Patent Application
20220318834
The present invention relates to paid content or advertisement (“ad”) placement for connected television viewing over the internet specific to the Video Gaming industry. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and methods for linking video-game activation on consoles to connected television (“CTV”) or over-the-top (“OTT”) delivery mechanisms for Ad Delivery.
With the popularity and use of the Internet for streaming content, connected television or “CTV” use has grown dramatically in recent years. A CTV is a device that can connect to a TV or a smart TV that facilitates the delivery of streaming video content over the internet. A smart TV is a television with a built-in internet connection and media platform. No additional equipment is required to stream videos. Instead, videos are most often streamed via apps that are downloaded. Other connected devices that connect directly to a traditional television (not a smart television) and the internet and enable apps that are downloaded for viewing videos include Xbox, PlayStation, Roku, Amazon Figure TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, and more. Gaming consoles act as the connected device that provide access to apps from their app stores. With this growth there has been an equally dramatic growth and migration to online advertising. For consumers, “CTV” is a different way to watch TV across multiple types of screens with no cable or satellite subscription required. For advertisers, it's an innovative way to reach a new and unique audience. Today's viewers are increasingly turning to diverse viewing options that don't necessarily involve a traditional television. They are watching smart TVs, laptops, smartphones, game consoles (Nintendo switch, Xbox, PlayStation) and other connected devices such as Amazon Fire, Roku, and Apple TV. However, online advertising presents a complex eco-system involving a complicated interplay between several entities, including online publishers, online advertisers (both informed and uninformed), and users or viewers who browse the internet to view all types of content available on websites that are of interest to them.
Connected TV advertising is becoming a powerful open platform that caters directly to a variety of new applications and services to homes, mainly for the young, middle-aged, and older adult population. Such a robust, tech-savvy audience represents incredible marketing opportunities.
This ecosystem is constantly growing and evolving as new technologies enter the ecosystem. As recognized by those skilled in the art, OTT can refer to premium video content that is streamed over the internet across any app or website, which may or may not require users to subscribe to a traditional “pay TV service.” Users may access OTT content via streaming service aggregators, a standalone app, a virtual multichannel video programming distributor (“MVPD”) on a TV, desktop, tablet or smartphone. Some refer to OTT as digital video, but that does not distinguish video content as premium, professionally-produced long-form versus free short-form video content. Four main streaming companies account for about 80% of OTT volume. These are Amazon via its app or website, Hulu via its app, Netflix via its app or website and YouTube Premium via its app or website.
With this growth there has been an equally dramatic growth and migration to CTV, OTT, or like advertising. There is a need in the industry for linking video-game activation on consoles to CTV/OTT AD Delivery.
The present technology overcomes the deficiencies and limitations of prior systems and methods, at least in part by, providing systems and methods for linking video-game activation on consoles to CTV AD delivery. Connecting TVs to the Internet to stream content is growing in popularity and for many, the game console (e.g., Nintendo switch, Xbox, PlayStation) has become the preferred method of making the connection.
In accordance with the present invention, the system is configured to set up a “postback” call when a video game is activated via a console. It should be recognized that a “postback” refers to a request sent by a client to a server from the same page that the user is already working with. For example, ASP.NET was introduced with a mechanism to post an HTTP POST request back to the same page.
The present invention is specific to the Video Gaming Industry—specifically, in some implementations to console games. In accordance with some aspects of the present invention, in a media activation promoting game, the present platform executes CTV media based on multiple targeting criteria. Measurement equals exposure to outcome. Exposure is executing same measurements to determine ad exposure, collect IP, map to devices tethered to that same IP, to create “exposure file” with all of those signals and more. The outcome is an instrument in the game with a “post back” solution that signals the platform when defined events happen in the game, for example, when the user arrives at the landing page website. In other instances, a signal is generated when the user downloads an app or game, that is typically not trackable due to app marketplace black box. In other instances, the user activates the application, and upon activation, the platform initiates a “postback” call, sending along an IP address, etc. In some embodiments, the “Postback” signal is set to trigger against multiple events, including levels achieved, in-game purchases, etc.
The system and methods disclosed below may be advantageous in a number of respects. They provide a novel way to direct relevant advertising in an environment that does not lend itself to transparency.
The present invention is illustrated by way of example, and not by way of limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which like reference numerals are used to refer to the same or similar elements.
