Patent Application
20230091238
Television advertising (e.g., linear television advertising) has been practiced the same way for many years. In the past, available advertisement time may be allocated between a content provider and a content distributor. For example, a distributor may sell 2 to 3 minutes of advertisements per hour per program and a content provider may sell the rest of an advertisement inventory per program per hour (e.g., approximately 14 to 15 minutes of advertisements). Cablelabs has participated in the creation of standards that allow content providers and content distributors to share advertisement opportunities. Two standards are the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) 35 and SCTE 224 standards. There is a need to provide more flexibility in the control, targeting, tracking, and/or sharing of advertisements, advertisement placement opportunities, and advertisement revenue among various parties in order to provide a better user experience, maximize revenue, and allow more flexibility.
The following summary presents a simplified summary of certain features. The summary is not an extensive overview and is not intended to identify key or critical elements.
Systems, apparatuses, and methods are described for identifying addressable advertisement slots in media/video streams and using the addressable advertisement slots. The identifying and/or the using of the advertisement slots may be based on metadata associated with the media/video streams and/or viewers/audiences associated with different distributors/operators. The metadata, which may be received from a content provider or a third-party suppliers (e.g., creators of advertisements), may convey information including, but not limited to, advertisement rules, addressability rules, and/or audit/execution logs. The information or part of the information may be provided to the different distributors/operators. The different distributors/operators may use the information or part of the information to use identified addressable advertisement slots (e.g., by inserting different advertisements specifically targeted to those viewers/audiences associated with a particular distributor) and potentially generate a higher cost per thousand impressions (CPMs).
These and other features and advantages are described in greater detail below.
Some features are shown by way of example, and not by limitation, in the accompanying drawings. In the drawings, like numerals reference similar elements.
The accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof, show examples of the disclosure. It is to be understood that the examples shown in the drawings and/or discussed herein are non-exclusive and that there are other examples of how the disclosure may be practiced.
The communication links 101 may originate from the local office 103 and may comprise components not shown, such as splitters, filters, amplifiers, etc., to help convey signals clearly. The communication links 101 may be coupled to one or more wireless access points 127 configured to communicate with one or more mobile devices 125 via one or more wireless networks. The mobile devices 125 may comprise smart phones, tablets or laptop computers with wireless transceivers, tablets or laptop computers communicatively coupled to other devices with wireless transceivers, and/or any other type of device configured to communicate via a wireless network.
The local office 103 may comprise an interface 104. The interface 104 may comprise one or more computing devices configured to send information downstream to, and to receive information upstream from, devices communicating with the local office 103 via the communications links 101. The interface 104 may be configured to manage communications among those devices, to manage communications between those devices and backend devices such as servers 105-107, and/or to manage communications between those devices and one or more external networks 109. The interface 104 may, for example, comprise one or more routers, one or more base stations, one or more optical line terminals (OLTs), one or more termination systems (e.g., a modular cable modem termination system (M-CMTS) or an integrated cable modem termination system (I-CMTS)), one or more digital subscriber line access modules (DSLAMs), and/or any other computing device(s). The local office 103 may comprise one or more network interfaces 108 that comprise circuitry needed to communicate via the external networks 109. The external networks 109 may comprise networks of Internet devices, telephone networks, wireless networks, wired networks, fiber optic networks, and/or any other desired network. The local office 103 may also or alternatively communicate with the mobile devices 125 via the interface 108 and one or more of the external networks 109, e.g., via one or more of the wireless access points 127.
