WO2008122072A1

WO2008122072A1 - Adaptive marketing system

Info

Publication number: WO2008122072A1
Application number: PCT/AU2008/000469
Authority: WO
Inventors: Adrian Mcphee
Original assignee: Addemand Limited Bvi Company Number 1388433
Priority date: 2007-04-05
Filing date: 2008-04-02
Publication date: 2008-10-16

Abstract

An adaptive marketing system for generating an advertisement associated with a content data stream, said system for performing the step of generating advertisement data representing an advertisement based on metadata associated with said content data stream.

Description

ADAPTIVE MARKETING SYSTEM

Field of the invention

The present invention relates to an adaptive marketing system.

Backfiround of the invention

Traditional advertising media channels such as radio, print and television have provided useful forms of mass communication and provided organisations, often through advertising agencies, a medium to influence the spending patterns of consumers, promote brand awareness and increase market share. With mass adoption of the Internet, mobile telephones and other digital services and networks, the opportunities now and into the future to leverage such additional media channels networks for communication of advertisements, promoting a products and other marketing activities are extensive.

Media channels such as television are not able to provide advertisers with an accurate means of controlling, or optimising, the communication of their message to consumers. Advertising campaigns and advertisements are therefore often produced with a broad specific demographic group in mind. For example, an advertisement may be produced to be of interest to males in the 18 to 28 age group. When such an advertisement is produced, for example for presentation on television, an advertising agency will typically look at the demographic characteristics of viewers for a number of television programs, time slots and make other similar considerations to establish a set of suitable television programs and time slots for that advertisement. That is, the information available about viewers drives the selection of timeslots.

As a television station broadcasts a single stream of content at one time to a group of unknown individuals, information on who is watching a program and information about such people must be collected through other activities of varying, and at times dubious, accuracy. For example, television station ratings are metered through additional devices (often called "People Meters") installed in a selected group of homes. These meters are often regarded as invasive and believed by some to alter the viewing behaviour of consumers or otherwise inaccurately represent viewing habits. In addition, these selected people or households must answer surveys and the information is processed over time to calculate metrics used by advertising agencies to provide some degree of demographic targeting. Another similar example is that of radio, whereby the common practice is that a group of consumers are asked to keep a diary of their radio listening habits, this information is then later used as inputs into advertising campaigns to address certain demographic groups. The resolution and value of such demographic information which is used to form a basis of marketing decisions is restricted by the nature of the media.

The cost charged by a broadcaster to an advertising agent for carriage of an advertisement in a traditional media model such as television or radio is proportional to ratings forecasts based on metrics derived from the survey and other activities described above. There is significant room for error in forecasting ratings and indeed often when forecast ratings are not achieved, both an advertising agent and the broadcaster lose out. The broadcaster must "make good" their promised exposure for the advertisement, which is at additional cost to the broadcaster as they must allocate an additional slot that they may have otherwise sold, and the advertising agent is adversely affected loses out because their marketing objectives were not achieved.

Traditional broadcast media such as television and radio, in addition to providing limited information about who is consuming the broadcast and their characteristics, may only communicate one stream of information at a time. The result of this is, for example, that all consumers tuned into the same television or radio station, see and hear the same television program at the same point in time. There is uniformity of the experience of each consuming the broadcast content, is not individually tailored at all to the interests or preferences of a consumer. In this model, each consumer is not only experiencing the same content, but advertisements dispersed throughout that content can only carry (at best) a relevance to a consumer directly proportional to the accuracy and resolution of the traditional means of demographic analysis and forecasting (surveys, diaries) described previously multiplied by the accuracy of an advertising agent analysing available information and selecting the correct position for advertisements.

Another limitation of traditional broadcast media is that consumers are not free to choose to watch, listen or see the content (or advertisements) they want, whenever they want, but rather the selection and programming of content and sale of advertisement slots is performed ahead of time by the broadcaster. This linear broadcast model further limits the number and frequency of opportunities for advertisers to communicate with their desired demographic as there are a limited number of time slots available for an advertisement. That is, whilst a consumers may want at some point in time to consume some content, thereby providing an opportunity for an advertisement to be presented to that consumer, and indeed that consumer may be within a target demographic for an advertisement, the opportunity to deliver the advertisement to the consumer never arises and the consumer, and indeed the placer of the advertisement, are restricted by the capabilities of the media involved.

In relation to advertising on the Internet, search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN have now become the popular destinations on the Internet as they allow users to discover content through entering keywords and finding documents based on those keywords. Google, for example, harnesses the large number of consumers using its services. Google essentially realised that the keywords that consumers were entering into its search engine represented what the user wanted. Given knowledge of what the consumer was seeking, Google were able to create a market whereby advertisers pay to have their ads presented to consumers when certain keywords (or, search terms) are entered. This model sees text- based matching, such that a car manufacturer may pay for their advertisement to display when users search using the keywords "new car" or other terms indicating a desire for a - A -

new car. This technology can be referred to ads with search relevance.

In addition to search relevance advertising, Google have created a product called AdSense. Ad Sense allows publishers of Web pages to embed Google advertisements directly into their pages. The advertisements that are presented use a similar method to the text-based matching of search relevance technologies, with the variation that the advertisements are placed based on the words contained on the page rather than the words contained in keywords used in a search engine.

Whilst recent increases in bandwidth availability have seen richer content such as video and audio being delivered over the Internet, the print-centric advertising models adopted have continued. A present dilemma of the Internet is how to create value around consumers in a manner that does not alienate them.

It is desirable to address one or more of the above described problems, or at least provide a useful alternative.

Summary of the invention

In accordance with one aspect of the invention there is provided an adaptive marketing system for generating an advertisement associated with a content data stream, said system for performing the step of generating advertisement data representing an advertisement based on metadata associated with said content data stream.

