary Llc Predictive and profile learning salesperson performance system and method
CA2929769C (en) 2007-08-07 2019-04-30 Ticketmaster, Llc Systems and methods for providing resource allocation in a networked environment
US20090063167A1 (en) * 2007-08-28 2009-03-05 Jay Bartot Hotel rate analytic system
US9807096B2 (en) 2014-12-18 2017-10-31 Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. Controlled token distribution to protect against malicious data and resource access
US20090234759A1 (en) * 2007-11-20 2009-09-17 The Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc. Auction-Based Security Valuation
US8051455B2 (en) 2007-12-12 2011-11-01 Backchannelmedia Inc. Systems and methods for providing a token registry and encoder
US8930244B2 (en) 2008-01-15 2015-01-06 Sciquest, Inc. Method, medium, and system for processing requisitions
US8694429B1 (en) 2008-01-15 2014-04-08 Sciquest, Inc. Identifying and resolving discrepancies between purchase documents and invoices
US8285573B1 (en) * 2008-01-15 2012-10-09 SciQuest Inc. Prioritizing orders/receipt of items between users
US8359245B1 (en) 2008-01-15 2013-01-22 SciQuest Inc. Taxonomy and data structure for an electronic procurement system
US8756117B1 (en) 2008-05-27 2014-06-17 Sciquest, Inc. Sku based contract management in an electronic procurement system
US9245291B1 (en) 2008-05-27 2016-01-26 SciQuest Inc. Method, medium, and system for purchase requisition importation
US20090307152A1 (en) * 2008-06-09 2009-12-10 Oracle International Corporation Cost Management System
EP2297688A4 (en) * 2008-07-03 2012-03-28 Aol Llc Advertising forecast and revenue systems and methods
US20100082401A1 (en) * 2008-09-29 2010-04-01 Yahoo! Inc. Forecasting for advertising inventory allocation
US9094721B2 (en) 2008-10-22 2015-07-28 Rakuten, Inc. Systems and methods for providing a network link between broadcast content and content located on a computer network
US8160064B2 (en) 2008-10-22 2012-04-17 Backchannelmedia Inc. Systems and methods for providing a network link between broadcast content and content located on a computer network
US8301501B1 (en) * 2009-12-23 2012-10-30 Intuit Inc. Method and system for informing a user of the effect of a hypothetical purchase on the user's finances at the point of sale
US10096161B2 (en) 2010-06-15 2018-10-09 Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. Generating augmented reality images using sensor and location data
EP2583235A4 (en) 2010-06-15 2014-01-22 Ticketmaster L L C Methods and systems for computer aided event and venue setup and modeling and interactive maps
US9781170B2 (en) 2010-06-15 2017-10-03 Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. Establishing communication links using routing protocols
US20120084173A1 (en) * 2010-09-27 2012-04-05 Anders Goran Ekholm Method, computer program product and system for dynamically pricing peerishable goods
US9721278B2 (en) 2010-09-27 2017-08-01 Economemetics Ab Method, system and computer program product for dynamically pricing perishable goods
CN103797811B (en) 2011-09-09 2017-12-12 乐天株式会社 The system and method for the control contacted for consumer to interactive television
US11914674B2 (en) 2011-09-24 2024-02-27 Z Advanced Computing, Inc. System and method for extremely efficient image and pattern recognition and artificial intelligence platform
US8311973B1 (en) 2011-09-24 2012-11-13 Zadeh Lotfi A Methods and systems for applications for Z-numbers
US11074495B2 (en) 2013-02-28 2021-07-27 Z Advanced Computing, Inc. (Zac) System and method for extremely efficient image and pattern recognition and artificial intelligence platform
US8873813B2 (en) 2012-09-17 2014-10-28 Z Advanced Computing, Inc. Application of Z-webs and Z-factors to analytics, search engine, learning, recognition, natural language, and other utilities
US9916538B2 (en) 2012-09-15 2018-03-13 Z Advanced Computing, Inc. Method and system for feature detection
US11195057B2 (en) 2014-03-18 2021-12-07 Z Advanced Computing, Inc. System and method for extremely efficient image and pattern recognition and artificial intelligence platform
US9947029B2 (en) 2012-06-29 2018-04-17 AppNexus Inc. Auction tiering in online advertising auction exchanges
US20150039395A1 (en) * 2013-07-31 2015-02-05 Disney Enterprises, Inc. Sales proposal mix and pricing optimization
CN104077445B (en) * 2014-07-01 2017-03-01 北京航空航天大学 Accelerated life test statistical analysis technique based on fuzzy theory
US10567824B2 (en) 2015-09-30 2020-02-18 Simulmedia, Inc. Methods and systems for selecting inventory units for television and other media advertising campaigns
CN107278341A (en) * 2016-04-01 2017-10-20 深圳市大疆创新科技有限公司 Antenna, communication component and unmanned vehicle
US11367091B2 (en) 2016-12-15 2022-06-21 Nielsen Consumer Llc Methods and apparatus to identify retail pricing strategies
US20190012688A1 (en) * 2017-07-10 2019-01-10 Broker Genius, Inc. Automated comparable-based pricing using non-zero-difference comparables
US11074601B2 (en) * 2018-02-06 2021-07-27 International Business Machines Corporation Real time personalized pricing for limited inventory assortments in a high-volume business environment
US10943271B2 (en) 2018-07-17 2021-03-09 Xandr Inc. Method and apparatus for managing allocations of media content in electronic segments
CN109064100B (en) * 2018-08-16 2023-11-07 壹佳壹供应链(陕西)股份有限公司 Inventory Management Monitoring System
CN109740793B (en) * 2018-11-29 2020-08-11 杭州览众数据科技有限公司 Inventory optimization method based on probability demand distribution
US11720638B2 (en) * 2019-05-30 2023-08-08 Onlineseedsales Llc Embryonic plant listing system
US11126931B1 (en) 2020-05-11 2021-09-21 Capital One Services, Llc Intelligent dealership recommendation engine

