WO2001065429A1

WO2001065429A1 - Method of advertising, and apparatus for performing the method

Info

Publication number: WO2001065429A1
Application number: PCT/EP2000/004179
Authority: WO
Inventors: Steven Low
Original assignee: Prima Industries Establishment
Priority date: 2000-03-03
Filing date: 2000-04-27
Publication date: 2001-09-07
Also published as: AU2000252122A1

Abstract

In a method of advertising through a computer network (9), especially but not exclusively the Internet, an advertisement (12) is generated by a host site (10), associated with a hyperlink (13) to a guest site (20), and is sent to a visitor (1) of the host site (10). The advertisement (12), which may comprise images and/or standard text, comprises personal information of the visitor (1). The advertisement (12) is present in an advertisement database (15) of the host site, in a general form comprising fill-in fields, such that the host site knows where to put personalised text. For each visitor (1), the personalised text to be filled in in the fill-in fields is present in a visitor data base (14) of the host site. When generating the advertisement, the host site combines the general form of the advertisement as present in the advertisement database with the visitor data as present in the visitor database. Thus, the personal information is known to the host site only, not to the guest site.

Description

Title: Method of advertising, and apparatus for performing the method.

The present invention relates to a method of advertising through a network, possibly but not necessarily a computer network, especially but not exclusively the Internet, wherein an ad including text is projected on the screen of a user. Since the present invention relates especially but not exclusively to the Internet, the present invention will hereinafter be explained for this example. However, it is stated specifically that the present invention can also be applied in other fields, such as the field of television. As is known, the Internet has developed from a relatively simple network allowing computers to communicate with each other, used mainly by the scientific community, to a global network allowing access, in principle, to every computer user. The last two decades have seen an enormous growth in the integration of computers for personal use; nowadays, in many countries, a very large percentage of the households own at least one personal computer, which means in fact that the Internet is accessible to practically all consumers in such countries. This has made the Internet very interesting for commercial use. One example of such commercial use is the development of so-called virtual stores, i.e. Internet sites which a user can visit through the Internet and where he can order goods which will be delivered to him at his home address. Although the Internet was originally intended for the availability and exchange of information, nowadays there are also a large number of commercial Internet sites. For instance, many companies have their own Internet site, and they hope that a computer user, being a potential consumer and therefore a potential customer, when surfing the Internet, will visit their site.

One very interesting type of consumer is a consumer who specifically wants to obtain information from a specific company, and who will try to find this company's Internet site in order to look for such information. Normally, such consumer will succeed in finding the address of this company's Internet site, and will access this company's Internet site by entering the address thereof; such access will be indicated as a direct access. The activity of the company itself, with respect to its Internet site, can be characterized as passive: the Internet site is just available for any interested websurfer.

On the other hand, in a more active approach, the company will try to direct potential consumers toward its Internet site, even if such consumer is not necessarily looking for that specific Internet site. This can be done by placing hyperlinks on other Internet sites, accompanied by an advertisement. Hereinafter, the Internet site where such a hyperlink is placed will be indicated as "host", whereas the Internet site to which the hyperlink connects will be indicated as "guest" .

Thus, a computer user, when surfing the Internet, might encounter the host Internet site, might read the advertisement and become interested in visiting the guest Internet site, and by one very simple action, i.e. one mouse-click on the hyperlink placed on the host page, he will surf towards the guest site. Such access of the guest site will be indicated as an indirect access or a linked access.

The guest company will pay the host company a certain amount of money for being allowed to place the hyperlink on the host page, and/or a certain amount of money for each consumer who will visit the guest page through the hyperlink placed on the host page. This way of advertising is commercially very interesting, and its importance will undoubtedly increase in the future . It will be clear that both the owner of the host site, indicated as host company, and the owner of the guest site, indicated as guest company, have a commercial interest in visitors clicking said hyperlink as often as possible. In other words, the larger the percentage of host site visitors who click said hyperlink, the more benefit both companies have.