The push notification server 105 may be configured to generate push notifications to deliver information to devices in the premises 102 and/or to the mobile devices 125. The content server 106 may be configured to provide content to devices in the premises 102 and/or to the mobile devices 125. This content may comprise, for example, video, audio, text, web pages, images, files, etc. The content server 106 (or, alternatively, an authentication server) may comprise software to validate user identities and entitlements, to locate and retrieve requested content, and/or to initiate delivery (e.g., streaming) of the content. The application server 107 may be configured to offer any desired service. For example, an application server may be responsible for collecting, and generating a download of, information for electronic program guide listings. Another application server may be responsible for monitoring user viewing habits and collecting information from that monitoring for use in selecting advertisements. Yet another application server may be responsible for formatting and inserting advertisements in a video stream being transmitted to devices in the premises 102 and/or to the mobile devices 125. The local office 103 may comprise additional servers, additional push, content, and/or application servers, and/or other types of servers. Although shown separately, the push server 105, the content server 106, the application server 107, and/or other server(s) may be combined. The servers 105, 106, 107, and 122, and/or other servers, may be computing devices and may comprise memory storing data and also storing computer executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the server(s) to perform steps described herein. Also or alternatively, one or more servers may be part of the external network 109 and may be configured to communicate (e.g., via the local office 103) with computing devices located in or otherwise associated with one or more premises 102.
For example, a context aggregator server 122 may communicate with the local office 103 (and/or one or more other local offices), one or more premises 102, one or more access points 127, one or more mobiles devices 125, and/or one or more other computing devices via the external network 109. The context aggregator server 122 may ingest various types of information, generate SCTE 224 type information and send the SCTE 224 type information to other devices, as described below. Also or alternatively, the context aggregator server 122 may be located in the local office 103, in a premises 102, and/or elsewhere in a network.
Additionally, an advertising decision server (ADS) 123 may communicate with the local office 103 (and/or one or more other local offices), one or more premises 102, one or more access points 127, one or more mobiles devices 125, and/or one or more other computing devices via the external network 109. The ADS 123 may receive SCTE 224 type information and determine one or more advertisements based on the SCTE 224 type information, as described below. Also or alternatively, the ADS 123 may be located in the local office 103, in a premises 102, and/or elsewhere in a network.
Additionally, a placement opportunity information service (POIS) server 124 may communicate with the local office 103 (and/or one or more other local offices), one or more premises 102, one or more access points 127, one or more mobiles devices 125, and/or one or more other computing devices via the external network 109. The POIS server 124 may receive a selected advertisement for an advertisement slot, as described below. Also or alternatively, the POIS server 124 may be located in the local office 103, in a premises 102, and/or elsewhere in a network.
An example premises 102a may comprise an interface 120. The interface 120 may comprise circuitry used to communicate via the communication links 101. The interface 120 may comprise a modem 110, which may comprise transmitters and receivers used to communicate via the communication links 101 with the local office 103. The modem 110 may comprise, for example, a coaxial cable modem (for coaxial cable lines of the communication links 101), a fiber interface node (for fiber optic lines of the communication links 101), twisted-pair telephone modem, a wireless transceiver, and/or any other desired modem device. One modem is shown in
The gateway 111 may also comprise one or more local network interfaces to communicate, via one or more local networks, with devices in the premises 102a. Such devices may comprise, e.g., display devices 112 (e.g., televisions), other devices 113 (e.g., a DVR or STB), personal computers 114, laptop computers 115, wireless devices 116 (e.g., wireless routers, wireless laptops, notebooks, tablets and netbooks, cordless phones (e.g., Digital Enhanced Cordless Telephone—DECT phones), mobile phones, mobile televisions, personal digital assistants (PDA)), landline phones 117 (e.g., Voice over Internet Protocol—VoIP phones), and any other desired devices. Example types of local networks comprise Multimedia Over Coax Alliance (MoCA) networks, Ethernet networks, networks communicating via Universal Serial Bus (USB) interfaces, wireless networks (e.g., IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.15, Bluetooth), networks communicating via in-premises power lines, and others. The lines connecting the interface 120 with the other devices in the premises 102a may represent wired or wireless connections, as may be appropriate for the type of local network used. One or more of the devices at the premises 102a may be configured to provide wireless communications channels (e.g., IEEE 802.11 channels) to communicate with one or more of the mobile devices 125, which may be on- or off-premises.
The mobile devices 125, one or more of the devices in the premises 102a, and/or other devices may receive, store, output, and/or otherwise use assets. An asset may comprise a video, a game, one or more images, software, audio, text, webpage(s), and/or other content.
