Patent Application
20120150654
The present invention relates generally to the field of interactive media advertizing, and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for estimating the likely audience for an interactive billboard at a given time so that the content displayed on the billboard can be selected appropriately.
The following abbreviations are herewith defined, at least some of which are referred to within the following description of the state-of-the-art and the present invention.
Billboards display advertising with the hope that it will have an impact on the numerous people expected to view it. Many billboards are static, that is, they display images that must be painted or applied onto them and that cannot be changed without some effort. Increasingly, however, billboards are configured mechanically or electronically to be able to quickly change the content that is being presented to the billboard's audience. The changing presentation not only helps to attract and hold the attention of the audience, but it can quickly be changed throughout the day to target certain people who may be present in the region of interest (RoI)—the area from which the content being presented may be perceived.
An advertising service provider (ASP) may produce and store advertising content that can be sent to the billboard operator, perhaps in response to a content request. A billboard controller is often present to make the request, receive the content, and cause the billboard to present it. A single controller may be used to control the operation of a number of billboards, each having their own location and RoI.
Naturally, billboard owners and advertisers want to target their advertising—presenting the right content at the right time—to have the maximum impact. An effort is often made to judge the audience that will view the billboard. This of course may be based on location; certain neighborhoods having a different demographic composition than others. For billboards that can be changed quickly, the time of day may also be a factor.
Many billboards also encourage interaction. Members of the billboard audience may be provided with a way to react to the content that is being presented. The billboard itself may have a keypad, touchscreen, or other user interface available for interaction. More commonly, viewers may send text messages or other communications using the mobile devices that many people now carry with them. Naturally, the billboard operator must provide some instruction to audience members on methods of interaction, usually in the presentation itself
A person interacting with a bill board provides direct evidence of their interest in the content being displayed. The aptness of the presentation to others in the RoI, however, is not so easy to detect. One method for judging the composition and interests of the audience is to request a census. The mobile devices now carried by many communicate through wireless networks, and many wireless service providers (WSPs) are now able to track with some precision the location of subscribers using their networks. WSPs can, and often do, provide this information as a service. The billboard operator may, for example, request that one or more WSP provide a census of the audience within a RoI. User-profile information may also be requested so that information stored in the profile may be used to select content for presentation on the billboard.
The audience in the RoI, however, may change frequently throughout the day; audience members are often simply en route from one place to another. The demographic composition may also very, for example young students at one time of day, business commuters at another, and tourists at still another time. Frequent census-information requests would be needed to target each audience appropriately.
As a service charge may apply each time such requests are made, however, the cost having the most up-to-date information may become prohibitive.
Accordingly, there has been and still is a need to address the aforementioned shortcomings and other shortcomings associated with determining audience expected to be in the Rot of a given billboard with a reasonable degree of certainty. These needs and other needs are satisfied by the present invention.
Note that the techniques or schemes described herein as existing or possible are presented as background for the present invention, but no admission is made thereby that these techniques and schemes were heretofore commercialized or known to others besides the inventors.
The present invention is directed to a manner of operating an interactive billboard that relies on generating an audience estimate for selecting appropriate content for presentation. The audience estimate is generated without unnecessary and costly queries to third parties, but instead relies on a UAP (user-ad-profile) dataset that is preferably generated by a billboard controller.
In one aspect, the present invention provides a method of operating an interactive billboard perceptible within a region of interest including detecting an interaction event associated with the billboard, estimating an audience of users likely to be present in the region of interest by comparing characteristics of the interaction event with a UAP dataset, and selecting the content to be displayed on the billboard based at least in part on a profile of the users likely to be present. The method may further include causing one or more billboards to present the selected content.
In another aspect, the present invention provides a method including associating a user initiating an interaction event with content being presented on the billboard when the interaction event was initiated, querying a presence server to determine the users present in a Rot of the billboard, obtaining user-profile information for the users determined to be present in the Rot, associating selected users with the content based on an analysis of the user profiles, and creating association sets, each association set comprising a set of characteristics for a user. When this has been accomplished for a number of interaction events, no more queries are generated and the association sets are used as a UAP dataset for audience estimation.
In a preferred embodiment, user sets Y(i,j,k,q) are obtained in response to a presence query and having four dimensions; time k, location i, an interactive user/and content q. As multiple user sets are accumulated, the user association sets are built by determining the number of sets in which a particular user appears for a given fixed dimension. This can be done for all four dimensions being considered in this embodiment, and scores are assigned based on the user's association with each dimension. Thresholds are also established for use in audience estimation and updated periodically. The UAP dataset may be maintained from time to time by selectively generating presence queries and updating portions for the UAP dataset according to the information obtained.
In another aspect, the present invention is a billboard controller for building a UAP dataset, using the UAP dataset for audience estimation, and causing selected content to be displayed on one or more billboards based on the estimate.
Additional aspects of the invention will be set forth, in part, in the detailed description, figures and any claims which follow, and in part will be derived from the detailed description, or can be learned by practice of the invention. It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not restrictive of the invention as disclosed.