Therefore, it is a main object of the present invention to increase the attractiveness of such advertisement placed on a host site and associated with a hyperlink. More particularly, it is an object of the present invention to present such advertisement in such a way that the curiosity of the visitor is raised, and the chances that he will actually click the hyperlink are increased.

Therefore, according to the present invention, the advertisements as presented to the visitor are personalized, in that they comprise individual data corresponding to the visitor.

The present invention presupposes that such individual data regarding the visitor is known to the host company. One possible way of implementing the present invention would be that the host company would pass on the said individual visitor data to the guest company, who would then make a personalized advertisement to be presented to the visitor on the host site. Such procedure would, however, involve two important drawbacks. On the one hand, it would be technically complicated to send the visitor data to the guest company, have the guest company construct an individualized advertisement, have this individualized or personalized advertisement sent back to the host company, and have the host company present this personalized advertisement to this specific visitor, especially when keeping in mind that multiple visitors might be visiting the host site simultaneously.

Another problem involves the privacy of the visitor. In the above scenario, the host company passes personal information regarding the visitor to the guest company. Nowadays, many countries have privacy protection legislation. Under such legislation, it is prohibited to pass such personal information to other parties. Therefore, it is a specific object of the present invention to provide the capability of generating personalized advertisement without the need to pass on personal information.

In accordance with an important aspect of the present invention, the guest company provides a standard text, including data fields to be filled in with visitor data. The host company has a database with visitor data. Whenever a visitor visits the host site, a personalized advertisement is generated and projected on the page he views by combining the visitor data with the standard text of the advertisement. Thereby, the guest company does not need to know the visitor data; the host site merges the text of the advertisement with the individual visitor data, and sends the individualized text of the advertisement towards the visitor.

These and other aspects, characteristics and advantages of the present invention will be further clarified by the following description with reference to the drawings, in which: figure 1 schematically illustrates a network configuration; and figure 2 schematically illustrates an advertisement placed on a web page .

Figure 1 schematically illustrates a user, generally indicated as visitor 1, with a web-surfing device that, in the example shown, comprises a personal computer 2 including a monitor 3 and a keyboard 4. However, the present invention is not limited to the use of a PC as web-surfing device; instead, the present invention is applicable in the context of any type of web-surfing device, such as for instance a mobile telephone with web-surfing facilities, a TV-set with a web-surfing appliance, a personal digital assistant (PDA), etc. The computer 2 is shown connected to the Internet 9. As is commonly known to persons skilled in the art, the Internet comprises many Internet sites, each having a unique address, which the visitor 1 may visit simply by typing the desired address. In fact, such site is implemented by a computer, which generates images, indicated as webpages, and sends these images through the Internet to the visiting computer. In the figure, two such computers 10, 20 are shown connected to the Internet, each responsible for generating a corresponding Internet site. In the following discussion, however, for the sake of simplicity, no distinction will be made between the concept of Internet sites on the one hand and the physical implementation by means of a computer on the other hand.

Figure 2 illustrates a possible layout of a webpage generated by a web site 10, as seen on the monitor 3 by the visitor 1. The webpage 11 may be in black-and-white, but preferably the webpage comprises colours. The webpage 11 may be in two-colours, but may also comprise a plurality of colours, or true colours . Such webpage 11 may comprise a text message or advertisement 12 and a hyperlink button 13. In the example as illustrated in the drawing, the advertisement 12 is shown as part of the image of the webpage as projected on the screen or monitor 3 of the user equipment. In such a case, the text message may comprise written text, also projected on the screen. However, the text message may also be in the form of spoken text. Further, apart from the text message, the advertisement part of the webpage may comprise still or moving images such as pictures. Further, apart from the text message, the advertisement part of the webpage may comprise any type of sound, such as music or voice texts.