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A distributor may sell a period of commercials (e.g., 2 to 3 minutes) per hour per program (e.g., local avails), and a content provider may sell the rest of the advertisement inventory per program per hour (e.g., 14 to 15 minutes of commercials). For example, a local avails advertisement inventory may be classified as addressable advertisements, and may be targeted and sold at a local level. The advertisements sold by content providers may be national advertisement campaigns that are “locked and loaded” to be seen by everyone watching that particular program. The content provider-owned national advertisement inventory may be converted into “addressable” advertisement inventory that may be national and/or local and/or shared revenue streams. Addressable advertisements may increase the potential revenue and lead to the growth of this relatively untapped market. Addressable advertisements may comprise replacing advertisements sold on broad age and/or gender demographics with advertising sold on more specific audience definitions (e.g., on a household basis).
Linear advertisement addressability may comprise converting national programmer advertisements to more targeted advertising similar to the local avails sold by distributors. A standardized eco-system for content providers, distributors, and technology providers (e.g., advertising decision services (ADS)) is disclosed to enable automated and trackable addressable advertising.
A standardized eco-system may provide a common addressable advertising interface and control for programmers/content owners/aggregators, content distributors, and others such as television manufacturers and retailers. In one example, Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) 224 is adapted to identify, to a distributor, which advertisements from a content provider are addressable (e.g., replaceable) and may be replaced, the policy decisions associated with the circumstances under which they may be replaced, and appropriate tracking, reporting, and allocation of revenue from such replacement. SCTE 224 may be adapted for use by content providers to communicate with ADSs advertisement rules regarding how the addressable advertisements should be selected and prioritized vis-a-via other advertisements within a specific advertisement slot. In addition, SCTE 224 may be adapted to enrich advertisement data with, for example, scene information, actor information, or creative metadata in ways that strengthen the visual ties to advertisements and improve the overall effectiveness of selecting the targeted advertisement. A method may comprise ingesting different types of metadata associated with the advertising slot, the advertisement contained in the slot, conflict rules, policies associated with the advertisement slot, digital rights management, and other data and communicating such information of metadata downstream to the content distributor channels (potentially with different policies for different distributor channels). This information may be distributed in various ways and be in-band or out-of-band. For example, it may be communicated using an adaption of SCTE 224 or an out-of-band system such as a policy server, advertisement slot information server, and/or billing server. In one example, ingested information may be distributed by, for example, converting the ingested information to SCTE 224 type information, and identifying addressable advertisement slots and associated advertisement insertion rules based on the SCTE 224 type information. SCTE 224 is an Event Schedule Notification Interface (ESNI) standard, which provides a defined protocol for carrying machine-to-machine metadata for video. SCTE 224 may be used for addressable advertising such that content providers and distributors may use more targeted advertisements and potentially generate a higher cost per thousand impressions (CPMs). SCTE 224 may be an efficient and effective means for machine-to-machine communication of out-of-band linear rights management (LRM). Additionally, SCTE 224 may be combined with other protocols (e.g., SCTE 35) that trigger in-band signaling, which may allow precision execution of linear rights for content substitution and addressable advertising management. SCTE 224 may be transmitted out-of-band of the video stream (e.g., transmitted via a different channel from a video channel).
SCTE 224 may be used to communicate rules and policies at an audience-based level, thereby providing a substrate to implement addressability. SCTE 224 may be used to identify which slots within the content provider's specific time periods (e.g., 14-15 minutes) per hour for advertising are addressable, and transmit advertisement information specific to those slots. SCTE 224 may provide a mechanism to communicate slot schedules for addressable slots versus national advertisements. SCTE 224 may also enable and/or communicate specific rules for the addressable inventory on behalf of content providers to ADSs associated with distributors.
SCTE 224 objects may be XML (extensible markup language) messages with relevant fields for advertising such as ViewingPolicy actions for advertisement inclusion, exclusion, and/or ADS directives. These XML messages may be managed and/or transmitted with a representational state transfer (REST) interface for exchange between distributors and content providers, via, for example hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP). SCTE 35 markers/signals in a video stream may trigger or otherwise indicate advertisement breaks and/or advertisement slots. The SCTE 224 objects may be tied to SCTE 35 markers/signals based on information included in an SCTE message and an SCTE 35 marker/signal.