In accordance with another aspect of the invention there is provided an adaptive marketing process for generating an advertisement associated with a content data stream, including the step of generating advertisement data representing an advertisement based on metadata associated with said content data stream. In accordance with still another aspect of the invention there is provided a computer program for generating an advertisement associated with a content data stream, said program for performing the step of generating advertisement data representing an advertisement based on metadata associated with said content data stream.

Advantageously, the adaptive marketing system connects an emotion, such as exhilaration and frustration, generated by certain content, e.g. sporting footage, to an advertisement by synchronising the event and the message. For example, when an exciting event occurs in some content, an exciting advertisement may be displayed in a subtle way so as not to detract the consumer from experiencing the excitement, but rather there is a connection between the excitement of the content and the exciting nature of the advertisement at the point in time that the advertisement is presented. The timing and nature of the content and the event is represented in the metadata.

Advantageously, the adaptive marketing system enhances the consumer experience through personalised communications. For example, online media enables the adaptive marketing system to utilise information about a target a consumer, including age, sex, location and interests and then craft advertisements that are delivered in a meaningful manner (and/or at a meaningful time), thereby optimising impact on a consumer.

Advantageously, multiple targeted messages can be delivered simultaneously, thus increasing revenue streams for media and creative agencies through multiple spot sales.

Advantageously, the need for forecasting of numbers of consumers that an advertisement will be able to reach is eliminated. For example, a purchaser of advertising time (e.g. an advertising agent) is charged for successful communication of an advertisement with a consumer, not for forecast viewer numbers. In addition, the purchaser is only charged in relation to how well the consumer's personal profile matches targets of the advertising campaign. For example, if an advertisement is ideally suited to consumers matching three characteristics, and relevant content is selected by a consumer with two of the three desired characteristics, the charge may relate directly to the degree to which the desired targets have been achieved.

Brief description of the drawings

Preferred embodiments of the invention are further described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, which are not to scale, wherein:

Figure 1 is a schematic drawing of an adaptive marketing system in communication with advertising agents and consumers;

Figure 2 is a flow diagram of a login/registration process performed by the adaptive marketing system;

Figure 3 is a flow diagram of an advertisement registration process performed by the adaptive marketing system; Figure 4 is a relationship diagram of data records held by the adaptive marketing system;

Figure 5 is a flow diagram of an ad selection process performed by the adaptive marketing system;

Figure 6 is a flow chart of an ad presentation/synchronisation process performed by the adaptive marketing system; Figure 7 is a screen shot of a user interface generated by the adaptive marketing system showing an advertiser login;

Figure 8 is a screen shot of the user interface generated by the adaptive marketing system showing an advertising agent summary;

Figure 9 is a screen shot of the user interface generated by the adaptive marketing system showing a list of advertising campaigns;

Figure 10 is a screen shot of the user interface generated by the adaptive marketing system showing a list of advertisements associated with an advertising campaign; Figure 11 is a screen shot of the user interface generated by the adaptive marketing system showing an advertisement summary;

Figure 12 is a screen shot of the user interface generated by the adaptive marketing system showing a Target selection for the advertisement relating to consumer gender; Figure 13 is a screen shot of the user interface generated by the adaptive marketing system showing a Target selection for the advertisement relating to consumer age;

Figure 14 is a screen shot of the user interface generated by the adaptive marketing system showing the advertisement summary with an updated Target selection;

Figure 15 is a screen shot of the user interface generated by the adaptive marketing system showing a Placement selection for the advertisement relating to sports;

Figure 16 is a screen shot of the user interface generated by the adaptive marketing system showing an active-date selection for the Placement; and

Figure 17 is a screen shot of the user interface generated by the adaptive marketing system showing the advertisement summary with an updated Placement selection.

Detailed description of preferred embodiments of the invention

The adaptive marketing system 100 shown in Figure 1 is used to generate an advertisement associated with a content data stream. The system 100 performs a step of generating advertisement data representing an advertisement based on metadata associated with the content data stream.

The metadata may be received by the adaptive marketing system 100 when no content data (e.g. the content data stream) is received: in this arrangement, the content data is transmitted to a consumer (e.g. a TV viewer or radio listener or Web surfer) separately to the advertisement. The metadata may also be received together with the content data, the metadata having been generated by a third-party (e.g. the Virage company), or the metadata may be generated by the adaptive marketing system 100 from received content data using for example a pattern recognition process (e.g. facial recognition processes); in this arrangement the content data is made available to the consumer by the adaptive marketing system 100. The system 100 is hereafter described with reference to the above- described embodiments.

The adaptive marketing system 100 may be configured to include a server performing the step of generating the advertisement data being performed on a server and transmitted to the consumer. The adaptive marketing system 100 may be configured to include a display client for generating a visual/audible display (e.g. on a computing device of the consumer) that receives the advertisement data and displays a corresponding advertisement, or receives the metadata and generates the advertisement data to display the advertisement, or receives broadcast data - which includes both the content data and the advertising data - and displays a corresponding broadcast that includes both content and ads.

The system 100 includes a common database 102 in communication with an Advertiser Portal 104, an Ad Selector 106 and a Consumer Portal 108. The Advertiser Portal 104 includes a server in communication with the common database 102 and allows advertising agents, e.g.(Omnicom, WPP, Publicis, Interpublic, etc), to communicate with the adaptive marketing system 100. The Advertiser Portal 104 communicates with the advertising agents via a standard data communications network (e.g. the Internet, local area networks, wireless data networks, etc) and advertising agent communications devices of the advertising agents (e.g. mobile telephones, personal computers, interactive televisions, hand-held computers, fixed telephones, VOIP terminals, etc). The Advertiser Portal 104 provides a communications interface for the advertising agents. The communications interface may be in the form of a dynamic Web site linked to logical rules in the Advertiser Portal 104 and data in the common database 102. Alternatively, the advertising communications interface may be WML or XHTML pages for mobile telephones, or an interactive voice response (IVR) system for connection to a standard fixed telephone or a Voice-Over- Internet Protocol (VOIP) terminal. The Advertiser Portal 104 may comprise software modules running on one or more computer servers (e.g. a single server, or a number of units distributed over various locations). Alternatively, the Advertiser Portal 104 may comprise dedicated hardware units such as application specific integrated circuits (ASICs).

