Patent Application
20100082972
The invention relates generally to e-commerce, and in particular to advertising on mobile terminals, such as mobile phones.
Advertising is a form of communication that typically attempts to persuade potential customers to purchase or to consume more of a particular brand of product or service. Many advertisements are designed to generate increased consumption of those products and services through the creation and reinforcement of “brand image” and “brand loyalty”. A few of the types of advertising are: image advertising, where the advertiser wants to convey the feel of the business—what they are about or what they believe in; institutional advertising relays the services, for example, but does not directly contain a call to action; need/benefit advertising identifies a need the consumer may have and lets the consumer know the advertiser has the answer to that need; sale advertising (or product) is a call to action based on product prices or discounts.
Today e-commerce (electronic commerce) via the Internet has become an important part of doing business. However, there are several problems. For example, Internet marketing requires customers to use newer technologies rather than traditional media. Low-speed Internet connections are another barrier. If companies and vendors build large or overly-complicated websites, individuals connected to the Internet via dial-up connections or mobile devices may experience significant delays in content delivery. However, even if a user has a high speed Internet connection, a number of problems still exist for vendors.
Traditional methods of targeted advertising are able to segment groups of consumers by cluster analysis, so it is not necessary to require the identification of any individual person. However, the placement of a targeted ad on a specific mobile handset does require knowledge of that particular individual, so a new approach is required. The technical problem at hand, therefore, is to enable targeted advertising to mobile subscribers while guaranteeing that the identity of those mobile subscribers remains private.
One embodiment according to the present method and apparatus is an apparatus that may comprise: a trusted advertising server operatively coupled to at least one terminal; and a trusted database having respectively at least one profile for the at least one terminal; wherein the trusted advertising server effects sending of one or more advertisements to the terminal based on the profile of the terminal.
Another embodiment according to the present method and apparatus is an apparatus that may comprise: a trusted advertising server operatively coupled to at least one terminal of a subscriber; and a trusted database having respectively at least one profile for the at least one terminal; wherein the trusted advertising server effects sending of one or more advertisements to the terminal based on the profile of the terminal without revealing an identity of the subscriber.
Another embodiment according to the present method and apparatus is a method that may comprise the steps of: receiving an origination or termination call, which is associated with a terminal, by one of an IMS session control, which includes the trusted application server (TAS) in applicable iFC, and a service switching function (SSF), which includes the TAS as a service control function (SCF) in applicable IN trigger subscription data; communicating the identity of the terminal to the trusted advertising server from the one of IMS session control and service switching function; checking for and extracting a profile for the terminal from a trusted database by the trusted advertising server; selecting, by the trusted advertising server, advertising based on the profile; and sending the advertising to the terminal.
The features of the embodiments of the present method and apparatus are set forth with particularity in the appended claims. These embodiments may best be understood by reference to the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in the several figures of which like reference numerals identify like elements, and in which:
The emergence of the mobile handset as a display for targeted advertising has piqued the interest of many stakeholders. For example, traditional mobile operators have been reluctant to subject their customers to generic advertisements, but are much more open to pushing targeted advertising, especially when the mobile subscriber has opted-in for such advertising. Internet-based companies such as Google have initiated the Open Handset Alliance as a means (among other things) to participate in ad placement on mobile handsets. And of course, advertisers see the mobile handset as fertile territory. However, mobile subscribers have been very protective of their privacy. For example, directories of mobile numbers do not exist, and have been met with considerable resistance by mobile customers. The personal nature of the mobile phone, coupled with the sensitivity of the general population to such things as identity theft, Internet cookies, GPS tracking services, stalking, etc. have required advertisers and their partners to tread carefully. Given the overwhelming effectiveness of targeted ads vs. banner advertising, there is clear motivation to make targeted advertising acceptable to mobile subscribers by alleviating their privacy concerns. The features of the present method and apparatus may be utilized by a variety of telecommunication systems.
In general, a telecommunication system may be a circuit switched communication system, a VoIP communication system, a video communication system, or any other type of communication system. A terminal, as used herein, may refer to a landline phone, a cellular phone, a VoIP phone, a personal data assistant, a personal computer, etc.
In telephone networks, the caller is connected to the person he wants to talk to by switches at various telephone exchanges. The switches form an electrical connection between the two users and the setting of these switches is determined electronically when the caller dials the number.
The fixed-line telephones in most residential homes are analogue. Although short-distance calls may be handled from end-to-end as analogue signals, increasingly telephone service providers are transparently converting the signals to digital for transmission before converting them back to analogue for reception. The advantage of this is that digitized voice data can travel side-by-side with data from the Internet and can be perfectly reproduced in long distance communication (as opposed to analogue signals that are inevitably impacted by noise).
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a protocol optimized for the transmission of voice through the Internet or other packet switched networks that utilize servers. Almost the entire structure of the Internet is based upon a client-server model. A server is an application or device that performs services for connected clients as part of a client-server architecture.
VoIP systems carry telephony signals as digital audio, typically reduced in data rate using speech data compression techniques, encapsulated in a data packet stream over Internet Protocol. The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a signalling protocol, widely used for setting up and tearing down multimedia communication sessions such as voice and video calls over the Internet. Other feasible application examples include video conferencing, streaming multimedia distribution, instant messaging, presence information and online games.
According to the present method and apparatus, a trusted advertising server is provided that does in fact include personal information for each opted-in mobile user. The source of information in this trusted server may be obtained via several mechanisms, such as calling patterns, network address book entries, purchases charged to IMS account, etc. The result of these data mining efforts may be a comprehensive profile of each mobile subscriber. This may be an advertiser's dream, but a consumer's nightmare. Therefore, this profile must be kept secure.
