Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR BRAND AFFINITY CONTENT
DISTRIBUTION AND OPTIMIZATION
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. Patent Application
Serial
No. 11/981,646, entitled "Engine, System and Method for Generation of
Brand Affinity Content", filed October 31,,2007; a continuation-in-part of
U.S. Patent Application Serial No. 11/981,837, entitled "An Advertising
Request And Rules-Based Content Provision Engine, System and
Method", filed October 31, 2007; a continuation-in-part of U.S. Patent
Application Serial No. 12/072,692, entitled "Engine, System and Method
For Generation of Brand Affinity Content, filed February 27, 2008; and a
continuation in part of U.S. Patent Application Serial No. 12/079,769,
entitled "Engine, System and Method for Generation of Brand Affinity
Content," filed March 27, 2008, the disclosures of which are incorporated
by reference herein as if set forth in their entirety.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0002] The present invention is directed to an advertising engine and, more
particularly, to an engine for generation of brand affinity content, and a
method of making and using same.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0003] High impact advertising is that advertising that best grabs the
attention of a
target consumer. A target consumer is the ideal customer for the particular
goods being advertised, from a socio-economic perspective, from a morals
and values perspective, from an age or interest level perspective, or based
on other similar factors. The impact on an ideal customer of any particular
advertisement may be improved if an advertisement includes
endorsements, sponsorships, or affiliations from those persons, entities, or
the like from whom the ideal target consumer is most likely, or highly likely,
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to seek guidance. Factors that will increase the impact of an endorser
include the endorser's perceived knowledge of particular goods or in a
particular industry, the fame or popularity of the endorser, the respect
typically accorded a particular endorser or sponsor, and other similar
factors.
[0004] Consequently, the highest impact advertising time or block available
for
sale will generally be time that is associated, such as both within the
advertisement and within the program with which the advertisement is
associated, with an endorser most likely to have high impact on the ideal
target customer. However, the existing art makes little use of this
advertising reality.
[0005] Thus, there exists a need for an engine, system and method that allows
for
the obtaining of an endorsement or sponsorship, in the aforementioned
high-impact circumstances, either from a specific individual, a specific
entity, an affinity brand, a marketing partner, or a sponsor.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0006] The present invention includes at least an endorsed advertising engine,
system and method, which includes at least one vault having media assets,
a recommendation engine that matches the media assets from the vault
with at least one requested creative, and a delivery engine that integrates
the requested creative with the matched media assets from the vault.
[0007] Thus, the present invention provides an engine, system and method that
allows for the obtaining of an endorsement or sponsorship, in the
aforementioned high-impact circumstances, either from a specific
individual, a specific entity, an affinity brand, a marketing partner, or a
sponsor.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES
[0008] The present invention will be described hereinbelow in conjunction with
the
following figures, in which like numerals represent like items, and wherein:
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[0009] Figure 1 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of the present invention;
[0010] Figure 2 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of the present invention;
[0011] Figure 3 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of the present invention;
and
[0012] Figure 4 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0013] It is to be understood that the figures and descriptions of the present
invention have been simplified to illustrate elements that are relevant for a
clear understanding of the present invention, while eliminating, for the
purposes of clarity, many other elements found in typical advertising
engines, systems and methods. Those of ordinary skill in the art will
recognize that other elements are desirable and/or required in order to
implement the present invention. However, because such elements are
well known in the art, and because they do not facilitate a better
understanding of the present invention, a discussion of such elements is
not provided herein.
[0014] It is generally accepted that advertising (hereinafter also referred to
as "ad"
or "creative") having the highest impact on the desired consumer base
includes endorsements, sponsorships, or affiliations from those persons,
entities, or the like from whom the targeted consumers seek guidance,
such as based on the endorser's knowledge of particular goods or in a
particular industry, the fame of the endorser, the respect typically accorded
a particular endorser or sponsor, and other similar factors. Additionally, the
easiest manner in which to sell advertising time or blocks of advertising
time is to relay to a particular advertiser that the advertising time
purchased
by that advertiser will be used in connection with an audio visual work that
has an endorsement therein for that particular advertiser's brand of goods
or services. As used herein, such an endorsement may include an
assertion of use of a particular good or service by an actor, actress, or
subject in the audio visual work, reference to a need for a particular types
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of goods or services in the audio visual work, or an actual endorsement of
the use of a product within the audio visual work.