Citations (46)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US3651478A (en) * 1970-07-07 1972-03-21 John J Shandlay Inventory control system
US4025766A (en) * 1975-10-29 1977-05-24 Muscolino Inventory Service, Inc. Inventory recordation system and processing
US4509123A (en) * 1983-01-06 1985-04-02 Vereen William J Automated tracking process for manufacturing and inventory
US4700295A (en) * 1985-04-18 1987-10-13 Barry Katsof System and method for forecasting bank traffic and scheduling work assignments for bank personnel
US5216594A (en) * 1990-05-11 1993-06-01 Foot Image Technology, Inc. Method of inventory management for footwear and last manufacture
US5241467A (en) * 1992-04-30 1993-08-31 Ers Associates Limited Partnership Space management system
US5255184A (en) * 1990-12-19 1993-10-19 Andersen Consulting Airline seat inventory control method and apparatus for computerized airline reservation systems
US5383112A (en) * 1991-01-07 1995-01-17 Gte Service Corporation Inventory management method
US5404291A (en) * 1989-11-20 1995-04-04 Hyatt Corp. Inventory control process for reservation systems
US5515270A (en) * 1991-07-22 1996-05-07 Weinblatt; Lee S. Technique for correlating purchasing behavior of a consumer to advertisements
US5594899A (en) * 1989-09-01 1997-01-14 Amdahl Corporation Operating system and data base having an access structure formed by a plurality of tables
US5615109A (en) * 1995-05-24 1997-03-25 Eder; Jeff Method of and system for generating feasible, profit maximizing requisition sets
US5630121A (en) * 1993-02-02 1997-05-13 International Business Machines Corporation Archiving and retrieving multimedia objects using structured indexes
US5712989A (en) * 1993-04-02 1998-01-27 Fisher Scientific Company Just-in-time requisition and inventory management system
US5724521A (en) * 1994-11-03 1998-03-03 Intel Corporation Method and apparatus for providing electronic advertisements to end users in a consumer best-fit pricing manner
US5758328A (en) * 1996-02-22 1998-05-26 Giovannoli; Joseph Computerized quotation system and method
US5758149A (en) * 1995-03-17 1998-05-26 Unisys Corporation System for optimally processing a transaction and a query to the same database concurrently
US5758329A (en) * 1993-08-24 1998-05-26 Lykes Bros., Inc. System for managing customer orders and method of implementation
US5761432A (en) * 1996-07-15 1998-06-02 At&T Corp Method and apparatus for providing an efficient use of telecommunication network resources
US5765143A (en) * 1995-02-28 1998-06-09 Triad Systems Corporation Method and system for inventory management
US5771172A (en) * 1990-04-28 1998-06-23 Kanebo, Ltd. Raw materials ordering system
US5848399A (en) * 1993-11-30 1998-12-08 Burke; Raymond R. Computer system for allowing a consumer to purchase packaged goods at home
US5870733A (en) * 1996-06-14 1999-02-09 Electronic Data Systems Corporation Automated system and method for providing access data concerning an item of business property
US5918209A (en) * 1996-01-11 1999-06-29 Talus Solutions, Inc. Method and system for determining marginal values for use in a revenue management system
US5960414A (en) * 1997-11-25 1999-09-28 Hewlett-Packard Company Method for monitoring excess inventory
US6041308A (en) * 1996-09-04 2000-03-21 Priceline.Com Incorporated System and method for motivating submission of conditional purchase offers
US6061691A (en) * 1998-08-31 2000-05-09 Maxagrid International, Inc. Method and system for inventory management
US6085169A (en) * 1996-09-04 2000-07-04 Priceline.Com Incorporated Conditional purchase offer management system
US6108639A (en) * 1996-09-04 2000-08-22 Priceline.Com Incorporated Conditional purchase offer (CPO) management system for collectibles
US6134534A (en) * 1996-09-04 2000-10-17 Priceline.Com Incorporated Conditional purchase offer management system for cruises
US6138105A (en) * 1997-03-21 2000-10-24 Walker Digital, Llc System and method for dynamic assembly of packages in retail environments
US6195646B1 (en) * 1997-05-13 2001-02-27 Data Junction Corp System and method for facilitating the valuation and purchase of information
US6240396B1 (en) * 1996-09-04 2001-05-29 Priceline.Com Incorporated Conditional purchase offer management system for event tickets
US6260047B1 (en) * 1998-01-02 2001-07-10 Maxagrid International, Inc. Inventory management system
US6260024B1 (en) * 1998-12-02 2001-07-10 Gary Shkedy Method and apparatus for facilitating buyer-driven purchase orders on a commercial network system
US6263315B1 (en) * 1998-11-02 2001-07-17 Pricing Research Corporation Revenue management system and method
US6286005B1 (en) * 1998-03-11 2001-09-04 Cannon Holdings, L.L.C. Method and apparatus for analyzing data and advertising optimization
US6341269B1 (en) * 1999-01-26 2002-01-22 Mercani Technologies, Inc. System, method and article of manufacture to optimize inventory and merchandising shelf space utilization
US6366890B1 (en) * 1998-02-27 2002-04-02 Gerald L. Usrey Product inventory category management and variety optimization method and system
US20020072946A1 (en) * 1999-12-13 2002-06-13 Richardson Mary L. Method and system for employment placement
US6430603B2 (en) * 1999-04-28 2002-08-06 World Theatre, Inc. System for direct placement of commercial advertising, public service announcements and other content on electronic billboard displays
US20020133399A1 (en) * 2001-02-06 2002-09-19 Main Robert Allen System and method for managing advertising inventory to maximize advertising revenue
US20020188547A1 (en) * 2001-06-07 2002-12-12 International Business Machines Corporation Brokering and facilitating consumer projects in an e-commerce system
US20030050827A1 (en) * 2001-08-10 2003-03-13 Hennessey Peter J. Method for determining demand and pricing of advertising time in the media industry
US6839681B1 (en) * 2000-06-28 2005-01-04 Right Angle Research Llc Performance measurement method for public relations, advertising and sales events
US6937996B1 (en) * 2000-08-29 2005-08-30 Charles Bradley Forsythe Method and system for selecting and purchasing media advertising