The MediaPoint objects 303A-303D may describe a point in the Media object 301 when a decision needs to be made and/or action needs to be taken. The point may either be time-based (e.g., a MatchTime attribute in the MediaPoint object) or SCTE 35 marker-based for frame accuracy. A time-based point may indicate the time of a start of a program, an end of a program, a start of an advertisement break, an end of an advertisement break, and/or any time point that a decision needs to be made and/or an action needs to be taken. A signal-based MediaPoint object may comprise a MatchSignal attribute (e.g., element) with XPath matching logic to link the MediaPoint object to the presence of an SCTE 35 marker/signal. For example, the MediaPoint object 303A may comprise a MatchSignal attribute “EPXYZ1” to link the MediaPoint object 303A to an SCTE 35 marker/signal. The MediaPoint objects 303A-303D may use the same MatchSignal because the MediaPoint objects 303A-303D may have an effective and/or expiration window constraining if the MediaPoint objects 303A-303D are evaluated.
If a MediaPoint object (e.g., one of the MediaPoint objects 303A-303D) is triggered, based on a time or signal, the MediaPoint object may either “apply” or “remove” one or more Policy objects that affect the state of output. MediaPoints objects that “apply” a policy may do so until another MediaPoint object explicitly “removes” that Policy or a time out occurred (e.g., based on the duration indicated in the “apply” statement). For example, the MediaPoint object 303A may apply “Policyl” to the state of output.
MediaPoint objects 303A and 303B may correspond to a Policy object 305A and MediaPoint objects 303C and 303D may correspond to a Policy object 305B. A Policy object may be a container for defining a set of ViewingPolicy elements to be acted upon based on this Policy being “apply” or “removed” from a policy stack. The “apply” (e.g., application) of a Policy may comprise putting that Policy on that Media object's stack via first-in-last-out queue, so multiple Policies may be applied at one time. The removal of a Policy may remove the Policy from that stack and out of the state of that Media object. SCTE 224 may comprise explicit rules specifying how to manage the Policy queue in an SCTE 224 execution engine. For example, the policy object 305A may define ViewingPolicy elements “ViewingPolicy1,” which is to be acted upon based on whether this ViewingPolicy is to be applied or removed from a policy Stack.
A ViewingPolicy object (e.g., one of ViewingPolicy objects 307A-307B) may associate one or more actions with a set of audiences (e.g., a distributor, a user, a household, a user device, users located in a zip code). These actions may comprise, for example, directing an audience to alternate content, restricting trick mode (e.g., trick play), restricting resolution, and/or other actions that are associated with an audience. These actions may also comprise information about ADS for a particular audience, or various advertisement conflicting rules for a particular audience. A ViewingPolicy may comprise an audience criteria that specifies a set of audiences (e.g., audience located at Location1). A ViewingPolicy may require that that if an audience meets an audience criteria, a corresponding action must be taken. SCTE 224 may maintain a list of actions. For example, the ViewingPolicy object 307A may comprise an action that directs an audience (e.g., the audience at Location1) to a specific content item.
An Audience object (e.g., one of Audience objects 309A-309C) may be a set of characteristics that define a subset of viewers based on certain attributes of their device types (e.g., tablets, phones, smart phones, laptop computers, personal computers, etc.), device characteristics (e.g., local storage, mobile, etc.), one or more distributors associated with the viewers, and/or geographical location information (e.g., zip codes, postal codes, latitude/longitude, market areas). An Audience object may indicate end user audiences and/or distributors that are associated with a content provider. An Audience object may receive categories such as “Distributor” or “Virtual Integrated Receiver Decoder (vIRD).” An audience object may comprise other Audience objects, which may result in compound audiences. Additionally, the logic to associate a client with an Audience may be based on matches of ANY, ALL, or NONE of the characteristics outlined, for easily including or excluding specific characteristics. For example, Match=“ANY” for a list of zip codes may characterize the audience within that area defined by the list of zip codes. Match=“NONE” may characterize an audience outside that area. For example, the Audience object 309 may define a set of viewers that are located either in zip code 80820 or 80821.