The Advertiser Portal 104 allows the advertising agents firstly to register (i.e. upload) advertisements and campaigns (in an advertising agent login/registration process 200), and secondly to activate the advertisements and campaigns for selection by the adaptive marketing system 100 and thus display to viewers and consumers (in a message/campaign generation process. 300, shown in Figure 3).

The advertising agent login/registration process 200, shown in Figure 2, commences when an advertising agent attempts to access the Advertiser Portal 104 (step 202). If the advertising agent is already logged in (determined in step 204), access is granted (in step 206). If the advertising agent is not logged in (determined in step 204), the Advertiser Portal 104 determines whether the advertising agent is registered (in step 208). If the advertising agent is registered, a login Web page is generated by the Advertiser Portal 104 (in step 210). The login Web page includes a user identification data box and a user password data box; an example login Web page is shown in Figure 7. On detection of a valid user name and password (in step 210), the Advertiser Portal 104 grants access (in step 206). If the advertising agent is not registered, the Advertiser Portal 104 generates a registration Web page for creating a new account for the advertising agent (in step 212). Following successful completion of the registration process (step 212), the Advertiser Portal 104 grants access (in step 206).

Once the advertising agent has been granted access, the Advertiser Portal 104 generates an advertising agent's summary Web page that is populated with data associated with the advertising agent. The advertising agent's summary Web page includes a list of advertising entities for whom the advertising agent manages campaigns and advertisements. An example summary Web page is shown in Figure 8. When the advertising agent selects an advertising entity from the list, the Advertiser Portal 104 generates a list of campaigns stored in the common database 102 for that advertising entity. An example list of campaigns is shown in Figure 9. The advertising agent may view a campaign and its associated advertisements (e.g. advertisements), as shown in Figure 10. By selecting one advertisement, a summary of the advertisement is shown (e.g. Figure 11). The advertising agent may also select one or more Targets or Placements (described further below) for the advertisement, as shown for example in Figures 12 to 17.

Following the advertising agent login/registration process 200, the Advertiser Portal 104 provides a message/campaign generation process 300 (shown in Figure 3). Following login (step 302), the advertising agent selects an advertisement and the selected advertisement is registered by the Advertiser Portal 104 (step 304). When an advertisement is registered, the Advertiser Portal 104 provides an opportunity for the advertising agent to associate the registered advertisement with an advertising campaign (step 306). Associating an advertisement with an advertising campaign enables, for example, a series of advertisements to be more easily and effectively coordinated through the adaptive marketing system 100. If there is an existing advertising campaign (determined in step 308), advertising agent can select to associate the advertisement with an existing advertising campaign selected from a list (step 310). Alternatively, the advertising agent can select that a new messaging campaign be created (step 310). Following selection of an advertisement, and optionally a advertising campaign, the advertising agent may either create the advertisement by uploading images, video, text or other advertisement content (step 314), or if the advertisement already exists in the system (determined at step 312), the advertising agent may select the existing advertisement (step 316). Alternatively, the advertising agent may upload a link to advertisement date, e.g. a URL link to a content server which can provide the content on demand.

Following selection or creation of the advertisement, the Advertiser Portal 104 allows the advertising agent to add a Target (steps 318,320) and/or a Placement (steps 322,324). A Target is a constraint used to define a demographic set that can be used to target consumers: this is useful as advertisements and advertising campaigns are often created with a specific demographic group in mind. A Target may be for example "Gender" and an advertising agent may specify a value representing "Male" as a Target for an advertisement (step 320). Targets may also be used to specify constraints in any way such that a demographic set is identifiable, for example: age, gender, location, nationality, income, education and other characteristics and attributes which form constraints used to identify a set. After an advertisement is selected or created (steps 314,316), a list of associated Targets for that advertisement are presented. A plurality of Targets may be selected by the advertising agent for association with each advertisement (steps 318,320).

In addition to targeting demographic sets of consumers through setting Targets (steps 318,320), the Advertiser Portal 104 allows advertising agents to associate an advertisement with events that may occur in content, thereby allowing the adaptive marketing system 100 to display that advertisement in a synchronised way with the event in the content. The term "Placement" is used to denote this association between an advertisement and an event that may occur in some content. A Placement is either an event, or class of event, that may occur in content. If the advertising agent selects to add a Placement (step 322), the Advertiser Portal 104 generates a list of events in available content, including events classified into groups.

The events in the content are represented by content data in the common database 102. The content may be for example a content data stream for creative content such as a movie/film/ TV show/radio broadcast. Details are associated with events in the content (including Placement data) are represented in metadata associated with the content. For example, the metadata may indicate that the content relates to Sport, and may also indicate at which time-points in the contact a notable event (e.g. a goal) occurs. The metadata relating to content may be automatically generated by a process of matching patterns in the content (e.g. by a facial recognition process). Alternatively, the metadata associated with the content data may be provided by a third party, e.g. the Virage company, with the content not being provided to the adaptive marketing system 100. In an alternative arrangement of the adaptive marketing system 100, the step of recognising patterns in the content data may be effected as the content data is received. Pattern recognition may occur in real-time, as the content data is received or transmitted to the consumers, or may occur off-line as the content data is stored in the common database 102.

A Placement can be selected for the advertisement (step 324). As a result of this association between the advertisement and one or more events in content, the adaptive marketing system can select one or more advertisements to display when an events occurs in content. In addition, the Advertiser Portal 104 may identify characteristics of the advertisement (e.g. product type) automatically, or though data from the advertising agent, and automatically generate one or more Placements (step 324).