Family Cites Families (5)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US3605089A (en) 1969-07-14 1971-09-14 J A Terteling & Sons Physical inventory scanning and recording system
IL108524A0 (en) * 1993-02-03 1994-05-30 Gensia Inc Imidazodiazepine analogs
US6092725A (en) * 1997-01-24 2000-07-25 Symbol Technologies, Inc. Statistical sampling security methodology for self-scanning checkout system
US6853991B1 (en) * 1999-10-27 2005-02-08 Agere Systems Inc. Fuzzy logic system with evolutionary variables rules
US7133848B2 (en) * 2000-05-19 2006-11-07 Manugistics Inc. Dynamic pricing system

Patent Citations (49)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US3651478A (en) * 1970-07-07 1972-03-21 John J Shandlay Inventory control system
US4025766A (en) * 1975-10-29 1977-05-24 Muscolino Inventory Service, Inc. Inventory recordation system and processing
US4509123A (en) * 1983-01-06 1985-04-02 Vereen William J Automated tracking process for manufacturing and inventory
US4700295A (en) * 1985-04-18 1987-10-13 Barry Katsof System and method for forecasting bank traffic and scheduling work assignments for bank personnel
US5594899A (en) * 1989-09-01 1997-01-14 Amdahl Corporation Operating system and data base having an access structure formed by a plurality of tables
US5404291A (en) * 1989-11-20 1995-04-04 Hyatt Corp. Inventory control process for reservation systems
US5771172A (en) * 1990-04-28 1998-06-23 Kanebo, Ltd. Raw materials ordering system
US5854746A (en) * 1990-04-28 1998-12-29 Kanebo, Ltd. Flexible production and material resource planning system using sales information directly acquired from POS terminals
US5216594A (en) * 1990-05-11 1993-06-01 Foot Image Technology, Inc. Method of inventory management for footwear and last manufacture
US5255184A (en) * 1990-12-19 1993-10-19 Andersen Consulting Airline seat inventory control method and apparatus for computerized airline reservation systems
US5383112A (en) * 1991-01-07 1995-01-17 Gte Service Corporation Inventory management method
US5515270A (en) * 1991-07-22 1996-05-07 Weinblatt; Lee S. Technique for correlating purchasing behavior of a consumer to advertisements
US5241467A (en) * 1992-04-30 1993-08-31 Ers Associates Limited Partnership Space management system
US5630121A (en) * 1993-02-02 1997-05-13 International Business Machines Corporation Archiving and retrieving multimedia objects using structured indexes
US5712989A (en) * 1993-04-02 1998-01-27 Fisher Scientific Company Just-in-time requisition and inventory management system
US5758329A (en) * 1993-08-24 1998-05-26 Lykes Bros., Inc. System for managing customer orders and method of implementation
US5848399A (en) * 1993-11-30 1998-12-08 Burke; Raymond R. Computer system for allowing a consumer to purchase packaged goods at home
US5724521A (en) * 1994-11-03 1998-03-03 Intel Corporation Method and apparatus for providing electronic advertisements to end users in a consumer best-fit pricing manner
US5765143A (en) * 1995-02-28 1998-06-09 Triad Systems Corporation Method and system for inventory management
US5758149A (en) * 1995-03-17 1998-05-26 Unisys Corporation System for optimally processing a transaction and a query to the same database concurrently
US5615109A (en) * 1995-05-24 1997-03-25 Eder; Jeff Method of and system for generating feasible, profit maximizing requisition sets
US5918209A (en) * 1996-01-11 1999-06-29 Talus Solutions, Inc. Method and system for determining marginal values for use in a revenue management system