Thus, prior to call setup, the trusted advertising server is invoked by the iFC (initial filter criteria) or the SSF (service switching function) and it checks the trusted database for this subscriber's advertising profile to determine the subscriber's demographic profile and any personal settings, capabilities, and restrictions. It then checks for any advertisements that meet this subscriber's particular profile and selects (based on user defined rules) the required advertisements to display and the best method to use.
The trusted role of the trusted advertising server, therefore, is to securely maintain the mobile users' profiles. The advertising role of the trusted advertising server is to receive target demographics for a particular advertiser or advertising broker, to match against appropriate mobile users in the trusted application server database, and to deliver such ads to those matched mobile users subject to those users' preferences (e.g., no more than three ads per day, etc.). Additionally, specific characteristics of the mobile subscriber's handset may be leveraged (e.g., video-capable, etc.) to display the most appropriate form of the advertisement. It is to be understood that these features are not limited to mobile users.
Embodiments of the present method and apparatus thus allow very finely targeted advertising (optimal presentation at the individual level), while the advertiser is not privy to the particular users that have received a given ad. However, the traditional cluster analysis methodologies can apply to generate metrics such as response rates from customers that have received one such ad, multiple ads, etc.
For example, the terminal may be a landline phone 410. The IMS session control 401 may be operatively coupled to the landline phone 410 via a media resource function 405 and a PSTN 407. The terminal may also be a mobile phone 411. In this case the trusted advertising server 402 may be operatively coupled to the mobile phone 411 via a SMSC 406 and a PLMN 408. The terminal may further be a personal data assistant (PDA) 412. In this case the trusted advertising server 402 may be operatively coupled to the PDA 412 via an IMS network 409. The terminal may also be a laptop computer 413. In this case the trusted advertising server 402 may be operatively coupled to the laptop computer 413 via the Internet 414, and the selected advertisements are sent directly from the trusted advertising server 402.
The Internet is a worldwide network of computers and computer networks that can communicate with each other using the Internet Protocol (IP). The Internet works in part because of protocols that govern how the computers and routers communicate with each other. The nature of computer network communication lends itself to a layered approach where individual protocols in the protocol stack run more-or-less independently of other protocols. This allows lower-level protocols to be customized for the network situation while not changing the way higher-level protocols operate.
At the network layer, things become standardized with the Internet Protocol being adopted for logical addressing. For the world wide web, these “IP addresses” are derived from the human readable form using the Domain Name System.
At the transport layer, most communication adopts either the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) or the User Datagram Protocol (UDP). TCP is used when it is essential every message sent is received by the other computer where as UDP is used when it is merely desirable. With TCP, packets are retransmitted if they are lost and placed in order before they are presented to higher layers. With UDP, packets are not ordered or retransmitted if lost.
Above the transport layer, there are certain protocols that are sometimes used and loosely fit in the session and presentation layers, most notably the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocols. These protocols ensure that the data transferred between two parties remains completely confidential.
Embodiments according to the present method and apparatus constitute a new paradigm for supporting targeted advertising to user terminals, in particular, mobile phones, without requiring the identity of the subscriber to be revealed. Furthermore, individual subscriber preferences regarding quantity of advertising, timing of such ads, etc. can be easily accommodated as part of each mobile user's profile. Finally, ads can be optimized to the capabilities of the particular mobile handset used by a subscriber.
The profile may contain at least one of: days of the week when advertising may be received, time of day or a range of times during which advertising may be received, type or category of advertisement that may be received, and quantity of advertisement that may be received. The profile may contain other data relevant to the terminal. The trusted advertising server may have a trusted role and an advertising role. The trusted role may be to securely maintain the at least one profile for the at least one terminal. The advertising role may be to receive target demographics for a particular advertiser or advertising broker, to match advertisements to the at least one terminal based on the respective profile in the trusted database, and to deliver the selected advertisements to the at least one terminal based on the respective profile in the trusted database.
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Embodiments according to the present method and apparatus are not limited to phone calls. The novel features of the present method and apparatus may be applied to SMSs, WAP sessions, changes in location, etc.
The present apparatus in one example may comprise a plurality of components such as one or more of electronic components, hardware components, and computer software components. A number of such components may be combined or divided in the apparatus.
The present apparatus in one example may employ one or more computer-readable signal-bearing media. The computer-readable signal-bearing media may store software, firmware and/or assembly language for performing one or more portions of one or more embodiments. The computer-readable signal-bearing medium for the apparatus in one example may comprise one or more of a magnetic, electrical, optical, biological, and atomic data storage medium. For example, the computer-readable signal-bearing medium may comprise floppy disks, magnetic tapes, CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, hard disk drives, and electronic memory. In another example, the computer-readable signal-bearing medium may comprise a modulated carrier signal transmitted over a network comprising or coupled with the apparatus, for instance, one or more of a telephone network, a local area network (“LAN”), a wide area network (“WAN”), the Internet, and a wireless network.
The steps or operations described herein are just exemplary. There may be many variations to these steps or operations without departing from the spirit of the invention. For instance, the steps may be performed in a differing order, or steps may be added, deleted, or modified.
Although exemplary implementations of the invention have been depicted and described in detail herein, it will be apparent to those skilled in the relevant art that various modifications, additions, substitutions, and the like can be made without departing from the spirit of the invention and these are therefore considered to be within the scope of the invention as defined in the following.