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A signal decision system (SDS) 405 may receive SCTE 224 messages from a context aggregator server 122. The SAS 403 and SDS 405 may be part of the context aggregator server 122. The context aggregator server 122 may comprise one or more ingest adaptors 122A. The one or more ingest adaptors 122A may be configured to ingest and aggregate different types of input information via a network. The input information may comprise program information and information associated with advertising or other content. The programmer 401 and the third-party suppliers 411 may send the input information in various formats. For example, the input information may be sent to the context aggregator server 122 in the formats of emails, texts, and/or spreadsheets.
The one or more ingest adaptors 122A may receive program information (e.g., metadata of the video stream) from the programmer 401 and information associated with advertising or other content from the programmer 401 or one or more third-party suppliers 411. The program information may comprise, for example, a name of a program, description of a program, a series number of a program, an episode number of a program, a genre of a program, actors of a program, a start and/or end time of a program, one or more identifiers that identify an advertisement break, an Industry Standard Coding Identification (ISCI) of an advertisement, a start time and/or end time of an advertisement break, and/or a duration of an advertisement break. The information associated with advertising or other content may comprise advertisement conflicting rules (e.g., advertisement inclusion rules, advertisement exclusion rules), episode specific information (e.g., guests, themes, locations), scene information (time of year, location, environment, activity, actors), and/or additional advertisement context information (e.g., category, brand, scene, theme, genre, duration, people, closed captioning).
The third-party suppliers 411 may comprise one or more advertising agencies and/or scheduling systems. The third-party suppliers 411 may send information associated with advertising or other content to the context aggregator server 122. For example, the third-party suppliers 411 may create advertisement conflicting rules for a program or a distributor, and send the advertisement conflicting rules to the context aggregator server 122.
The context aggregator server 122 may comprise an engine 122B and a publisher 122C. The engine 122B may normalize the input information and transform the normalized input information to an SCTE 224 format. For example, the engine 122B may generate one or more SCTE 224 messages by converting the input information into SCTE 224-based XML language. The conversion may comprise mapping different types of input information into the SCTE 224 format. The engine 122B may set or generate various types of SCTE 224 objects based on the generated one or more SCTE 224 messages.
The engine 122B may create a namespace for holding SCTE 224 metadata within the SCTE 224 Standard's schema. SCTE 224 metadata may be carried in a MetadataDetail container. Each SCTE 224 metadata entry may comprise 4 attributes as shown in Table 1 below.
Below is an example of a MetadataDetail container that may be added to a metadata section of a MediaPoints object:
The same metadata structure may be used to carry any additional metadata associated with advertising. Additionally or alternatively, different metadata structures may be used for the additional metadata associated with advertising. Table 2 shows example names of the SCTE-224 metadata for additional metadata associated with advertising.
The context aggregator server 122 may store the SCTE 224 messages in a local database or via a cloud service. The context aggregator server 122 may monitor the ingestion status of the input information and the generation of the SCTE 224 messages. The publisher 122C may publish the SCTE 224 messages to other devices and/or services. For example, the publisher 122C may send the SCTE 224 messages to the SDS 405. The SDS 405 may receive the SCTE 224 messages. In addition, the publisher 122C may send the SCTE 224 messages to one or more ADSs 123. Different types of the SCTE 224 messages may be sent to different ADSs 123 of different distributors/operators (e.g., advertising company). For example, SCTE 224 messages that comprise information identifying which advertisement slots are addressable may be sent to a distributor, SCTE 224 messages that comprise information identifying advertisement rules may be sent to an advertising company (e.g., FreeWheel), and/or SCTE 224 messages that comprise addressability rules and audit and execution information (e.g., auditing/monitoring advertisement logs, quality information/CPM values on advertisements being played out, etc.) may be sent to a different advertising company (e.g., Canoe). The ADSs 123 may determine an advertisement for output based on the SCTE 224 messages and/or other information obtained from third-party systems 417. The third-party systems 417 may provide additional information associated with the advertising. For example, the third-party systems 417 may provide demographics of the viewers located in a region and advertisement campaign information for a particular advertisement.