US5758328A (en) * 1996-02-22 1998-05-26 Giovannoli; Joseph Computerized quotation system and method
US5870733A (en) * 1996-06-14 1999-02-09 Electronic Data Systems Corporation Automated system and method for providing access data concerning an item of business property
US5761432A (en) * 1996-07-15 1998-06-02 At&T Corp Method and apparatus for providing an efficient use of telecommunication network resources
US6041308A (en) * 1996-09-04 2000-03-21 Priceline.Com Incorporated System and method for motivating submission of conditional purchase offers
US6085169A (en) * 1996-09-04 2000-07-04 Priceline.Com Incorporated Conditional purchase offer management system
US6108639A (en) * 1996-09-04 2000-08-22 Priceline.Com Incorporated Conditional purchase offer (CPO) management system for collectibles
US6134534A (en) * 1996-09-04 2000-10-17 Priceline.Com Incorporated Conditional purchase offer management system for cruises
US6240396B1 (en) * 1996-09-04 2001-05-29 Priceline.Com Incorporated Conditional purchase offer management system for event tickets
US6138105A (en) * 1997-03-21 2000-10-24 Walker Digital, Llc System and method for dynamic assembly of packages in retail environments
US6195646B1 (en) * 1997-05-13 2001-02-27 Data Junction Corp System and method for facilitating the valuation and purchase of information
US5960414A (en) * 1997-11-25 1999-09-28 Hewlett-Packard Company Method for monitoring excess inventory
US6260047B1 (en) * 1998-01-02 2001-07-10 Maxagrid International, Inc. Inventory management system
US6366890B1 (en) * 1998-02-27 2002-04-02 Gerald L. Usrey Product inventory category management and variety optimization method and system
US6286005B1 (en) * 1998-03-11 2001-09-04 Cannon Holdings, L.L.C. Method and apparatus for analyzing data and advertising optimization
US6567824B2 (en) * 1998-08-31 2003-05-20 Grantley Patent Holdings, Ltd. Integrated inventory management system
US6061691A (en) * 1998-08-31 2000-05-09 Maxagrid International, Inc. Method and system for inventory management
US6253187B1 (en) * 1998-08-31 2001-06-26 Maxagrid International, Inc. Integrated inventory management system
US6263315B1 (en) * 1998-11-02 2001-07-17 Pricing Research Corporation Revenue management system and method
US6260024B1 (en) * 1998-12-02 2001-07-10 Gary Shkedy Method and apparatus for facilitating buyer-driven purchase orders on a commercial network system
US6341269B1 (en) * 1999-01-26 2002-01-22 Mercani Technologies, Inc. System, method and article of manufacture to optimize inventory and merchandising shelf space utilization
US6430603B2 (en) * 1999-04-28 2002-08-06 World Theatre, Inc. System for direct placement of commercial advertising, public service announcements and other content on electronic billboard displays
US20020072946A1 (en) * 1999-12-13 2002-06-13 Richardson Mary L. Method and system for employment placement
US6839681B1 (en) * 2000-06-28 2005-01-04 Right Angle Research Llc Performance measurement method for public relations, advertising and sales events
US6937996B1 (en) * 2000-08-29 2005-08-30 Charles Bradley Forsythe Method and system for selecting and purchasing media advertising
US20020133399A1 (en) * 2001-02-06 2002-09-19 Main Robert Allen System and method for managing advertising inventory to maximize advertising revenue
US20020188547A1 (en) * 2001-06-07 2002-12-12 International Business Machines Corporation Brokering and facilitating consumer projects in an e-commerce system
US20030050827A1 (en) * 2001-08-10 2003-03-13 Hennessey Peter J. Method for determining demand and pricing of advertising time in the media industry