The systems and methods of this technology are configured to be implemented in a platform that integrates with other resources in a CTV advertisng environment, for example, in a demand-side platform. The present technology provides functionalities for execution in digital advertising for connected television, which may be implemented in a buying and attribution platform that facilitates self-serve solutions that combine fully optimized media buying with comprehensive measurement and attribution. The present invention introduces functionality that is implemented in a demand-side platform to facilitate performance-based advertising in a connected television (“CTV”) advertising environment.
A typical demand-side platform integrates with multiple sources such as data management platforms (“DMPs”), ad exchanges, supply sources etc., in an infrastructure that provides secure. elastic, compute capacity in the “cloud” that comprises computers from Virtual Machines and Bare Metal servers to HPC (High Performance Computing), GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), container orchestration and management etc. A demand-side platform is typically integrated in three phases, the first, involving research and set up. The second phase is the development stage and the final phase is testing the integration. Demand-side platforms typically support cross-channel platforms and integrate with all the main ad exchanges. The bidding process is one of the key features of a DSP. This is performed by a component called “bidder” which is responsible for placing bids on advertising inventory during real-time bidding auctions. Usually, multiple bidders will be there to manage all real-time demands simultaneously. An Ad Server is an essential tool for creative management and for storing an ad creative and displaying to a user/viewer when required. Some DSPs have their own ad servers while others may connect to external ad servers depending on the architecture. A “Campaign” tracker helps to record the data regarding the performance of a particular campaign. The data includes clicks, impressions and spends. Once the data is recorded, it will be transferred to a reporting dashboard. The “Campaign” tracker helps the user/viewer to determine the performance of a particular campaign. A reporting database stores all the data received from the “Campaign” tracker. Users/viewers can generate reports by making use of this information. User/viewer data is an important part of the demand side platform (“DSP”), which helps in processing and storing important information about the user/viewer/audience. User/viewer data may include information regarding buying habits, interests, age groups, demographic details etc. Marketers can make use of this information to improve the effectiveness of their campaigns and bring in better results. A user interface is the dashboard where the marketers work on creating, managing and optimizing their campaigns. Ads in DSPs are sold in a few ways, depending on the DSP. DSPs specifically built for performance campaigns such as app-installs, charge a fee based on CPI (Cost per Install) or CPV (Cost per View) for video advertising campaigns. Prices of ad impressions in DSPs are determined by a real-time bidding (RTB) process, that takes place within milliseconds, as a user loads content or interacts with an app.
DSPs are unique as they offer the same capabilities as what ad networks used to provide, with an addition to a suite of audience targeting options. The advantage of DSPs over ad networks is that they provide advertisers with the ability to do real-time bidding on ads, serve ads to a multitude of platforms, track and optimize—all under a single interface. Some targeting options offered by a DSP include—demographic targeting (targets based on demographic features such as age (or age group), job title, gender, education etc.), device targeting (shows viewers ads on specific devices to improve the personalization), re-targeting (targeting existing customers) and so on. DSPs are also used for retargeting campaigns. This is possible because they are able to manage large volumes of ad inventories and recognize ad requests with an ideal target audience, targeted by the advertiser. The DSP in accordance with the present invention offers a self-serve platform, which is an excellent way for businesses and individuals to manage ad campaigns. This offers targeting, bidding, budgeting and optimizing of ad campaigns. A DSP can integrate with a data management platform (DMP) that stores audience data, usually coming from multiple sources. It allows advertisers to create target audiences for their campaign based on 1st party and 3rd party audience data. A DMP acts as a single platform that consolidates online and offline data from various advertisers, creating demographics, behavioral and affinity segments which are then used as targeting options in digital advertising. Performance data from live campaigns are then fed back into the DMP, improving the accuracy of the data. DMPs allow advertisers to reach their specific target markets while reducing wastage in advertising. A DSP provides global reach and effective targeting. Through the present DSP, advertisers can connect to different segments of audiences by applying various targeting criteria. In addition, this DSP specifically address the video-gaming industry for directing advertising in a gaming environment where gaming consoles are used.
Some portions of the detailed descriptions that follow are presented in terms of algorithms and symbolic representations of operations on data bits within a computer memory. These algorithmic descriptions and representations are the means used by those knowledgeable in the data processing arts to most effectively convey the substance of their work to others in the art. An algorithm is here, and generally, conceived to be a self consistent sequence of steps leading to a desired result. The steps are those requiring physical manipulations of physical quantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take the form of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It has proven convenient at times, principally for reasons of common usage, to refer to these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers or the like.