[0015] Endorsements may be limited in certain ways, as will be apparent to
those
skilled in the art. Such limitations may include geographic limitations on
the use of particular products (endorsers are more likely to endorse locally
in various locales rather than nationally endorse, in part because national
endorsements bring a single endorsement fee and generally preclude the
repetitious collection of many smaller fees for many local endorsements),
or limitations on the use of endorsements in particular industries, wherein a
different product or a different industry may be endorsed (such as in a
different geographical area) by the same endorser, or limitations on
endorsements solely to a particular field(s) or type(s) of product, rather
than to a specific brand of product. Further, endorsements by particular
endorsers may be limited to products, brands or products or services,
types of products or services, or the like which are approved by one or
more entities external from, but affiliated with, the specific endorser. For
example, the National Football League may allow for its players only to
endorse certain products, brands of products, types of products, or the like,
that are also endorsed by the NFL.
[0016] More specifically, as used herein endorsements may include:
endorsements or sponsorships, in which an individual or a brand may be
used to market another product or service to improve the marketability of
that other product or service; marketing partnerships, in which short term
relationships between different products or services are employed to
improve the marketing of each respective product or service; and brand
affinity, which is built around a long term relationship between different
products or services such that, over time, consumers come to accept an
affinity of one brand based on its typical placement with another brand in
another industry.
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[0017] At present, there is a need for a platform or engine to allow for the
obtaining of an endorsement, or endorsed ad, in any of the above
circumstances, either from a specific individual, a specific entity, an
affinity
brand, a marketing partner, or a sponsor. In the present invention, an
endorsed advertising engine 10, such as that illustrated in Figure 1, may
include a vault 12 that provides media assets 14 and integration of media
assets without need of involving the media assets for permission, a brand
association or recommendation engine 20 that may, by creative, by market,
by brand affinity, by user request, or otherwise match media assets from
the vault with an creative/ad 22, and a delivery engine 26 capable of
integrating a requested ad 22 with the media asset 14 from the vault 12,
late stage binding of the ad 22 and media asset 16 upon delivery to
strongest target consumers, and delivery of the ad 22 and the dynamic
media asset 16 from the vault to an advertiser or advertising server, which
then places the mash up of the ad and media asset. Ad requests 22 may
be made via an "ad wizard" using ad templates, as will be apparent to
those skilled in the art.
[0018] The vault captures certain brands and information related thereto in a
common database, such as all major league baseball past and present
players, including statistics, video, and pictures of those players affiliated
with the names of those players, in addition to any endorsement limitations
on those players. The vault may include media assets that may be
associated with audio-visual works. The vault may include symbols,
emblems, taglines, pictures, video, press releases, publications, web links,
web links to external content, and media capable of re-purposing (such as
an athlete running in front of a blue screen, wherein the athlete may be re-
purposed by the placement of a background over the blue screen),
including pictures, voice, and video. The vault may also include,
associated with the brand, exclusion, inclusions, or preferences 50 for the
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use of the brand or particular items of information associated with the
brand in the vault. Such inclusions, exclusions, or preferences may include
geographic limitations on certain information items or endorsements,
product limitations, preferred partners or products or product types for
endorsement, etc. Exclusions may, of course, be necessary if the
requested endorsement conflicts with a pre-existing endorsement
agreement for the requested brand with a competitor, or the like.
[0019] Further, media assets in the vault may be marked with different payment
schema 52 based on the requester of the media asset. For example, in the
event the ad requester is a school, and the requested creative is not an ad
to sell anything, media assets may be available for use for free. Such
exceptions may be made, with regard to payment, with regard to any level
of payment variation as between any number of different user types, such
as non-profit, for-profit, individual, corporate, in-home, in-business, and
the
like. Additionally, for example, icons of a favorite football player may be
requested by a non-profit individual for at-home use, to be overlayed over a
live football program then on that individual's television, at no charge to
that individual.