Cited By (16)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US8898184B1 (en) * 2005-03-02 2014-11-25 Kayak Software Corporation Use of stored search results by a travel search system
US9727649B2 (en) 2005-03-02 2017-08-08 Kayak Software Corporation Use of stored search results by a travel search system
US9342837B2 (en) 2005-03-02 2016-05-17 Kayak Software Corporation Use of stored search results by a travel search system
US20140006118A1 (en) * 2009-09-16 2014-01-02 Verizon Patent And Licensing Inc. Advertisement revenue management
US20110066487A1 (en) * 2009-09-16 2011-03-17 Verizon Patent And Licensing Inc. Advertisement revenue management
US8533048B2 (en) * 2009-09-16 2013-09-10 Verizon Patent And Licensing Inc. Advertisement revenue management
US20120203629A1 (en) * 2011-02-04 2012-08-09 Adstruc, Inc. Proposal Generator and Method for Creating a Proposal Offering One or More Outdoor Advertising Units Based on Buyer Criteria
US20140006102A1 (en) * 2012-06-19 2014-01-02 Visible World, Inc. Systems, methods and computer-readable media for optimizing transactions in a household addressable media network
WO2013192314A1 (en) * 2012-06-19 2013-12-27 Visible World, Inc. Systems, methods and computer-readable media for optimizing transactions in a household addressable media network
US20150154566A1 (en) * 2013-12-03 2015-06-04 Vmware, Inc. Productivity based meeting scheduler
US10157392B1 (en) * 2014-08-22 2018-12-18 Groupon, Inc. Computer system and computer-executed method for inventory valuation
US10891637B2 (en) 2014-08-22 2021-01-12 Groupon, Inc. Computer system and computer-executed method for inventory valuation
US11514462B2 (en) 2014-08-22 2022-11-29 Groupon, Inc. Computer system and computer-executed method for inventory valuation
US20170132717A1 (en) * 2015-11-11 2017-05-11 Fujitsu Limited Budget-management-data creating method, budget-management-data creating apparatus, and recording medium
US10580087B2 (en) * 2015-11-11 2020-03-03 Fujitsu Limited Budget-management-data creating method, budget-management-data creating apparatus, and recording medium
US10984007B2 (en) * 2018-09-06 2021-04-20 Airbnb, Inc. Recommendation ranking algorithms that optimize beyond booking