It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and similar terms are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and are merely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Unless specifically stated otherwise, as apparent from the following discussion, it is appreciated that throughout the description, discussions utilizing terms such as “processing” or “computing” or “calculating” or “determining” or “displaying” or the like, refer actions and processes of a computer system, or similar electronic computing device, that manipulates and transforms data represented as physical (electronic) quantities within the computer system's registers and memories into other data similarly represented as physical quantities within the computer system memories or registers or other such information storage, transmission or display devices.
The present technology also relates to an apparatus for performing the operations described. This apparatus may be specially constructed for the required purposes, or it may comprise a general-purpose computer selectively activated or reconfigured by a special computer program stored in the computer. Such a computer program may be stored in a computer readable storage medium, such as, but not limited to, any type of disk including floppy disks, optical disks, CD-ROMs, and magnetic disks, read-only memories (ROMs), random access memories (RAMs), EPROMs, EEPROMs, magnetic or optical cards, flash memories including USB keys with non-volatile memory or any type of media suitable for storing electronic instructions, each coupled to a computer system bus.
Some portions of the present technology may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment or an implementation containing both hardware and software elements. In some implementations, this technology is implemented in software, which includes but is not limited to, firmware, resident software, microcode, etc.
Furthermore, this technology may take the form of a computer program product accessible from a computer-usable or computer-readable medium providing program code for use by or in connection with a computer or any instruction execution system. For the purposes of this description, a computer-usable or computer readable medium can be any apparatus that can contain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program for use by or in connection with the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.
A data processing system suitable for storing and/or executing program code will include at least one processor coupled directly or indirectly to memory elements through a system bus. The memory elements can include local memory employed during actual execution of the program code, bulk storage, and cache memories which provide temporary storage of at least some program code in order to reduce the number of times code must be retrieved from bulk storage during execution.
Input/output or I/O devices (including but not limited to, keyboards, displays, pointing devices, etc.) can be coupled to the system either directly or through intervening I/O controllers.
Network adapters may also be coupled to the system to enable the data processing system to become coupled to other data processing systems or remote printers or storage devices through intervening private or public networks. Modems, cable modem, and Ethernet cards are just a few of the currently available types of network adapters.
Finally, the algorithms and displays presented here are not inherently related to any particular computer or other apparatus. Various general-purpose systems may be used with special programs in accordance with the teachings herein, or it may prove convenient to construct more specialized apparatuses to perform the required method steps. The required structure for a variety of these systems will appear from the description below. In addition, the present invention is not described with reference to any particular programming language. It will be appreciated that a variety of programming languages, for example, high level programming languages such as “C,” “Java,” “Pascal,” or “Python,” may be used to implement the teachings of the technology as described herein. The computers may be specially programmed, and be configured with special purpose hardware. Each computer may have a single processor, a multiprocessor or may comprise multiple computers, each of which may include a single processor or a multiprocessor, operably connected over a computer network. Each computer may be controlled by one of a variety of operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Unix, or a Java-based operating system, to name a few.
Each computer in the system may include one or more input and output (I/O) unit, a memory system, and one or more processing units. The input-output (“I/O”) units of each computer may be connected to various input/output devices, such as a mouse, keyboard, video card (video monitor), sound card (with speakers), network card and printer. The memory system in a typical general purpose computer system usually includes a computer readable and writeable nonvolatile recording medium, of which a magnetic disk, a flash memory and tape are examples. The memory system operably holds the operating system, utilities, and application programs. It should also be understood the invention is not limited to the particular input devices, output devices, or memory systems used in combination with the computer system or to those described herein. Nor should the invention be limited to any particular computer platform, processor, or high-level programming language.
The content server 104 may be a computing system that maintains online gaming content that attracts users and contains placeholders for ads (from the ad inventory) that are submitted to the real-time bidding market, for sale to advertisers. The content server 104 is configured to receive signals from the CTV Ad Delivery with linking to video-game-activation platform 101, either directly (not expressly illustrated in
The advertiser server 102 is coupled by signal line 112 for communication with the real-time bidding market 108. Although not explicitly shown in
The content site 104 is a computing device for hosting a website with any type of gaming content for downloading. The signal line 114 provides information to the real-time bidding market platform 108, about which impressions on the publisher's site are available for the real-time bidding market platform 108. A control line 109 from 104 to 106 indicates content provision from the online content servers.