Data in the common database is ordered in a hierarchical categorisation by domain (such as sport, entertainment etc.). The advertising agent may drill down into a domain such as a sport, to the specific sport and events that may occur in that sport. For example, in the game of cricket when a batsman hits the ball so that the ball crosses the boundary of the playing field without touching the ground, that event is termed a "Six" (as six runs are awarded to the batting team upon this event). As a Six is a significant and exciting event in a game of cricket that many consumers seek to view, a specific advertisement related to the concept of a Six may be created.

Example Domain Specific Placements include: 1. Sport: a. Winning; b. Losing; c. Cricket: Six, Four, Catch; d. Baseball: Run Out, Home Run; e. Soccer: Goal, Red Card; f. Golf: Birdie, Eagle, In the bunker, Hole in one; 2. Entertainment: a. Funny; b. Romantic; and c. Sad.

A Placement has a range of active dates associated with it: these are dates during which the Ad Selector 106 attempts to select this advertisement when a content item (or an event in a content item) corresponding to the Placement is requested (by the consumer). A screen shot example of a range of dates being selected or a Placement is shown in Figure 17.

The combination of Targets and Placements for an advertisement allows the advertising agent to target a set of consumers fitting certain demographic characteristics and place the advertisement to synchronise with a nominated event.

The reach of the advertising campaign includes the achieved Targets and Placements when an advertisement is selected by the Ad Selector 106.

Once one or more advertisements have been generated by the Advertiser Portal 104 they are retained in the common database 102. The adaptive marketing system 100 can then associate the generated advertisements with content using the Ad Selector 106. When content is being displayed on a device of the consumer, the Ad Selector 106 is responsible for the selecting of advertisements which are optimised for that consumer and that content.

The Ad Selector 106 includes a computer server in communication with the common database 102. The Ad Selector 106 may comprise software modules running on one or more computer servers (e.g. s single server, or a number of units distributed over various locations). Alternatively, the Advertiser Portal 104 may comprise dedicated hardware units such as application specific integrated circuits (ASICs).

The Ad Selector 106 accesses the advertisements, or at least references to the advertisements, registered through the Advertiser Portal 104 and stored in a common database 102. Alternatively, the Advertiser Portal 104 and Ad Selector 106 may use other methods for Inter-Process Communication (EPC), e.g. message oriented middle-ware, or grid technology.

The primary role of the Ad Selector 106 is to select advertisements for the content being displayed to the consumer, e.g. by streaming over the Web or being broadcast over the radio. In selecting an advertisement to be displayed, the Ad Selector 106 considers the following families of information:

L a profile of the consumer, e.g. age, gender and geographical location;

2. capabilities of a display device of the consumer, e.g. whether does it supports use of images, video and/or text;

3. the type and nature of the content being displayed, e.g. sports content or news content; 4. the type and nature of the events contained within the content, e.g. point/goal scoring in sport, or funny moments in comedy;

5. a list of relevant advertisements registered in the relation to the content (e.g. in step 324 of the message/campaign generation process 300;

6. a list of Targets selected for the relevant advertisements (in step 320 of the message/campaign generation process 300);

7. a list of Placements selected for the relevant advertisements (in step 324 of the message/campaign generation process 300); and/or 8. a remaining budget, and/or other constraints, relating to the advertising campaign of each relevant advertisement (which was created/selected in steps 312,310 of the message/campaign generation process 300).

The Consumer Portal 108 provides content discovery and consumption interfaces for consumers, or users, of the adaptive marketing system. The Consumer Portal 108 may vary in form and function across implementations and may be entirely separated from the common database 102 shared with the Ad Selector 106 and Advertiser Portal 104 and located on a different network.

In alternative configurations of the adaptive marketing system 100, the Consumer Portal 108 may directed advertisement to one delivery channel, e.g. via SMS, while the content data stream is being displayed on another delivery channel, e.g. via broadcast TV. The Consumer Portal 108 may transmit data to an SMS broadcast system, or a dynamic outdoor bill board display system, for displaying the advertisement.

The Consumer Portal 108 includes a server in communication with a database. The computer system is able to communicate with equipment of members, or users, of the system over a communications network using standard communications protocols. The equipment of the members can be a variety of communications devices such as personal computers; interactive televisions; hand held computers etc. The communications network may include the Internet, telecommunications network and/or local area networks.

The Consumer Portal 108 may comprise software modules running on one or more computer servers (e.g. a single server, or a number of units distributed over various locations). Alternatively, the Advertiser Portal 104 may comprise dedicated hardware units such as application specific integrated circuits (ASICs). Consumers register their details and establish an account with the Consumer Portal 108 in order to gain access to content. This user registration process has the same steps as the advertising agent login/registration process 200; however it is provided by the Consumer Portal 108 for consumers. The consumer enters profile data, such as gender, location, date of birth, etc, during the consumer registration process.

The Consumer Portal 108 allows consumers to discover, select and consume content. The Consumer Portal 108 also allows consumers to search for content based on keywords or using criteria relating to meta-data information about the content.

Once the consumer using the Consumer Portal 108 has discovered some content that they wish to view, the consumer selects the content and the Consumer Portal 108 passes a unique consumer code (representing that consumer) and a content code (representing the requested content) to the Ad Selector 106. The Ad Selector 106 then processes the consumer code and the content code to generate a list of relevant advertisements from the common database 102. The Consumer Portal 108 uses SQL and text indexes in the common database 102 to search for relevant content that matches search/selection parameters of the consumer. The Ad Selector 106 also generates a time-based index for each relevant advertisement based on occurrences of events in the content, as determined from the metadata.

The Consumer Portal 108 then transmits the selected content and the relevant advertisements to a display device of the consumer for display. Alternatively, the Consumer Portal 108 transmits one or more data links to where the content and advertisement are started at remote locations. The advertisements are displayed at times synchronised with the content, each time being determined from the time-based index. The content, the advertisements and the time-based index are transmitted to a display client in the form of a Web browser on a networked display device of the consumer. The time- based index is in the form of JavaScript code and the content is in the form of an Adobe Flash movie. A JavaScript array of advertisements and the time-based index are transmitted from the Consumer Portal 108 to the display client when the Web page loads. The JavaScript arrays are parsed by JavaScript functions which instruct the Flash movie to create cue points at given times in the movie and at these cue points to call another JavaScript function to display the advertisement.