Also Published As

Publication number Publication date
AU2003207549A8 (en) 2003-07-30
US7386492B2 (en) 2008-06-10
US20110202389A1 (en) 2011-08-18
WO2003060647A3 (en) 2004-04-08
US7941350B2 (en) 2011-05-10
US20080281662A1 (en) 2008-11-13
WO2003060647A2 (en) 2003-07-24
US20030154142A1 (en) 2003-08-14
US8799095B2 (en) 2014-08-05
AU2003207549A1 (en) 2003-07-30

Similar Documents

Publication Publication Date Title
US7941350B2 (en) Inventory and revenue maximization method and system
US20200160402A1 (en) Media trading
US6567824B2 (en) Integrated inventory management system
US6920464B2 (en) System for generating an advertising revenue projection
US7343354B2 (en) Method for determining demand and pricing of advertising time in the media industry
US20070124259A1 (en) Computer-implemented systems and methods for resource allocation
US20050021395A1 (en) System and method for conducting an advertising campaign
US20080215290A1 (en) Determining a location based advertising campaign
US20100082392A1 (en) Multi-objective optimization for allocation of advertising resources
AU2023201296A1 (en) Apparatus and methods for providing queue messaging over a network
RU130737U1 (en) DEAL MANAGEMENT DEVICE IN THE AUTOMATED ADVERTISEMENT PLACEMENT SYSTEM
WO2008109060A1 (en) Coordinating a location based advertising campaign
WO2008106237A1 (en) Distributing a location based advertising campaign

Legal Events

Date Code Title Description
AS Assignment

Owner name: CLEAR CHANNEL MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC., TEXAS

Free format text: CHANGE OF NAME;ASSIGNOR:CLEAR CHANNEL MANAGEMENT SERVICES, LP;REEL/FRAME:026565/0964

Effective date: 20081212

Owner name: CLEAR CHANNEL MANAGEMENT SERVICES, LP, TEXAS

Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNOR:CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS, INC.;REEL/FRAME:026565/0919