The network 106 is a conventional type, wired or wireless, and may have any number of configurations such as a star configuration, token ring configuration or other configurations known to those skilled in the art. Furthermore, the network 106 may comprise a local area network (“LAN”), a wide area network (“WAN”) (e.g., the Internet), and/or any other interconnected data path across which multiple devices may communicate. In yet another embodiment, the network 106 may be a peer-to-peer network. The network 106 may also be coupled to or includes portions of a telecommunications network for sending data in a variety of different communication protocols. In yet another embodiment, the network 106 includes Bluetooth communication networks or a cellular communications network for sending and receiving data such as via short messaging service (“SMS”), multimedia messaging service (“MMS”), hypertext transfer protocol (“HTTP”), direct data connection, WAP, email, etc.
The real-time bidding market platform 108 is coupled by signal line 118 to an advertisement server 110, which serves advertisements (also referred to as “ads” herein). The advertisement server 110 includes software that receives requests for ad units or slots, submits, and then fulfills those requests with online content. The advertisement server 110 is coupled to the network 106 for communication and interaction with online advertisers 102 and the online publisher content site 104. A user, otherwise referred to as a consumer, viewer or client, designated by reference numeral 125, who is browsing the web is a potential customer of advertising of any type known to those skilled in the art. There may be any number of users or consumers 125a, 125b, through 125n, who are coupled via the network 106 to online publisher sites 104 for viewing content, for example content that is streamed. For example, when a user (125a-125n) navigates to a web page that is supplied by an online publishing content site 104, requests are sent to the online publishing content site 104 (the publisher's server) for content. The user (125a-125n) navigates to a web page via a web browser 120. The browser may be any one of Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Internet explorer or the like.
The content site serves up the content, which includes executable javascript tags. Once these tags are loaded in the user's web browser 120 (via lines 117a, 117b, through 117n), they are executed (via lines 121 and 107) and notify the advertisement server 110 that there is an impression that requires filling. The impression is then submitted to the real-time bidding market platform 108, where advertisers bid to fill the impression with their advertisements. The real-time bidding market platform 108 reads in the market floors for each of the competing advertisers and uses these market floors, along with the advertiser bids, to determine the winner of the auction and their clearing price. In the event that all of the received bids are too low, the Auction may not clear. The operation of the real-time bidding market platform 108 will be described in more detail below with reference to
Referring now to
In some implementations, an auction event store 230 may include a large collection of computers arranged in a distributed, computational, and storage grid. The auction event store 230 may store events from the advertisement server 110 and the real-time bidding market platform 108. A market floor engine 220 as illustrated determines and provides market floor prices, which may in some instances be dynamically or selectively set by content providers. In some implementations, the market floor engine 230 may be an analytics engine that processes auction event data in either real-time, near-real-time, or batch mode, determines market floors based on this data, and assesses the revenue impact of using these market floors compared to content-provider “static” floors and/or other benchmarks. The CTV/OTT Ad Delivery Platform 101 may be directly coupled to either market buyer devices 226a, 226, or 226n, via lines 227a, 227b, through 227n, or an agency 225, via line 223, to directly send signals to any of these entities. When a user in the “Audience” downloads a game or otherwise activates a specific game on a Game Server 232, a signal is sent to the Linking-Video-Activation-to-CTV-Ad Delivery platform 234, which is coupled or linked to the CTV Ad Delivery Platform 101.
During a real-time bidding auction, the CTV/OTT advertisement server 110 and real-time bidding market platform 108 generate a number of events that include information about the context in which the real-time bidding auction is occurring. An “event profile” (with the type of information available in the auction bids that are received) may be generated when all of the bids from the advertisers in a real-time bidding auction have been received. The auction event store 230 may store information available in the “auction complete” event generated when an auction has completed. The auction event store 230 may include a large collection of computers arranged in a distributed, computational, and storage grid. The auction event store 230 in some implementations stores events from the advertisement server 110 and the real-time bidding market system 108.
Referring now to
In still other implementations, one or more of the delivery engines 202, the statistics data collector 204, the video-game audience tracking module 206, the video-game activation engine 208, and the direct demand source 210 (publisher) are stored in the memory 217 and are accessible and executable by the processor 216. The storage 218 has the CTV/OTT ad volume stored at 221, the CTV/OTT attributes inventory 220, and a “lifetime value metrics from the advertiser to each household 219 with a video game audience. The console-linking engine 212 links the ad request/delivery engine 202 to a video game console upon receiving a signal or trigger from the video-game activation engine 208.