The SAS 403 may detect one or more SCTE 35 markers/signals in the video stream. If the SAS 403 detects an SCTE 35 marker/signal for the start of an advertisement break, the SAS 403 may call (e.g., send a message to) the SDS 405 to check if the advertisement break comprises an addressable advertisement slot, for example, via an event signaling and management (ESAM) API. For example, the SAS 403 may call the SDS 405 to determine the actions associated with the advertisement break identified by the SCTE 35 marker/signal. If the SAS 403 calls the SDS 405, the SAS 403 may inform the SDS 405 of which source (e.g., content provider) it was on, what time it detects the SCTE 35 marker/signal, the binary signal, and/or client characteristics. The SAS 403 may send a message comprising information such as “I just saw the signal ‘UhJeasfojoihe23edde’ on source XYZ, at 1:00 pm and I am encoding for zip code 80820.” The SDS 405 may check all the received SCTE 224 messages and their Media objects (e.g., the Media object 301) to find at least one Media object for the same source (e.g., XYZ).
Based on the SDS 405 finding a Media object that comprises the same source, the SDS 405 may examine the MediaPoints objects (e.g., the MediaPoints objects 303A-303D) associated with the Media object to find MediaPoints objects that fall within the designated time window. Based on the SDS 405 obtaining the list of MediaPoints objects that fall within the designated time window, the SDS 405 may evaluate each MediaPoints object to see if there is a match for the SCTE 35 marker/signal. For a MediaPoint object that matches, the SDS 405 may either “apply” or “remove” the Policy object associated with the MediaPoint object. The SDS 405 may check the ViewingPolicy object associated with the Policy object. The SDS 405 may determine whether a match exists between the audience and the designated zip code, based on the Match criteria. For example, if a match exists between the audience and the designated zip code, the SDS 405 may return the “Action” of the ViewingPolicy object to the SAS 403 for that audience. In the case of alternate content, for example, the SDS 405 may inform the SAS 403 that it needs to switch over to another source and start encoding the other source.
In addition, the SDS 405 may check the corresponding MediaPoint object to “apply” the policy and validate the distributor against the ViewingPolicy Audience and resulting action. For example, if the distributor is “ABC” and “ABC” is in the content provider's audience, and the action is linear digital advertisement insertion (DAI), the advertisement break may comprise an addressable advertisement slot. In that case, the SDS 405 may return the “LinearDAI” back to the SAS 403 as the decision response, so that the SAS 403 may be informed that the advertisement break comprises an addressable advertisement slot. The SAS 403 may call the POIS server 124 to obtain an advertisement to play using, for example, SCTE 130 type messages. The POIS server 124 may send to the ADS 123 information (e.g., advertisement break identification, demographics of viewers), for example, using SCTE 130 type messages. The POIS server 124 may receive an advertisement from the ADS 123, for example, based on SCTE 130 type messages. If the distributor is, for example, “DEF” and is not in the content provider's audience, the SDS 405 may return a message to the SAS 403 indicating that there is no placement opportunity (e.g., “no opportunity” or “noop”), which may ask the SAS 403 to do nothing and/or keep doing what it was doing. In some examples, the SAS 403 may output the baked-in advertisement (e.g., originally scheduled advertisement). There may be other actions like “SignalDeletion.”
One benefit of using out-of-band SCTE 224 messages/objects associated with addressable advertisement(s) may be that SCTE 224 messages/objects may carry potentially unlimited information to match audience and action pairs. Because the signaling happens out-of-band, the SCTE 224 messages/objects may not impact the frames in the video by trying to cram everything into an SCTE 35 marker/signal, so it greatly reduces the size of the SCTE 35 marker/signal required with the video. In fact, SCTE 224 messages/objects may allow a single, simple SCTE 35 marker/signal to be sent to multiple distributors and have multiple meanings, which results in individual playout payloads to multiple distributors. Because content providers innately serve multiple distributors and audiences, this is a highly desirable feature.
SCTE 224 messages/objects may provide specific advertisement rules for the addressable inventory on behalf of the content provider to the distributor and the ADSs. There may be many advertisement rules, but two constitute the main rules conveyed from the content provider to the distributor. One advertisement rule may involve which ADS to use, whether there are campaign/order codes associated with that slot that the ADS needs to know. The second advertisement rule may involve advertisement inclusion and exclusion, or whether there are conflicting rules, based on what advertisements the content provider already has slotted in its linear feed. In this case, a protocol like SCTE 224 may facilitate the appropriate advertising decisioning without instigating advertisement conflict resolution. Each of these types of advertisement rules may easily be carried by SCTE 224 and conveyed to an operator by or for the content provider, on a per-distributor basis.