By way of example, a possible text of the written or spoken advertisement may be as follows: "If you are interested in product X, click here, we have a special offer for you.". In the case of a projected image type of advertisement, the advertisement 12 may be of any desired design or shape, such as for instance a banner type. The hyperlink button 13 may coincide with the advertisement 12, but is shown adjacent the advertisement 12 in the drawing.

The hyperlink button 13 comprises a pointer to the second Internet site 20. If the visitor 1 would click the hyperlink button 13 on the page 11 of the Internet site 10, indeed, he would automatically be connected to the second Internet site 20, even if the visitor 1 does not know the address of the second Internet site, and it may even happen that he did not know of the existence of the second Internet site 20 at all.

In the context of the present invention, the first Internet site 10 is referred to as host site, whereas the second Internet site is referred to as guest site, in view of the fact that the second site 20 has, as a guest, an advertisement 12 and a hyperlink button 13 placed on the first Internet site 10, acting as a host for this advertisement.

The above-described arrangement is to the benefit of the operator of the host site 10 as well as to the operator of the guest site 20. The operator of the guest site 20 will pay the operator of the host site 10 for placing his advertisement 12 and his hyperlink button 13, and he will further pay the operator of the host site 10 for each visitor who visits the guest site 20 by clicking the hyperlink bottom 13 on the host site 10. On the other hand, the operator of the guest site 20 benefits by the fact that more potential customers will now visit his site 20 through indirect access. Therefore, both operators benefit by an increase in the efficiency of the advertisement, i.e. the percentage of visitors who will actually click the hyperlink button to the guest site 20. According to the present invention, this efficiency is increased by personalizing the advertisement 12. According to one aspect of the present invention, the host site 10 is associated with a database 14, which contains visitor data associated with, inter alia, the visitor 1. When the visitor 1 visits the host site 10 for the first time, he is asked to register by giving some personal data. By way of example, for explaining the present invention, assume that the personal information asked by the host site 10 regards the first name of the visitor 1. The input is stored in the database 14, indicated as [first name (1)], and associated with the identity of the visitors computer 2. A next time the same visitor 1 visits the host site 10, the host site 10 will recognize the identity of the computer 2, and possibly the identity of the visitor 1 by means of a password, so the host site 10 does not need to ask for the personal information anymore.

Further, the host site 10 is associated with a second database 15 with advertisement data. In association with the guest site 20 and therefore in association with the hyperlink data, the advertisement data will comprise standard text as well as fill-in fields, i.e. places where visitor data is to be incorporated. In this example, the visitor data to be incorporated is the first name of the visitor, indicated as <first name>.

For instance, the advertisement data in the database 15 might comprise the following combination of standard text plus fill-in fields: {Hello < first name> , if you are interested in product X, click here, we have a special offer for you.} Then, in generating the webpage 11 for presentation to the visitor 1, the host site 10 will extract the advertisement data from the advertisement database 15 and, regarding each fill-in field of the advertisement data, extract the corresponding visitor data from the visitor database 14, and merge these data into a personalized advertisement, as follows:

"Hello [first name (1) ] , if you are interested in product X, click, here, we have a special offer for you."

For instance, if the visitor 1, when registering, has indicated to the host site 10 that his first name is "John" , the personalized advertisement would read as follows:

"Hello John, if you are interested in product X, click here, we have a special offer for you . "

In the foregoing, the invention has been explained with respect to only one fill-in field in respect of the first name of the visitor. However, it should be clear to a person skilled in the art that, depending on the circumstances, the text of the advertisement may comprise more fill-in fields regarding the personal circumstances of the visitor. For instance, the host site might be a site giving news on cars, and the visitor may be asked to enter the type of car he presently owns. The guest site might be operated on behalf of a competitive car type, and the advertisement data in the database 15 might comprise the following combination of standard text plus fill-in fields: "Hello < first name> , apparently you now drive car type <present car type>, but we would like to draw your attention to car type B . "

Then, a personalized advertisement might be generated, reading generally as follows:

"Hello John, apparently you now drive car type A, but we would like to draw your attention to car type B. " But, as should be clear from the foregoing explanation, the personalized advertisement is generated without the operator of the guest site 20 having access to the visitor data base 14 of the host site, and without the host site 10 giving any information from the visitor database 14 to the operator of the guest site 20.