In alternative configuration of the adaptive marketing system 100, the Consumer Portal 108 transmits only the advertisements and the time-based index, while the consumers receive the content from elsewhere, e.g. for advertisements received on a PDA/mobile phone and content received via broadcast TV.

The common database includes three separated data storage segments (shown in Figure 1): an ad information segment 110; a content billing segment 112; and a user/content segment 114.

The ad information segment 110 is accessed by the Advertiser Portal 104 to retain and recall data relating to, for example, campaigns, advertisements, Targets and Placements. For example, the Advertiser Portal 104 interacts with the ad information segment 110 to verify an advertising agent's credentials upon a login attempt. The ad information segment 110 is also accessed by the Ad Selector 106 for selecting and updating data relating to advertisements, campaigns, Targets and Placements. For example, the Ad Selector 106 uses SQL "select statements" to retrieve a set of advertisements (advertisements) with Targets that match attributes of the consumer (e.g. age or location) in conjunction with Placements that match relevant events occurring in selected content to be sent to the consumer. The Ad Selector 106 selects data from the ad information segment 110 which represents the events occurring in content so that it may use this data to select appropriate advertisements (with relating Placements) and schedule times for these advertisements to be presented such that they are synchronised with events occurring in the content. The content billing segment 112 is accessed by the Ad Selector 106 to insert a billing record into the common database 102 when selecting an advertisement for transmission to the Consumer Portal 108.

The user/content segment 114 is accessed by the Ad Selector 106 to determine profile data of the consumer. The profile data is used by the Ad Selector 106 to identify which advertisements have Targets matching the profile of the consumer. The user/content segment 114 is accessed by the Consumer Portal 108 to retain new account details of the consumer, verify credentials upon a login attempt by the consumer. The Consumer Portal 108 also accesses the user/content segment 114 to generate a list of available content for the consumer, and to transmit content to the display client.

The common database 102 is in the form of a relational database. The types of data records in the common database 102 include:

1. a campaign record 402, including shared attributes of advertisements in the campaign, and a marketing budget allocation;

2. an advertisement record 404, including advertisements for products or services in the form of text, image, video and/or audio; 3. a campaign-messages record 406, including a list of advertisements in the advertising campaign;

4. a Placement record 408, including data representing the meaning of an event that may occur in content, and types of content available;

5. a message-Placements record 410, including a list of Placements selected for each advertisement;

6. a Placements-events record 412, including a list of events in content that correspond to each Placement, and a list of Placements that are fulfilled by each event (as a Placement may be used to abstract or aggregate many, perhaps more detailed, events and provide meaning to an advertising agent, a Placement may have many events; similarly, a Placement condition may be true upon many events, in this way a Placement and an event have a many-to-many relationship which is facilitated by this intersection entity); 7. a Target record 412, being a characteristic of the consumer's profile;

8. a message-Target record 416, including a list of advertisements that fulfil each Target, and a list of Targets that have been requested in relation to each advertisement (for example a message-Target record in may be responsible for associating an advertisement aimed at consumers with a Target of "Gender" having a value of "Female", and a Target of "Nationality" having a value of

"India");

9. a content record 418, including video, audio, text data, or a link to a content data stream stored externally to the common database 102 (e.g. over a network); 10. an event record 420, including data regarding an incident, a situation or a special set of circumstances or outcomes in content (e.g. which sportsmen/actors are represented in the event);

11. a content-events record 422, including a list of events in each item of content, a list of items of content that show a type of event, and a time-manifest indicating an absolute or relative location of an event within a content item;

12. a meta-attribute record 424, including data representative of the meaning of the content item (e.g. how, when, by which consumer a content item has been received/created,, how it is formatted, content encoding, etc), data specifying the location (e.g. a URL) of a Content Item, data describing characteristics such as genre and track rights,

13. a content-meta-attribute record 426, including a list of attributes for each item of vide content, and a list of items of content with exhibit each attribute; 14. a consumer record 428, including details of consumers registered with the Consumer Portal 108 (e.g. date of birth, country of residence, gender, contact details, password, user-name);

15. an advertising agents record 430, including account, contact and billing details of the advertising agent; and

16. a billing-events record, including details of charges generated to an advertising agent when an advertisement is selected by the Ad Selector 106.

The Placement record 408 may have a hierarchical relationship with each other. For example, a Placement may be general, e.g. "Sport", or specific, e.g. "Six" (when a batsman in Cricket hits the ball over the boundary without the ball touching the ground). The

Placement "Six" may be a child of "Cricket", which in turn is a child of "Sport". When a

"Six" occurs, it is therefore possible that a Placement of "Sport" will be accepted as "Six" is a child of "Sport". A Placement may also be a specific event such as "The Ashes 2006" which is a concrete event that content may relate to, not an abstract classification.

A Target record 414 may include a Target for example "Gender"; the Advertiser Portal 104 may store a value representing "Male" as a Target for the advertisement. Targets may have a hierarchical relationship with each other, for example a parent-child relationship between Targets could be used to set a Target of "San Francisco"; however this has "Location", "United States of America", "California" as parent Targets. Targets may also be used to specify constraints in any way such that a demographic set is identifiable, for example age, location and other characteristics and attributes which form constraints used to identify a set.

Meta-attribute records 424 may have a hierarchical, or self-referencing, relationship whereby a parent-child relationship exists between one Meta Attribute and another. This may be used, for example, to classify Meta Attributes into sets so that dependencies between Meta Attributes can be managed. Events may have a hierarchical relationship with each other whereby one event record references another record as its parent, for example a parent-child relationship between events could represent the sector of "Sport", with a child being the game of "Cricket", with a Cricket "Match" being a child of "Cricket", the act of "Batting" being an event occurring in a "Match", and the act of hitting a "Six" being an event that may occur when a batsman is Batting in a Match of Cricket. There is a close relationship between an event occurring in a content item and a Placement to which an advertisement is associated. A primary role of the adaptive marketing system 100 is to map the Placements of an advertisement to the events occurring in the content.