Effective date: 20070309

Owner name: CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS, INC., TEXAS

Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNORS:GINSBURG, ALLAN;MURRAY, DAVID R.;WEINBERGER, ARTHUR;AND OTHERS;SIGNING DATES FROM 20011223 TO 20020110;REEL/FRAME:026565/0916

AS Assignment

Owner name: DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS, AS COLLATERAL AGENT, NEW YORK

Free format text: SECURITY AGREEMENT;ASSIGNORS:CLEAR CHANNEL MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC.;CLEAR CHANNEL INVESTMENTS, INC.;CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS, INC.;REEL/FRAME:034008/0027

Effective date: 20140910

Owner name: DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS, AS COLLATERA

Free format text: SECURITY AGREEMENT;ASSIGNORS:CLEAR CHANNEL MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC.;CLEAR CHANNEL INVESTMENTS, INC.;CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS, INC.;REEL/FRAME:034008/0027

Effective date: 20140910

AS Assignment

Owner name: IHEARTMEDIA MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC., TEXAS

Free format text: CHANGE OF NAME;ASSIGNOR:CLEAR CHANNEL MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC.;REEL/FRAME:034026/0037

Effective date: 20140916

AS Assignment

Owner name: DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS, AS COLLATERAL AGENT, NEW YORK

Free format text: SECURITY AGREEMENT;ASSIGNORS:IHEARTMEDIA MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC.;CLEAR CHANNEL MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC.;CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS, INC.;REEL/FRAME:035109/0168

Effective date: 20150226

Owner name: DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS, AS COLLATERA

Free format text: SECURITY AGREEMENT;ASSIGNORS:IHEARTMEDIA MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC.;CLEAR CHANNEL MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC.;CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS, INC.;REEL/FRAME:035109/0168

Effective date: 20150226

STCB Information on status: application discontinuation

Free format text: ABANDONED -- AFTER EXAMINER'S ANSWER OR BOARD OF APPEALS DECISION

AS Assignment

Owner name: IHEARMEDIA + ENTERTAINMENT, INC., TEXAS

Free format text: RELEASE OF THE SECURITY INTEREST RECORDED AT REEL/FRAME 034008/0027;ASSIGNOR:DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS;REEL/FRAME:049149/0773

Effective date: 20190501

Owner name: CAPSTAR TX, LLC, TEXAS

Free format text: RELEASE OF THE SECURITY INTEREST RECORDED AT REEL/FRAME 034008/0027;ASSIGNOR:DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS;REEL/FRAME:049149/0773

Effective date: 20190501

Owner name: AMFM TEXAS BROADCASTING, LP, TEXAS

Free format text: RELEASE OF THE SECURITY INTEREST RECORDED AT REEL/FRAME 034008/0027;ASSIGNOR:DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS;REEL/FRAME:049149/0773

Effective date: 20190501

Owner name: CITICASTERS LICENSES, INC., TEXAS

Free format text: RELEASE OF THE SECURITY INTEREST RECORDED AT REEL/FRAME 035109/0168;ASSIGNOR:DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS;REEL/FRAME:049149/0714

Effective date: 20190501

Owner name: CAPSTAR TX, LLC, TEXAS

Free format text: RELEASE OF THE SECURITY INTEREST RECORDED AT REEL/FRAME 035109/0168;ASSIGNOR:DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS;REEL/FRAME:049149/0714

Effective date: 20190501

Owner name: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC., TEXAS

Free format text: RELEASE OF THE SECURITY INTEREST RECORDED AT REEL/FRAME 035109/0168;ASSIGNOR:DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS;REEL/FRAME:049149/0714

Effective date: 20190501

Owner name: IHEARMEDIA + ENTERTAINMENT, INC., TEXAS

Free format text: RELEASE OF THE SECURITY INTEREST RECORDED AT REEL/FRAME 035109/0168;ASSIGNOR:DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS;REEL/FRAME:049149/0714

Effective date: 20190501

Owner name: CAPSTAR RADIO OPERATING COMPANY, TEXAS

Free format text: RELEASE OF THE SECURITY INTEREST RECORDED AT REEL/FRAME 034008/0027;ASSIGNOR:DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS;REEL/FRAME:049149/0773