In the above, the invention is explained for a situation wherein the standard text of the advertisement is present in a database 15 operated by the host site 10. This standard text may be generated by the operator of the guest site and provided to the host site 10, and it may be updated or amended regularly. The database 15 may be present in a memory of the host site 10, but this is not necessary: it may be that the database 15 is a distant database, coupled to the host computer through, for instance, the Internet, and fed with standard texts by the guest company.

However, it is even not necessary that the standard part (text and/or images) of the advertisement is present in a database 15, accessible for the host computer. It may be that the standard part (text and/or images) of the advertisement is generated real time by a distant computer controlled by the operator of the guest site 20, coupled to the host computer through, for instance, the Internet, and that the advertisement as presented to the visitor 1 is generated by the host computer by merging, in real time, the standard part of the advertisement as received from the distant computer with the visitor data in the database 14. In effect, the operator of the guest site 20 can virtually directly place an advertisement on the screen of the visitor 1, wherein the text of the advertisement individualised by the host computer, without the operator of the guest site 20 knowing the identity or other personal data of the visitor 1.

All the operator of the guest site and the operator of the host site need to agree upon, is the format of the fill-in fields .

Thus, the present invention succeeds in providing a method of advertising through a computer network, especially but not exclusively the Internet, wherein an advertisement 12 is generated by a host site 10, associated with a hyperlink 13 to a guest site 20, and is sent to a visitor 1 of the host site 10. The advertisement 12, which may comprise images and/or standard text, comprises personal information of the visitor 1. The advertisement 12 may be present in an advertisement database 15 of the host site, in a general form comprising fill-in fields, such that the host site knows where to put personalised text. For each visitor 1, the personalised text to be filled in in the fill-in fields is present in a visitor database 14 of the host site .

When generating the advertisement, the host site combines the general form of the advertisement as present in the advertisement database with the visitor data as present in the visitor database.

Thus, the personal information is known to the host site only, not to the guest site.

It should be clear to a person skilled in the art that the scope of the present invention is not limited to the examples discussed in the above, but that several amendments and modifications are possible without departing from the scope of the invention as defined in the appending claims.

For instance, although the present invention is especially intended for use with the Internet, the present invention may also be used with any other type of network.

Further, in the above the invention is explained by way of example for an advertisement consisting of text only. However, the advertisement may also comprise images, while the fill-in fields may be combined with such images such that the personalised advertisement is a combination of one or more standard images and/or standard text with personalised text.

Further, in the above example, the fill-in fields in the advertisement are filled in by the host computer 10 with visitor data from the visitor database 14. However, the advertisement may also comprise fill-in fields, which are to be filled in by the visitor's computer 2. For instance, such fill-in field may be <date> and/or <time>, recognized by the visitor's computer 2 and/or an internet browsing appliance running on the visitor's computer 2, and automatically filled in. Then, an advertisement might read " Hello <name> , i t is now < time> on < da te> , would you care for product X, click here . " Herein, the fill-in field <name> would be filled in by the host computer 10 whereas the fields <time> and <date> would be filled in by the visitor's computer 2. Note that the advertisement would show the real time and date as valid at the time zone of the visitor, without the host computer 10 or the guest computer 20 knowing such time and date. Also, the advertisement might comprise text that is only printed if <date> and/or <time> fulfils a certain condition comprised in the fill-in field.

For instance: "Happy New Year" {if <date> = 1 January}. Or: "Don't forget to buy flowers today" {if <date> = 14 February}. Or: "Hello <name>, J see you are still working late this evening. If you like to hear some quiet music, then click here . " {if <time> between 22:00 and 23:59}.

