The present disclosure relates generally to mobile communications devices, and more particularly to methods and systems for enabling users of these devices to receive contextually relevant coupon offers.
Location-based services are well known to practitioners in the field. There are several generally accepted mechanisms to determine the location of a mobile device. The two leading methods are the Global Positioning System (GPS) and triangulation methods based on the location of nearby cell towers (Cell ID).
GPS is a satellite-based system where satellites continually broadcast information about their locations, and receivers receive these ephemeris broadcasts. The receivers then perform a triangulation calculation on the received location information to determine the point on earth where the device is located. The Cell ID method works by determining the location of the nearest cell towers. This is usually accomplished by determining the identifiers of the connected cell tower. These locations are then triangulated to determine a point on earth. Regardless of method, the device is able to determine its latitude and longitude within an acceptable degree of uncertainty.
Location information is exposed to users in a variety of well known ways, typically through some sort of mobile application. The most common application is to display a map indicating the location of the device. Map information is often augmented with a destination point and driving directions between the current location and the destination point. Other well known applications include asset tracking (such as tracking trucks through a delivery route) and “friend finder” applications (such as displaying the location of other devices).
Electronic commerce services are well known to practitioners in the field. In particular, it is well known to allow a mobile device to connect to an electronic commerce system. This connection is generally accomplished through the use of a “mobile browser”, which is the browser included in the mobile device. A given vendor may have a web site to which users from mobile browsers connect directly, or they may have a special web site which is optimized for the peculiar constraints of mobile browsers (such as reduced screen size). Alternatively, connection to a web site may be accomplished through a “rich application”, which is a software program executing on a device. In either case, the device has the ability to display a catalog of products to a user, and the user can browse the catalog and select specific products of interest.
In the physical world, vendors often distribute printed catalogs to prospective customers. These catalogs often include a set of products that the vendor sells. In order to increase the probability that a prospective customer will actually purchase something, the vendor often includes some sort of special offer. The special offer is normally in the form of a coupon. Depending on the purpose and redemption method of the coupon, it may be in the form of a printed item that is physically presented to the vendor for in-store purchases. Alternatively, the coupon may be a code that is verbally presented to the vendor for phone purchases, or that is typed into a form in the case of Internet orders. Typically, the coupon also has a tracking code that allows the performance of the coupon to be tracked.
In one aspect, a system is provided for presenting, to a user of a mobile device, coupons for products or services which are available at nearby merchants. The system comprises (a) a catalog database; (b) a coupon database containing a set of coupon offers, wherein each coupon offer is associated with a set of applicable items from the catalog database, and is further associated with a geographic region; and (c) a coupon server adapted to receive location and item information from the mobile device via a network, and being further adapted to (i) search through the coupon database, (ii) evaluate coupons in the database for geographic relevance, (iii) select any coupons determined to be geographically relevant, and (iv) return the selected coupons to the mobile device.
In another aspect, a method is provided for presenting, to a user of a mobile device, coupons for products or services which are available at nearby merchants. The method comprises (a) receiving location information and item information from a mobile device via a network, wherein the location information relates to the location of the mobile device, and wherein the item information relates to an item of interest to a user of the mobile device; (b) evaluating coupons in a coupon database for geographic relevance and user interest relevance, wherein the geographical relevance is determined from the location information, and wherein the user interest relevance is determined from the item information; and (c) returning to the mobile device coupons meeting a predetermined geographic relevance and a predetermined user interest relevance.
In a further aspect, a system is provided for presenting, to a user of a mobile device, coupons for products or services which are available at nearby stores. The system comprises (a) a network adapted to support communication between the mobile device and a server computer; (b) a mobile device which is adapted to connect to the network, and which is further adapted to determine its location; (c) a browser, resident on the mobile device, which is adapted to allow a user of the mobile device to browse a catalog over the network; (d) a catalog database containing of a set of products or services organized as a tree, wherein each node in the tree contains an identifier; (e) a coupon database containing a set of coupon offers, wherein each coupon offer is associated with a set of applicable items from the catalog database, and is further associated with a geographic region; and (f) a coupon server adapted to receive location and item information from the mobile device via the network, and being further adapted to (i) search through the coupon database, (ii) evaluate coupons in the database for geographic relevance, (iii) select any coupons determined to be geographically relevant, and (iv) return the selected coupons to the mobile device.
In a further aspect, a system is provided for presenting, to a user of a mobile device, coupons for relevant products or services, wherein relevancy is determined through a context aware combination of location and product selection.
In still another aspect, a method is provided for presenting, to a user of a mobile device, coupons for relevant products or services, comprising the step of determining the relevancy to the user of a coupon through a context aware combination of location and product selection.
In addition to conventional coupons of the type described above, the use of mobile coupons has also become common in the art. Companies such as CellFire have implemented services that deliver such coupons to mobile devices. However, because these coupon deliveries are typically either catalog-based or location-based (but not both), they have limited contextual applicability. That is, all browsers of a mobile catalog may be presented the same offers, even if there is no nearby store. Likewise, all browsers of a list of nearby stores may be presented the same offers, even if it is for stores in which the user has no interest.