The Ad Selector 106 performs an ad selection process 500. The ad selection process 500 commences (step 502 in Figure 5) with the Ad Selector 106 receiving two inputs: firstly a content item ID relating to the content item requested by the consumer, and a consumer ID for uniquely identifying the consumer. After receiving the inputs, the Ad Selector 106 selects all content-events records 422 related to the content item ID (step 504), then by linking events in the selected content item to Placements in the ad information segment 110, the Ad Selector 106 selects all advertisements with a matching message-placements records 410 (step 506). The Ad Selector 106 then creates an empty evaluated ads array to store data relating to how the ads are evaluated (step 508). For each advertisement the Ad Selector 106 determines whether there is a match between the Targets of the advertisement and profile data of the consumer (step 510). The matching process of step 510 may be performed using the following pseudo code:

1. Initialise a variable match counter = 0;

2. Select all targets related to that advertisement;

3. Select the user using the input user_id;

4. Compare each target with attributes of the user and where there is a match, increment match counter by one; 5. Set a variable match score equal to {match counter / (number of targets specified)); and

6. Add data on the evaluated advertisement, the time of its related event content items events. timecode and the match score to evaluated _ads.

Once relevant advertisements have been identified for events in the selected content, any duplicate advertisements for each event are removed (step 512) leaving only the advertisement with the highest Target correspondence to the consumer's profile data. If more than one advertisement assigned to an event has the same relevance to the consumer's profile data, then one entry will be selected based on a random determination. Once the advertisements and corresponding events in the content have been selected, the data representing the evaluated advertisements is returned by the Ad Selector 106 for transmission with the selected video content (step 514).

The Consumer Portal 108 performs an ad presentation/synchronisation process 600, which commences with the Consumer Portal 108 transmitting the content item ID and the consumer ID to the Ad Selector 106 (in step 602 of Figure 6). The Consumer Portal 108 then receives data relating to the requested content (e.g. a URL pointing to the video content) and an XML document containing information of the advertisements to be delivered, and a time manifest with the timing if those messages (e.g. a time-based schedule of events), from the Ad Selector 106 (step 604). The XML document may for example be in the following format: ,

<ads>

</ad> <ad> <id>22</id> <time>15.00</time> <tween-id>2</tween-id> <path>/riskySingles . jpg</path> <width>450px</width>

<tween-id>2</tween-id> <path>/vb . jpg</path> <width>450px</width> <height>26px</height> </ad> </ads>

After receiving the XML document, the Consumer Portal 108 parses the data therein and transmits it to a display device of the consumer, together the video content (step 606). An Adobe flash video player in the display device of the consumer displays the video content and interprets the advertisement display queues for each advertisement transmitted in the array (step 608). For example, the display content and message step may be performed for each advertisement following the pseudo code below:

1. For each advertisement, an HTML div tag is created on the Web page containing the Flash video player;

2. Each div contains the creative of the advertisement, e.g. the image representing the ad;

3. Each div has a unique id set, equal to the id of the advertisement as per the XML document;

4. The visibility of the div tag is set such that the it is hidden (for example using CSS style attribute setting such as visibility: hidden); and

5. Using Javascript APIs to the flash player, a cue point is inserted onto the flash movie at the corresponding advertisement time. The cue point contains an instruction to call a JavaScript function that when the cue point (that time) is reached. The JavaScript function that is called sets the visibility of the advertisement's div to visible (e.g. style.visibility = 'visible').

Following this process, as the video content is displayed, the advertisements are presented synchronised with events occurring in the video content.

The Ad Selector 106 performs a billing process when each advertisement is selected wherein a bill is raised indicative of the relevance of a selected advertisement to: the video content, the event/s, and/or the profile data of the consumer (i.e. the Targets, the Placements, the reach, etc). The Ad Selector 106 attempts to create an optimal match between the advertisement and its circumstances of presentation.

When a large number of consumers are consuming content, there are many combinations and permutations of consumer segments and placements that may arise. Consider the following declarations indicating an optimal consumer demographic and content placement by an advertising agent for a particular advertisement:

1. Consumer targets: a. Gender is male; b. Age is 24 to 40; c. Location is Chicago, Illinois; 2. Content placements: a. Event is Baseball: Home Run. The system does not know how many, if any, opportunities there will be for an advertisement to be delivered to consumers matching all targets (e.g. Males aged between 24 and 40 living in Chicago), nor how many of these consumers will consume Baseball content featuring a home run. If for example a Male aged 30 also from the city of Rockford (also in Illinois) where to watch a video featuring a home run, then the system may serve the advertisement intended for similar consumers in Chicago but at a lesser cost to the advertising agent.

Both targets and placements act as constraints when a desired value is specified, these constraints define sets. In the above example, there are four such sets. The following uses set theory to further describe the behaviour of the invention.

Let:

• A = Gender is male; • B = Age is 24 to 40;

• C = Location is Chicago, Illinois, and

• D = Event is Baseball: Home Run

Then the optimal targeting and placement of the advertisement described above can be described using set notation as: A HB HC HD.

There may be many more opportunities for an advertisement to be placed to other combinations of A, B, C and D and hence an advertising agent may elect to pay for advertisements to be delivered to such combinations of set intersections and indeed individual sets (for example, all Home Runs or all consumers in Chicago). The possible combinations given our example and the sets described are identified in the following table. Also defined is a column denoting the degree to which optimisation has been achieved, where the Degree of Optimisation is a quotient calculated as the number of participating sets (r) divided by the total number of sets (n) where n in this example is four (A, B, C and D).

Given the four sets of A, B, C and D, there are 15 combinations available for an Advertisement to be placed and reach at least one, or as many as all four, of the demographic and content placement optimisations defined by an advertising agent.