In the above, the invention has only be explained by way of an example wherein personal visitor data is present in a visitor database present at the host site, or at least associated with the host site. It is, however, not necessary that the host site collects all visitor data and stores such visitor data in one memory. It is sufficient if visitor data is available to or accessible by the host site. For instance, the host site may be adapted to store some information on the hard disk of the visitor's computer, for instance in the form of a data file indicated as "cookie". If the same visitor visits the host site again, the information stored in the cookie may be used for personalising an advertisement.

For instance, the host site may have several potential advertisements available for presenting to the visitor. If the visitor has visited the host site earlier, he probably has shown interest to only a limited number of these advertisements. Then, a cookie may contain information on which advertisements are "preferred" by this visitor, and which advertisements are not. On the basis of this information in the cookie, the host site may determine, from among the potential advertisements, which advertisement to present to the visitor. The host site may decide to first present such "preferred" advertisements. On the other hand, the host site may see that it has already recently presented a certain advertisement to this specific visitor, so it may decide not to present this advertisement again. Also, the host site may adapt the text of the advertisement on the basis of such information in the cookie, for instance by referring to choices made earlier by the visitor. For instance, in the example used earlier, the text of the advertisement might be personalised as follows: "Hello John, if you still drive car type A, we like to draw your attention again to car type B. We have improved our offer since you visited our site the last time."

Also, it is possible that a certain advertisement is only presented to a selected group of visitors. Herein, the guest will define the criteria of the target group, but the host will decide whether or not a specific visitor meets these criteria.

The present invention can also be implemented in the field of television. Conventionally, a television program is broadcast from one central location, indicated as "antenna site", from where it is put "on air" by emitting radio-waves in a suitable frequency range. The signal may arrive at the receiving antenna of a receiving television set directly or through one or more amplification stations, which receive and re-transmit the signal. In such a conventional set-up, all television receivers receive the same television signal at (substantially) the same time . A more recent development is "direct" or "interactive"

TV-communication, where a TV-signal is generated in response to a request from a subscriber, at a specific moment as determined by the subscriber. In such a set-up, where the transmission of the television signal is already personalised in a way, advertisements included in the program can also be personalised in the manner described above. In such a context, the "host computer" is to be interpreted as a transmission device generating and transmitting television signals to a specific subscriber, details of such subscriber (such as name) being known to the transmission device. The transmission device can be part of a so-called "provider", providing telecommunication services, which may include television, telephone, internet, etc. Further, the "guest computer" is to be interpreted as the source generating the original TV-program, or generating the original TV-advertisement with fill-in fields.

In all of the above examples, the "guest" is in any way a computer, or person, or company, who provides an advertisement and who would like to see the advertisement delivered to specific persons in a personalised way, but who does not have access to personal information to effect the personalisation of the advertisement. On the other hand, the "host" is in any way a computer, or person, or company, who delivers the advertisement to the specific persons, who does have access to personal information of such persons, but who only relays the advertisement provided by the guest. In accordance with the principles of the invention, the guest incorporates fill-in fields into the advertisement, and the host, acting as a relay station, fills in these fields with personal information, or with text fragments chosen on the basis of such personal information. In other words, the host receives only one general version of the advertisement, and creates therefrom several personalised versions.

Thus, according to the invention, it is now possible that the guest uses personal visitor information available to the host, without the guest himself having access to such personal visitor information.

It is to be noted that the present invention can be used in the context of any type of television transmission system where particulars of the receiver are known to the transmitting company, such as for instance cable television systems, digital television systems, and interactive television systems.

Claims

1. Method of advertising through a network (9) , wherein an advertisement (12) is generated by a first computer (10), and is sent through said network to a device (2) such as for instance a second computer, wherein the advertisement (12) comprises a standard part and variable text; wherein said standard part of the advertisement (12) is provided to the first computer (10) by a third computer (20) ; wherein said variable text is determined by said first computer (10) on the basis of personal data regarding the user (1) of said device (2) ; wherein said personal data is present in a memory available to or accessible by the first computer (10); and wherein said standard part of the advertisement (12) and said variable text are combined by said first computer (10) .