Because SCTE 224 type information may be sent out-of-band and may be used differently for different distributors, a content provider may set up different ADS s (e.g., the ADS 123) for each distributor. For example, a content provider may use an SCTE 224 MediaPoint that has a Policy for audience “Comcast,” and action “use FreeWheel” and another distributor with audience “Charter” and action “use Google DFP.” In this way, a content provider may instruct different distributors to use different ADSs.
Additionally, because a content provider may have individual direction capability for different distributors, the content provider may direct more than just which ADS to use. A content provider may include varying order numbers or varying campaign attributes that are different for each distributor. This may result in a tighter coupling of addressable advertisements and the distributor, leading to potentially higher revenue upsells.
Because the SCTE 224 signal path is out-of-band, there is no limit of a size of an SCTE 224 message. As a result, a content provider may use one or more SCTE 224 messages to include extensive metadata about an advertisement, or what targeted advertisement(s) cannot be used to avoid placing an advertisement within the same advertisement break that conflict with one another. Because the content provider knows about the baked-in advertisements in the feed, the content provider may provide rules to the distributor or one or more ADS about what advertisements would fit great in the advertisement slot. For example, a content provider may provide rules specifying which advertisements to include. Additionally or alternatively, a content provider may provide rules specifying which type or category of advertisements not to include (to exclude), because they may counter or otherwise affect the previous or consequent advertisement that had been identified as addressable. For example, a content provider may provide a rule to exclude Pepsi advertisements after Coke advertisements or vice versa.
Examples of these rules may include, but are not limited to, the following: showing a specific number of advertisements or limiting the number of advertisement slots for a specific product group, specifying a minimum spacing between advertisements belonging to a specific product group, specifying that an advertisement slot may only be replaced by campaigns that are a member of a specific product category, and/or excluding particular products or categories that might not align with other advertisements in the advertisement slot. For example, one rule may specify that a brand A, a soda advertisement, and a brand B, another soda advertisement, may not appear in the same advertisement slot. As another example, one rule may specify that a national car advertisement cannot be followed by a local car dealer advertisement. As another example, one rule may specify that an insurance advertisement may not be placed into every advertisement slot.
Because of their aforementioned large capacity and flexibility, SCTE 224 messages may carry information about the advertisements or the content associated with the addressable advertisement. For example, SCTE 224 messages may comprise scene information, actors or other action-based on information, advertisement creative information, and/or technical advertisement metrics information.
Scene information may comprise information that describes or otherwise indicates the scenes shown before or in response to an advertisement slot (e.g., adjacent to an advertisement slot). Advertisement campaigns may be set up on overarching show genre, category, or age group, but if a content provider could convey more information at the scene level, it could be that much more valuable for the advertisement slot. For example, the scene information may indicate what was viewed by the audience in the last scene (e.g., a car chase scene) before a break. Tying the next advertisement to that visual context, and scheduling into the next appropriate advertisement break (e.g., a car dealer advertisement in response to a car chase scene) may maximize effectiveness. For example, if the last scene viewed by the audience was beach scene with a truck, beach related advertisements may be played when the audience's zip code is closer to beach areas. Alternatively, truck related advertisements may be played when the audience's zip code is closer to mountain areas. This linkage could lead to greater CPM values.
Actors or other action-based metadata may comprise actor information or action-related information of a content item. Product placement or metadata derived from action within a show (either live or pre-recorded) could be used to drive more intelligent advertisements and higher CPMs. An example of actors or other action-based metadata may comprise names or other information of one or more actors in a content item or additional scene information.
Advertisement creative metadata may comprise information associated with other advertisements. For example, using metadata from the previous advertisement or other advertisements from the advertisement slot could lead to a more intelligent advertisement break and higher CPM.