A more complete understanding of the present invention may be obtained by reference to the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings wherein:
The present invention is directed to a manner of managing the content for display on an interactive billboard or similar device by providing audience estimates for use in content selection without the need for purchasing user presence and profile information each time such an estimate is desired.
Display 105 provides for a visible presentation to the audience. It is noted that is a few scenarios, the presentation may also have sound, vibration, or even smell associated with it. For the purpose of describing the present invention, however, these will simply be considered part of the presentation and not treated separately. The display facilitates the presentation of content, which generally is visible though it may includes other aspects are well, to change frequently and with minimal effort. Static billboards, for example, are often a flat surface with images painted or applied onto them. These may be changed as well, of course, but only by re-painting or reapplying a new image. This may take the efforts of one or more workers over the course of at least several hours, and is therefore not performed very often if the billboard owner can avoid doing so. Techniques for a more easily changed display are well known, and the precise technique used to change the visual appearance of the billboard is not relevant to describing the present invention. If there are other aspects to the presentation, such as sound, these are usually more easily changed when necessary.
Note that for convenience, a structure that includes multiple displays that can display different content simultaneously will be considered a collection of separate billboards.
As mentioned above, billboards are usually placed so as to reach out to a fairly large, if sometimes selected audience. The area in which an audience may effectually perceive the content of the presentation may be referred to as a billboard perception region. The billboard owner or operator (often the same entity) may define this or a similar area as a region of interest (RoI), which area will be used in the operation of the present invention. Although it is expected that the RoI will generally coincide with the perception region, certain areas may be added or excluded. In some cases, the RoI may be defined by someone other than the billboard operator. An RoI 110 for billboard 101 is illustrated in
Billboard 101 is an interactive billboard, meaning that people can do more than simply view its content passively. Instead they are able to send text message or use a touchpad to react to the content being displayed on the billboard in some fashion. For example, users of UE (user equipment) devices 112, 114, or 116 may be prompted to send an SMS message to a particular number in response to something they have seen. UEs 112, 114, and 116 may be, for example, mobile telephones. When a user does this, it may be referred to as an interaction event. Interaction events are significant to the billboard operator as an indication that the user is in or near the region of interest and has perceived that content is being displayed.
In the event that a user sends an SMS message, their UE may communicate with a wireless network. For example, in the embodiment of
As mentioned above, the billboard operator is interested in knowing who is located in the RoI at a given time, and one reason for this is that the content being presented may then be changed to target the current audience. In the embodiment of
Here it is noted that operation of the present invention is based on the well-grounded presumption assumption that a large segment of the billboard-viewing audience carries a mobile phone or other UE much of the time. The UEs may be used for interacting with the billboard, as described above, and are also used for the presence information that can typically be associated with them. The UEs may be equipped with GPS capability, for example, and report their location back to the wireless service provider (WSP) operating a wireless network. Most mobile devices also periodically register with a nearby base station, and the network keeps track of their location in this way. Triangulation or ranging involving multiple base stations may add to the precision.
In the embodiment of
Also available to billboard controller 135 is a user profile server (UPS) 145 that collects and maintains user profile information related to various users of UE devices. When a user is discovered by billboard controller 135, a query may be made to the UPS server 145 to obtain all or a portion of this user profile information. The profile information on UPS server 145 may include, for example, demographic information, purchasing habits and trends, interests associated with the user, and recent purchases. The UPS server 145 may be maintained by the WPS or another entity, and the information stored there is of course typically available as a service. Again, more than one UPS server may be accessible to the billboard controller 135, although only one is illustrated in
The billboard controller 135 may through system 101 determine with some accuracy determine who is in the Rot 110, and obtain profile information related to them before selecting advertising content and causing it to be presented on billboard 101. As mentioned above, however, continually sending queries to presence server 130 and UPS 145 or similar entities may be costly. In accordance with the present invention, billboard controller 135 also uses a UAP dataset that it either obtains or, preferably, builds itself to estimate the audience that is present in the Rot at a given time. This process will now be described in greater detail.
User interactions with a controlled billboard are anticipated. The billboard may display a given content or message, that is, the presentation visible to users in the RoI. The content at this point may be static, but in many implementations will change from time to time according to a pre-set scheme. Interaction with the billboard may be encouraged by the content itself, and interaction instruction provided, or users may be made aware of how to interact with certain billboards in some other fashion.
In the embodiment of
In this embodiment, the characteristics determined at step 215 are then compared (step 220) to analogous characteristics in the UAP dataset. An audience estimate is then calculated (step 225) based on the comparison of characteristics made in step 220. The audience estimate is an approximation of the users likely to be present in the RoI of a given billboard. As should be apparent, this audience estimate is used in most cases in lieu of a query to one or more service providers in order to receive a report of their subscribers that are present in the RoI. In many implementations this provides a satisfactory basis for decision-making without incurring the expense and any delay normally associated with such a query.
In a preferred embodiment, the comparison and calculation operations include comparing each of the characteristics associated with the interaction, that is, the time, location, identity of the user, and relevant content. These characteristics are compared with user associations in the UAP dataset, where the users are ranked or scored with regard to various characteristics available in a user profile, including the compared characteristics. Users with the highest scores or ranks, or scored or ranked above a particular threshold, are selected for the audience estimate. In a preferred embodiment, the scores or ranks take into account the users association with various content and in this way introduces the concept of interested groups so that the group interest may take into account the preference not only of the interacting user, but of the entire estimated audience.