2. Method according to claim 1, wherein said personal data is at least partly present in a visitor database (14) associated with the first computer (10) .

3. Method according to claim 1, wherein said personal data is at least partly present in a memory associated with the device (2) .

4. Method according to any of claims 1-3, wherein said standard part of the advertisement (12) is merged with said variable text by said first computer (10) .

5. Method according to claim 4, wherein said variable text comprises said personal data.

6. Method according to any of the previous claims, wherein the first computer (10) generates a host site, wherein the device

(2) is a web-surfing device (2) associated with a visitor (1) of the host site, and wherein the advertisement (12) is associated with a hyperlink (13) to a guest site associated with said third computer (20) .

7. Method according to any of the previous claims, wherein said standard part of the advertisement (12) comprises fill-in fields .

8. Method according to claim 7, as far as depending on claim 2, wherein the first computer (10), when generating the advertisement (12) , replaces the fill-in fields with corresponding fields from the visitor database (14) .

9. Method according to any of the previous claims, wherein said variable text is provided to the first computer (10) by the third computer (20) in the form of conditional text options, and wherein the first computer (10) decides which of said conditional text options to incorporate on the basis of said personal data.

10. Method according to any of the previous claims, wherein said standard part of the advertisement (12) is stored in an advertisement database (15) associated with or accessible by the first computer (10), and wherein said standard part of the advertisement (12) is read from said advertisement database (15) by said first computer (10) when generating the advertisement (12) .

11. Method according to any of the claims 1-9, wherein said standard part of the advertisement (12) is provided by said third computer (20) to said first computer (10) in real time, and wherein the advertisement (12) is generated by said first computer (10) in real time, based on the standard part as momentarily received from said third computer (20) in combination with said personal data.

12. Method according to any of the previous claims, wherein the advertisement (12) comprises fill-in fields such as <time> and/or <date>, to be filled in by the user's device (2) and/or by an internet browser running on said device.

13. Method according to any of claims 1-12, wherein the network is a television communication network.

14. Method according to any of claims 1-13, wherein the first computer (10) is acting as a relay station for passing on advertisements provided by the third computer.

15. Method according to any of the previous claims, wherein said advertisement comprises written text and/or spoken text.

16. Method according to any of the previous claims, wherein said advertisement comprises still and/or moving images.

17. Method according to any of the previous claims, wherein said advertisement comprises sound, for instance music.

18. Apparatus for performing the method according to any of the previous claims, comprising: a computer (10) coupled to said network (9) for generating a host site; the computer (10) being programmed for receiving a standard advertisement from a guest computer (20) , and for generating a personalised advertisement (12) to a visitor (1) of said host site by combining said standard advertisement as received from said guest computer (20) with variable text based on personal data corresponding to said visitor as present in a memory available to or accessible by said computer (10) .

19. Apparatus according to claim 18, further comprising a visitor database (14) associated with said computer (10) , comprising visitor data.

20. Apparatus according to claim 18 or 19, wherein the computer (10) is programmed for storing said standard advertisement in an advertisement database (15) , and for reading said advertisement database (15) when generating said personalised advertisement (12) .

21. Apparatus according to claim 18 or 19, wherein the computer (10) is programmed for receiving said standard advertisement in real time from said third computer (20), and for generating said personalised advertisement (12) in real time on the basis of the standard advertisement as momentarily being received from said third computer (20) .

22. Apparatus according to any of claims 18-21, wherein a visitor (1) uses a web-surfing device (2) such as a personal computer, a mobile telephone with web-surfing facilities, a TV- set with a web-surfing appliance, a personal digital assistant (PDA) , etc.