Many devices, such as the RIM BLACKBERRY®, Apple iPHONE® and Motorola RAZR® mobile communications devices, have the ability to determine where they are. This ability for “Location-Based Services” is well known and very popular, and is best exemplified by mapping and driving directions programs such as TELENAV®. Similarly, these mobile devices also have electronic commerce capability. This includes the ability to display a catalog of products or services. Specifically, users can view products at vendor web sites through the device's mobile browser or through a native application. Additionally, these devices have to ability to display a coupon. Coupons can be displayed in a variety of formats, such as in alphanumeric code or in a bar code.
The systems and methodologies disclosed herein link these three capabilities. Specifically, the systems and methodologies disclosed herein enable a mobile device to present context sensitive coupons to a user. These coupons have contextual relevance through a location that is close to the user and an item of interest from a catalog.
The object of the present disclosure is to present relevant coupon offers to users of location-enhanced mobile devices. Relevancy is enhanced through the context aware combination of location and product selection. Without wishing to be bound by theory, it is believed that the intersection of a user's desires (as expressed through product selection) and a user's location (as determined by the device) improve coupon targeting.
In the preferred embodiment, the location-based coupon delivery process comprises the following components:
The location-based coupon delivery process preferably begins with the user selecting an item from a catalog. The user may accomplish this by, for example, browsing a catalog which is stored either locally on the device or which is accessed over the mobile network. A catalog may be a category of items or a specific item. The coupon process is preferably initiated after the user selects the catalog item.
In a preferred embodiment, the coupon process comprises the following steps:
The coupon server is the component responsible for determining whether there is a relevant coupon offer to present to a particular user. The coupon server preferably bases this decision, at least in part, on the following three factors:
The primary function of the coupon server is preferably to respond to [catalog item, current location] queries, where the response to the query is a potentially empty set of applicable coupons.
In the preferred embodiment, a catalog is organized as a tree. The root of the tree represents the entire catalog. From the root are branches that represent categories, which may themselves have an arbitrary number of child categories. Categories may represent any item from the domain, such as vendors (e.g., Barnes & Noble, Best Buy) or product types (e.g., Books, Electronics). The leaves of the tree are individual products or services. Thus, a catalog is a tree of arbitrary shape (organization). A catalog item is therefore an individual node in the tree, which may represent the entire catalog (if the selected node is the root), an individual product (if the selected item is a leaf), or a subset of the catalog (if the selected node is an interior node). Other catalog organization schemes are also possible.
An individual coupon is an offer such as “10% off”. A coupon may be attached to any node in the catalog tree, and is preferably applicable for that node and all descendents. Thus, attaching the coupon to the “Books” node implies that any book is eligible for the coupon offer.
A coupon is preferably also attached to a geographical predicate that defines the area in which the coupon is valid. For example, an offer may be valid only in a particular state or at a particular store. This may be represented by a state abbreviation (e.g., TX), a set of postal codes (e.g., 78730, 78746), a polygon bounded by latitude/longitude points, a radius around a latitude/longitude point, or through other suitable schemes.
In the preferred embodiment of the systems and methodologies disclosed herein, the geographic predicate of a coupon is represented as a predicate which is evaluated by the catalog server. The catalog server returns the value “true” if the location of the user is within the area described by the predicate, and returns the value “false” if the location of the user is not within the area described by the predicate. An offer that is applicable anywhere has the predicate “true;”, whereas an offer that is applicable only in a particular location has a predicate which specifies that location. Thus, for example, an offer which is valid only in Bee Cave, Tex. may have the predicate “zip==78738”.
Assume the following catalog, which is tree structured and which has an identifier for each node. The format is the identifier followed by the category name or item details. Indentation is used to indicate a parent/child relationship.
[catalog: 0] Root
-[catalog: 1] Books
--[catalog: 2] Fiction
--[catalog: 3] Non Fiction
---[catalog: 4] Cooking
----[catalog: 5] Italian Grill by Mario Batali, ISBN 9780061450976, $20.96
[catalog: 6] Electronics.
Assume the following three coupon offers. In each case, the coupon has an identifier, an offer, a catalog node, and a geographic predicate. The first coupon is applicable anywhere. The second coupon is applicable with a 10 mile radius of a store located at latitude/longitude 30.2920, −97.8267 (Westlake Hills, Tex.). The third coupon is applicable within a 10-mile radius of a store located at latitude/longitude 30.2920, −97.8267 (Round Rock Tex.).
A preferred embodiment of the process flow is illustrated by the following particular, non-limiting example:
The above description of the present invention is illustrative, and is not intended to be limiting. It will thus be appreciated that various additions, substitutions and modifications may be made to the above described embodiments without departing from the scope of the present invention. Accordingly, the scope of the present invention should be construed in reference to the appended claims.
This application claims the benefit of priority from U.S. Application No. 61/131,041, filed Jun. 4, 2008, having the same title, and having the same inventor, and which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Number | Date | Country | |
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61131041 | Jun 2008 | US |