Effective date: 20190501

Owner name: AMFM RADIO LICENSES, LLC, TEXAS

Free format text: RELEASE OF THE SECURITY INTEREST RECORDED AT REEL/FRAME 035109/0168;ASSIGNOR:DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS;REEL/FRAME:049149/0714

Effective date: 20190501

Owner name: CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS, INC., TEXAS

Free format text: RELEASE OF THE SECURITY INTEREST RECORDED AT REEL/FRAME 035109/0168;ASSIGNOR:DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS;REEL/FRAME:049149/0714

Effective date: 20190501

Owner name: CITICASTERS CO., TEXAS

Free format text: RELEASE OF THE SECURITY INTEREST RECORDED AT REEL/FRAME 034008/0027;ASSIGNOR:DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS;REEL/FRAME:049149/0773

Effective date: 20190501

Owner name: IHEARTMEDIA MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC., TEXAS

Free format text: RELEASE OF THE SECURITY INTEREST RECORDED AT REEL/FRAME 035109/0168;ASSIGNOR:DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS;REEL/FRAME:049149/0714

Effective date: 20190501

Owner name: CITICASTERS LICENSES, INC., TEXAS

Free format text: RELEASE OF THE SECURITY INTEREST RECORDED AT REEL/FRAME 034008/0027;ASSIGNOR:DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS;REEL/FRAME:049149/0773

Effective date: 20190501

Owner name: CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS, INC., TEXAS

Free format text: RELEASE OF THE SECURITY INTEREST RECORDED AT REEL/FRAME 034008/0027;ASSIGNOR:DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS;REEL/FRAME:049149/0773

Effective date: 20190501

Owner name: CLEAR CHANNEL MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC., TEXAS

Free format text: RELEASE OF THE SECURITY INTEREST RECORDED AT REEL/FRAME 034008/0027;ASSIGNOR:DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS;REEL/FRAME:049149/0773

Effective date: 20190501

Owner name: AMFM RADIO LICENSES, LLC, TEXAS

Free format text: RELEASE OF THE SECURITY INTEREST RECORDED AT REEL/FRAME 034008/0027;ASSIGNOR:DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS;REEL/FRAME:049149/0773

Effective date: 20190501

Owner name: CITICASTERS CO., TEXAS

Free format text: RELEASE OF THE SECURITY INTEREST RECORDED AT REEL/FRAME 035109/0168;ASSIGNOR:DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS;REEL/FRAME:049149/0714

Effective date: 20190501

Owner name: AMFM TEXAS BROADCASTING, LP, TEXAS

Free format text: RELEASE OF THE SECURITY INTEREST RECORDED AT REEL/FRAME 035109/0168;ASSIGNOR:DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS;REEL/FRAME:049149/0714

Effective date: 20190501

Owner name: CLEAR CHANNEL INVESTMENTS, INC., TEXAS

Free format text: RELEASE OF THE SECURITY INTEREST RECORDED AT REEL/FRAME 034008/0027;ASSIGNOR:DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS;REEL/FRAME:049149/0773

Effective date: 20190501

Owner name: CLEAR CHANNEL MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC., TEXAS

Free format text: RELEASE OF THE SECURITY INTEREST RECORDED AT REEL/FRAME 035109/0168;ASSIGNOR:DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS;REEL/FRAME:049149/0714

Effective date: 20190501

Owner name: CAPSTAR RADIO OPERATING COMPANY, TEXAS

Free format text: RELEASE OF THE SECURITY INTEREST RECORDED AT REEL/FRAME 035109/0168;ASSIGNOR:DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS;REEL/FRAME:049149/0714

Effective date: 20190501

Owner name: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC., TEXAS

Free format text: RELEASE OF THE SECURITY INTEREST RECORDED AT REEL/FRAME 034008/0027;ASSIGNOR:DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS;REEL/FRAME:049149/0773

Effective date: 20190501