Technical advertisement metrics may comprise a duration of an advertisement. For example, data such as advertisement duration may be used to ensure advertisement slots are not missed, which could result in loss of revenue for the content providers and distributors.
At step 600, the context aggregator server 122 may receive, via in-band communication, a video stream from the programmer 401. The video stream may include at least a program and a marker (e.g., SCTE 35 signal) indicating an advertisement break in the program. At step 601, the context aggregator server 122 may detect the advertisement break in the video stream. The advertisement break may be associated with an addressable/replaceable advertisement slot (e.g., a baked-in advertisement may be replaced with a local-level advertisement) or an irreplaceable advertisement slot reserved for the baked-in advertisement (e.g., national advertisement).
At step 620, the context aggregator server 122 may receive, via out-of-band signaling, metadata associated with the video stream from the programmer 401 and/or the third-party suppliers 411. The metadata may include information associated with addressable/replaceable advertisement slots, advertisement rules, audit/execution information (auditing/monitoring advertisement logs, quality information/CPM values on advertisements being played out, etc.), or context information of the program. The context information may include a program name, a program description, a program series number, a program episode number, a program genre, program actors, a program start time, a program end time, advertisement identifier, an Industry Standard Coding Identification (ISCI) of an advertisement, advertisement break start time, advertisement break end time, advertisement break duration, advertisement inclusion rule, advertisement exclusion rule, guests in a program episode, theme of a program episode (e.g., holiday party), a geographical location (e.g., New York City) associated with a program episode, a season of a program scene (e.g., winter, summer, Christmas, etc.), a type of location of a program scene (e.g., beach, mountain, outer space, metropolitan city, etc.), an environment of a program scene (e.g., sand, snow, rain, etc.), an activity of a program scene (e.g., driving a car, drinking soda, playing golf, etc.), actor roles of a program scene (e.g., policeman, firefighters, soldiers, students, teachers, school bus driver, presidential candidates, etc.), advertisement category (e.g., fast-food, car sales, insurance, travel, health, etc.), advertisement brand (e.g., McDonald's, Ford, Progressive, etc.), advertisement scene (e.g., beach car, SUV, truck, etc.), advertisement theme (e.g., mountain driving, adventure, Hudson river, serving in the US Army, etc.), advertisement genre (e.g., product, promo, charity donations, political campaign, etc.), advertisement people (e.g., Ronald Reagan, Larry King, Brad Pitt, etc.), or advertisement closed captioning (e.g., on or off).
At step 630, the context aggregator server 122 may convert the metadata into SCTE-224 message(s). For example, SCTE-224 message may be XML messages with various fields (e.g., media, media points, policy, viewing policy, audiences, etc.). For example, a media field may describe a channel (e.g., WNBC), source information for the channel, and include an ordered list of media point fields. A media point field may describe a time-based point or a SCTE 35 marker-based point in the media field where a decision/action needs to be taken. A policy field may include a set of viewing policy fields to be acted upon. A viewing policy field may associate a number of actions with a set of audience fields (e.g., a distributor, a user, a household, a user device, users located in a zip code). An audience field may include a set of characteristics defining a subset of viewers (e.g., device characteristics, advertisement distributor(s) associated with viewers, or location information).
At step 640, the context aggregator server 122 may send SCTE-224 message(s) of different types, for example, to different ADSs 123. For example, SCTE-224 message(s) including information identifying advertisement rules for addressable advertisement slots may be sent to a first ADS 123 associated with a first advertising company/distributor (e.g., FreeWheel). For example, SCTE-224 message(s) including audit and execution information may be sent to a second ADS 123 associated with a second advertising company/distributor (e.g., Canoe).
At step 650 (
Although examples are described above, features and/or steps of those examples may be combined, divided, omitted, rearranged, revised, and/or augmented in any desired manner. Various alterations, modifications, and improvements will readily occur to those skilled in the art. Such alterations, modifications, and improvements are intended to be part of this description, though not expressly stated herein, and are intended to be within the spirit and scope of the disclosure. Accordingly, the foregoing description is by way of example only, and is not limiting.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 63/242,913, filed on Sep. 10, 2021. The above-referenced application is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63242913 | Sep 2021 | US |