To generalise the above, the Combination Formula from combinatorial mathematics can be used to calculate the number of combinations with r participating sets where there are n total sets available, "C_n

By way of extending the example, if a fifth optimal set were identified of "Education = University" yielding 5 sets, we can determine how many combinations of four participating sets are available as: ⁵C₄ = 5.

Therefore with the introduction of an additional set, the number of opportunities for successfully combining four sets of optimal targeting increases. In this case, the degree of optimisation is 4/5.

The determined Degree of Optimisation as described above may be used to determine the cost to an advertising agent for the serving of an advertisement; the following describes the algorithm for calculating the same. Let: • r = the number of participating sets as defined above;

• n = the optimal number of intersecting sets as defined above;

• b = the budget for an advertisement, or that advertisement's campaign;

• p = the remaining budget for an advertisement or that advertisement's campaign, and • m = the maximum cost for serving an advertisement, then c, the cost of serving an advertisement to an advertising agent, is given by: c = m.r / n, where the degree of optimisation as described above is equal to r/n.

Hence when r = n, it is also true that c = m which yields that when an advertisement is delivered with optimal conditions (i.e. all Targets and Placements are successfully achieved by the Ad Selector 106 in the serving of an advertisement) the maximum cost for serving an advertisement is charged to an advertising agent.

In addition to storing b, the allocated budget for an advertisement or that advertisement's campaign, the system stores remaining budget for that advertisement or campaign, p.

When an advertisement or related campaign is registered with the system and no advertisements have been served, the condition p=b is true. Each time an advertisement is served by the system, c, the cost of serving that advertisement, is deducted from p seeing that the remaining budget is reduced by the cost of the advertisement when an advertisement is served. The remaining budget can then be given by: p=b-∑c. Only when the condition p>c, (that is, when there is remaining budget to pay for the cost of serving an advertisement) will an advertisement be served by the Ad Selector 106.

In this way, the Ad Selector 106 can dynamically generate advertisements with a cost to the advertising agent that is adapted to the relevance of the advertisement to the consumer, and thus the likely impact of the message to the consumer. Furthermore, advertisements can be automatically displayed with the content data stream until the relevant campaign budget is exhausted.

Many modifications will be apparent to those skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the present invention as herein described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Claims

The claims defining the invention are as follows:

1. An adaptive marketing system for generating an advertisement associated with a content data stream, said system for performing the step of generating advertisement data representing an advertisement based on metadata associated with said content data stream.

2. The adaptive marketing system claimed in claim 1, including the step of receiving said metadata associated with said content data stream.

3. The adaptive marketing system claimed in claim 1 or claim 2, including the step of receiving said content data stream.

4. The adaptive marketing system claimed in claim 3, including the step of generating said metadata based on the content data stream.

5. The adaptive marketing system claimed in claim 4, wherein the step of generating the metadata includes the step of recognising patterns in the content data stream.

6. The adaptive marketing system claimed in claim 5, wherein the step of recognising patterns in the content data stream is effected as the content data is received.

7. The adaptive marketing system claimed in any one of claims 1 to 6, wherein the metadata includes data representing events that occur in the content data stream and times associated with said events.

8. The adaptive marketing system claimed in any one of claims 1 to 7, including the step of receiving data representing a profile of a consumer of the content data stream.

9. The adaptive marketing system claimed in claim 8, wherein said advertisement data is generated based on said data representing the profile data of the consumer of the content data stream.

10. The adaptive marketing system claimed in claim 9, wherein the data representing the profile of the consumer includes data representing the consumer's age, gender, location, income, hobbies and/or interests.

11. The adaptive marketing system claimed in any one of claims 1 to 10, wherein the advertisement data is generated based on advertising campaign data.

12. The adaptive marketing system claimed in 11, wherein the advertising campaign data includes historical data of one or more past displayed advertisements.

13. The adaptive marketing system claimed in either claim 11 or claim 12, wherein the advertising campaign data includes a selected target frequency of a frequency of the advertisement.

14. The adaptive marketing system claimed in any one of claims 11 to 13, wherein the advertising campaign data includes a selected target reach of a reach of the advertisement.

15. The adaptive marketing system claimed in claim 14, wherein the reach includes the profile in the profile data of the viewer; the meaning of the content data stream; and/or the meaning of the event in the content data stream.

16. The adaptive marketing system claimed in any one of claims 1 to 15, including the step of generating data representing an advertising charge for a purchaser of the advertisement.

17. The adaptive marketing system claimed in claim 16, wherein the step of generating data representing the advertising charge is effected when the advertisement data is generated by the adaptive marketing system.

18. The adaptive marketing system claimed in claim 16 or claim 17, wherein the data representing the advertising charge is generated based on the frequency of the advertisement.

19. The adaptive marketing system claimed in any one of claims 16 to 18, wherein the data representing the advertising charge is generated based on the reach of the advertisement.

20. The adaptive marketing system claimed in any one of claims 16 to 19, wherein the data representing the advertising charge is generated based on the selected time interval.

21. The adaptive marketing system claimed in any one of claims 1 to 20, including the step of generating broadcast data that includes said advertisement data.

22. The adaptive marketing system claimed in any one of claims 1 to 20, including the step of generating broadcast data that includes said advertisement data and said content data.

23. The adaptive marketing system as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 20, including the step of generating data representing a visual display that includes said content data stream and said advertisement data.

24. The adaptive marketing system claimed in claim 23, wherein the step of generating data representing a visual display is effected by a display client.

25. The adaptive marketing system claimed in claim 24, wherein the display client is a Web browser.

26. The adaptive marketing system claimed in any one of claims 1 to 25, wherein the advertisement is a static visual advertisement, an audio advertisement, or a video advertisement.

27. An adaptive marketing process for generating an advertisement associated with a content data stream, including the step of generating advertisement data representing an advertisement based on metadata associated with said content data stream.