In some instances, a statistics data collector engine 204 may include a multiplier (a) calculation module, a data retrieval module, a classification module (to execute any classification criteria), and data collection engines that may be variously coupled to first-party data platform 204a, a third-party data platform 204b, and a publisher data platform 204c. These engines are operated by one or more processors that comprise an arithmetic logic unit, a microprocessor, a general-purpose controller or some other processor array to perform particular computations as programmed and provide electronic display signals to a display device. The processor 216 is coupled to the bus for communication with the other components. The processor 215 processes data signals and may comprise various computing architectures including a complex instruction set computer (CISC) architecture, a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) architecture, or an architecture implementing a combination of instruction sets. Although only a single processor 216 is referenced here, multiple processors may be included. It will be obvious to one skilled in the art that other processors, operating systems, sensors, displays and physical configurations are possible.
The processor 216 is coupled to a memory that stores instructions and/or data that may be executed by the processor 216. The memory 217 is coupled to the bus for communication with the other components. The instructions and/or data may comprise code for performing any and/or all of the techniques described herein. The memory 217 may be a dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) device, a static random-access memory (SRAM) device, flash memory or some other memory device known in the art.
In one embodiment, storage 218 stores data, information and instructions used by the ad request and delivery engines 202, statistics data collector engines 204, and the direct request of source (from provider) by User/Agency 210 etc. The storage 218 is a non-volatile memory or similar permanent storage device and media such as a hard disk drive, a floppy disk drive, a CD-ROM device, a DVD-ROM device, a DVD-RAM device, a DVD-RW device, a flash memory device, or some other mass storage device known in the art for storing information on a more permanent basis. The data storage 218 is coupled by the bus for communication with other components of the analytics index system for impression evaluation and allocation.
One or more of the engines are software or routines executable on the processor. In some implementations, one or more of the engines store data that, when executed by the processor, causes the collectors/modules to perform the operations described below. In yet other implementations, one or more of the engines are instructions executable by the processor to provide the functionality described in the flow charts that follow. In still other implementations, one or more of the delivery engines are stored in the memory and are accessible and executable by the processor 218.
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In the above description, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding this technology. It will be apparent, however, that this technology can be practiced without some of these specific details. In other instances, structures and devices are shown in block diagram form in order to avoid obscuring the innovative aspects. For example, the present technology is described in some implementations above with reference to particular hardware and software, yet it is not limited to only the particular hardware and software referenced.
Reference in the specification to “one implementation or embodiment” or “an implementation or embodiment” simply means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the implementation or embodiment is included in at least one implementation or embodiment of the technology described. The appearances of the phrase “in one implementation or embodiment” in various places in the specification are not necessarily all referring to the same implementation or embodiment.
The foregoing description of the embodiments of the present invention has been presented for the purposes of illustration and description. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the present invention to the precise form disclosed. Many modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teaching. It is intended that the scope of the present inventive technology be limited not by this detailed description, but rather by the claims of this application. As will be understood by those familiar with the art, the present inventive technology may be embodied in other specific forms without departing from the spirit or essential characteristics thereof. Likewise, the particular naming and division of the modules, routines, features, attributes, methodologies and other aspects are not mandatory or significant, and the mechanisms that implement the present inventive technology or its features may have different names, divisions and/or formats. Furthermore, as will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the relevant art, the modules, routines, features, attributes, methodologies and other aspects of the present inventive technology can be implemented as software, hardware, firmware or any combination of the three. Also, wherever a component, an example of which is a module, of the present inventive technology is implemented as software, the component can be implemented as a standalone program, as part of a larger program, as a plurality of separate programs, as a statically or dynamically linked library, as a kernel loadable module, as a device driver, and/or in every and any other way known now or in the future to those of ordinary skill in the art of computer programming. Additionally, the present invention is in no way limited to implementation in any specific programming language, or for any specific operating system or environment. Accordingly, the disclosure of the present inventive technology is intended to be illustrative.
This application claims priority under 35 USC § 119(e) to U.S. Provisional Application No. 63/169,127, entitled “Method for Linking Video-Game Activation on Consoles to CTV Advertisement Delivery” filed on Mar. 31, 2021, the entirety of which application is herein incorporated by reference.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63169127 | Mar 2021 | US |