Additional techniques may be applied for the comparison and calculation operations in some embodiments, including the use of more sophisticated learning algorithms such as simulated annealing, neural networks, or fuzzy logic. In some implementations these enhancements can be applied to increase the inference range, that is, further reduce the number of false negatives (users who are actually present in the ROI but not selected for the audience estimate). In another embodiment, a simple intersection algorithm is uses as a first cut prior to performing a score-based threshold evaluation.
As should be apparent, the goal of the comparison and calculation operations is to provide the most accurate audience estimate possible using the processing resources allocated for the task. In the embodiment of
The content selection may be based on a variety of factors, though it is anticipated that the audience estimate will at least be one factor. Other factors may include, for example, a manual override that has been imposed by the billboard operator. Other factors related to the method 200 may also be used, for example taking into account the number of interactions received over a defined period of time. And of course the content selection may include a series of presentations rather than the selection of a single static display.
Once the content is selected, the presentation on the billboard may be changed to reflect the selection (step 235). Note, however, that an indicated change in billboard presentation may in some cases be delayed or canceled. A delay or override may be imposed, for example, to prevent the presentation from being changed to rapidly, that is, after too short a time has passed since the last change. And there is no requirement that the displayed content be changed or altered each time method 200 is performed. At times the selected content will be what is currently being presented.
Optionally, the method 200 may, and in a preferred embodiment does include maintaining (step 240) the UAP dataset, an operation that will be discussed in more detail below. In some instances, the UAP dataset may be simply replaced or rebuilt. In any event, after the content selection at step 230, the process returns to step 210 when another interaction is received.
In step 205, described above, a UAP dataset is provided. In a preferred embodiment, this UAP dataset is built and maintained by the billing controller, for example, billing controller 135 shown in
In the embodiment of
An embodiment of the inference phase is described above in reference to
In this embodiment, when an interaction at time Tk is detected in the training phase, the user Xi associated with the interaction is identified. As mentioned above, this is typically the identification of the UE device being used for the interaction. The user Xi is then associated with the content (step 450), that is, the content Cq with which the user was interacting. Here it is presumed that the user's location Bi and the content may be inferred from the interaction, though this may not always be the case. If the billboard controller is only operating a single billboard, of course, the location and content will be apparent.
In the embodiment of
In this embodiment, user set Y(i,j,k,q) is a set of users obtained in response to a presence query and having four dimensions; time k, location i, an interactive user/and content q. As multiple user sets are accumulated, user association sets are built (step 460) by determining the number of sets in which a particular user appears for a given fixed dimension. This can be done for all four dimensions being considered in this embodiment, and scores are assigned (not separately shown) based on the user's association with each dimension.
For one example, consider the location of the billboard as the fixed dimension. For this location, a user's score is incremented for each time of day, for example 9 o'clock am, at which the user is present when an interactive event is detected. The user score is also incremented for each interacting user, for example Xi, triggering in interaction where the user is found in the RoI. In his example if the user has been discovered in the RoI at 9 am on two occasions, and has been also discovered in the RoI twice when user Xi has interacted with the billboard, a score of 4 may be assigned to indicate the relative likelihood of finding the user in the RoI at 9 am when Xi is present.
As another example, a user found in the RoI for the first time and associated with a particular content q may be given a score of 1 in content set CSq. If that user is not encountered in the RoI again during the training or maintenance phase, the user's score remains at 1.
In this manner, a database of users that have been found in each RoI is created, with each user having four types of arrays, one for the contents, one for the locations of the billboards, one for the times of the day, and one for the various interacting users. Each of these arrays contains a score for the various types of the data in that dimension. The accumulation of user sets and building of user association sets continues until the training phase has been terminated. Preferably this occurs when a satisfactory level of training data has been acquired along each of these dimensions. The data is now referred to as a UAP dataset. At this point thresholds should also be determined (step 465) for use in the inference phase.
In the embodiment of
Here is noted that the methods presented above are exemplary, and the sequences of operation may be altered in other embodiments. In addition, other operations may be added, and in some cases depicted operations omitted, without departing from the spirit of the invention.
In accordance with this embodiment of the present invention, billboard controller 600 also includes a billboard driver 625 for requesting and obtaining content from an ASP, and causing the content to be presented on one or more billboards via billboard interface 615. A network interface 620 is also present for requesting and receiving content from the ASP, and for sending queries generating by presence query generator 630 and user-profile query generator 635. In this embodiment, a UAP dataset generator 640 is also present for generating at least one UAP dataset for use by audience estimator 645.
Note this configuration is exemplary and may vary from one embodiment to another. Additional components may be present, of course.
Although multiple embodiments of the present invention have been illustrated in the accompanying Drawings and described in the foregoing Detailed Description, it should be understood that the present invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments, but is capable of numerous rearrangements, modifications and substitutions without departing from the invention as set forth and defined by the following claims.