28. The process claimed in claim 27, including the step of receiving said metadata associated with said content data stream.

29. The adaptive marketing system claimed in claim 27 or claim 28, including the step of receiving said content data stream.

30. The process claimed in claim 29, including the step of generating said metadata based on the content data stream.

31. The process claimed in claim 30, wherein the step of generating the metadata includes the step of recognising patterns in the content data stream.

32. The process claimed in claim 31, wherein the step of recognising patterns in the content data stream is effected as the content data is received.

33. The process claimed in any one of claims 27 to 32, wherein the metadata includes data representing events that occur in the content data stream and times associated with said events.

34. The process claimed in any one of claims 27 to 33, including the step of receiving data representing a profile of a consumer of the content data stream.

35. The process claimed in claim 34, wherein said advertisement data is generated based on said data representing the profile data of the consumer of the content data stream.

36. The process claimed in claim 35, wherein the data representing the profile of the consumer includes data representing the consumer's age, gender, location, income, hobbies and/or interests.

37. The process claimed in any one of claims 27 to 36, wherein the advertisement data is generated based on advertising campaign data.

38. The process claimed in 37, wherein the advertising campaign data includes historical data of one or more past displayed advertisements.

39. The process claimed in either claim 37 or claim 38, wherein the advertising campaign data includes a selected target frequency of a frequency of the advertisement.

40. The process claimed in any one of claims 37 to 39, wherein the advertising campaign data includes a selected target reach of a reach of the advertisement.

41. The process claimed in claim 40, wherein the reach includes the profile in the profile data of the viewer; the meaning of the content data stream; and/or the meaning of the event in the content data stream.

42. The process claimed in any one of claims 27 to 41, including the step of generating data representing an advertising charge for a purchaser of the advertisement.

43. The process claimed in claim 42, wherein the step of generating data representing the advertising charge is effected when the advertisement data is generated by the adaptive marketing system.

44. The process claimed in claim 42 or claim 43, wherein the data representing the advertising charge is generated based on the frequency of the advertisement.

45. The process claimed in any one of claims 42 to 44, wherein the data representing the advertising charge is generated based on the reach of the advertisement.

46. The process claimed in any one of claims 42 to 45, wherein the data representing the advertising charge is generated based on the selected time interval.

47. The process claimed in any one of claims 27 to 46, including the step of generating broadcast data that includes said advertisement data.

48. The process claimed in any one of claims 27 to 46, including the step of generating broadcast data that includes said advertisement data and said content data.

49. The process claimed in any one of claims 27 to 46, including the step of generating data representing a visual display that includes said content data stream and said advertisement data.

50. The process claimed in claim 49, wherein the step of generating data representing a visual display is effected by a display client.

51. The process as claimed in claim 50, wherein the display client is a Web browser.

52. The process claimed in any one of claims 27 to 51, wherein the advertisement is a static visual advertisement, an audio advertisement, or a video advertisement.

53. A computer program for generating an advertisement associated with a content data stream, said program for performing the step of generating advertisement data representing an advertisement based on metadata associated with said content data stream.

54. The program claimed in claim 53, including the step of receiving said metadata associated with said content data steam.

55. The adaptive marketing system claimed in claim 53 or claim 54, including the step of receiving said content data stream.

56. The program claimed in claim 55, including the step of generating said metadata based on the content data stream.

57. The program claimed in claim 56, wherein the step of generating the metadata includes the step of recognising patterns in the content data stream.

58. The program claimed in claim 55, wherein the step of recognising patterns in the content data stream is effected as the content data is received.

59. The program claimed in any one of claims 53 to 58, wherein the metadata includes data representing events that occur in the content data stream and times associated with said events.

60. The program claimed in any one of claim 53 to 59, including the step of receiving data representing a profile of a consumer of the content data stream.

61. The program claimed in claim 60, wherein said advertisement data is generated based on said data representing the profile data of the consumer of the content data stream.

62. The program claimed in claim 61, wherein the data representing the profile of the consumer includes data representing the consumer's age, gender, location, income, hobbies and/or interests.

63. The program claimed in any one of claims 53 to 62, wherein the advertisement data is generated based on advertising campaign data.

64. The program claimed in 63, wherein the advertising campaign data includes historical data of one or more past displayed advertisements.

65. The program claimed in either claim 63 or claim 64, wherein the advertising campaign data includes a selected target frequency of a frequency of the advertisement.

66. The program claimed in any one of claims 63 to 65, wherein the advertising campaign data includes a selected target reach of a reach of the advertisement.

67. The program claimed in claim 66, wherein the reach includes the profile in the profile data of the viewer; the meaning of the content data stream; and/or the meaning of the event in the content data stream.

68. The program claimed in any one of claims 53 to 67, including the step of generating data representing an advertising charge for a purchaser of the advertisement.

69. The program claimed in claim 68, wherein the step of generating data representing the advertising charge is effected when the advertisement data is generated by the adaptive marketing system.

70. The program claimed in claim 68 or claim 69, wherein the data representing the advertising charge is generated based on the frequency of the advertisement.

71. The program claimed in any one of claims 68 to 70, wherein the data representing the advertising charge is generated based on the reach of the advertisement.

72. The program claimed in any one of claims 68 to 71, wherein the data representing the advertising charge is generated based on the selected time interval.

73. The program claimed in any one of claims 53 to 72, including the step of generating broadcast data that includes said advertisement data.

74. The program claimed in any one of claims 53 to 72, including the step of generating broadcast data that includes said advertisement data and said content data.

75. The program claimed in any one of claims 53 to 72, including the step of generating data representing a visual display that includes said content data and said advertisement data.

76. The program claimed in claim 75, wherein the step of generating data representing a visual display is effected by a display client.

77. The program claimed in claim 76, wherein the display client is a Web browser.

78. The program claimed in any one of claims 53 to 77, wherein the advertisement is a static visual advertisement, an audio advertisement, or a video advertisement.