[0020] The brand association and recommendation engine 20 assesses, based on
numerous factors including external factors, the endorsements that are
most sensible for particular advertising. For example, such a brand
association engine gauges proper matches by assessing inclusions and
exclusions based on the aforementioned factors in the vault, such as
geography, but additionally can use stored or external information and/or
variable factoring to do brand associations for any two brands (such as
wherein brand associations already exhibiting brand affinity would have the
highest percentage association, and brands which would make the most
sensible association would also exhibit higher percentage matching for
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brand association), or to do matching with an endorsement brand based on
the target consumers of the requesting brand.
[0021] For example, a "profile" 60 may be developed in the vault for a
particular
brand. Such a profile may include any of a myriad of information, both
stored in the vault and having external references outside the vault from
within the vault, including but not limited to psychological profiles of
typical
users of that brand (which may include values, motivations, wants, and
needs of such users, and which may be assessed based on inferences
from on-line, credit card, or television use by those users, for example),
brand profiles including target customers, target affiliate profiles (which
may include reasons for desired affiliation, such as sharing marketing
costs, increasing brand recognition in certain geographies or fields of use,
distribution channel access, expedited market entry, or improved brand
perception, for example), and the like, and such profiles may be used as
media assets by the recognition engine in order to develop a best match.
As an additional example, polling may provide for local or national focus
and maintained in the vault as an associated media asset with a particular
brand, and best matches for certain brands may be selected according to
such polling results. For example, a "flashy" sports personality may be a
best match for a brand offering in Los Angeles, but a different athlete's
endorsement might be preferably to sell that brand in the mid-west. Such
information, including "who's hot", or where a brand is "hot", may be
associated with the media assets regarding that brand in the vault, and
may be thus used by the recommendation engine to do matching.
[0022] Thus, the recommendation engine may passively or actively inform of the
best endorsement matches for a particular user's ads, based on any
number of factors, Upon assessment of good matches for the requesting
brand, a user of the present invention may have the matching options
presented to that user for selection by the recommendation engine, or the
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user may simply have a best-match selection made for the user. Needless
to say, bids for advertising may vary based on the matches obtained by the
recommendation engine, and/or the asserted likelihood of success that the
ad placed will be successful. Success, of course, may be different in
different circumstances, and may include a consumer making an on-line or
in-store purchase, a user filling out an on-line or off-line form, a consumer
accessing and downloading information or a coupon, or the like.
[0023] The delivery engine 26 may integrate a requested ad with the media
asset
from the vault pursuant to the actions by the recommendation engine, and
can place a particular ad in the environment it deems best suited for that
ad (such as in the event of a re-direct, wherein a web site gives some
information about an ad request, and the best ad can be placed responsive
to the ad request), late stage bind the ad and media asset for delivery to
strongest target consumers (such as with the improvement in later stage
tracking for improved ad targeting, such as if the consumer's requesting IP
address and/or the referring site information is available just prior to ad
delivery), or deliver the static ad and the dynamic media asset from the
vault to an advertiser or advertising server, which then independently
places the mash up of the ad and media asset. Needless to say, bids for
advertising time may vary depending upon the delivery mechanism used.
[0024] Improvement in later stage tracking for improved ad targeting may be
enabled through the delivery engine 26 and will allow for greater efficiency
the trafficking of ads during or after or with or without interface with the
delivery engine 26. Efficiency may be obtained by tracking, for example,
the data intelligence for use with the delivery of the creative. By way of
non- limiting example, data intelligence may include click-thru rate, post-
click conversion rate, post-impression activities, as well as geography,
demographic and daypart information. Gathered data intelligence may be
used as individual properties in conjunction with each other to form or
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produce the level of intelligence needed to achieve the desired efficiencies.
By way of further example, data intelligence may also include information
regarding the number of impressions an ad has received, the elapsed time
between an impression or a click.
[0025] Utilizing the data intelligence will allow the delivery engine 26 to
optimize
targeting to new and past targets. Optimization may include efficiencies of
time and control over redundancies and ad targeting. Optimization will
allow for the prediction of probable impressions or clicks that a certain ad
or creative may receive when, for example, pointed towards certain factors,
such as demographic and geography, for example. A prediction may also
be made regarding the efficiency of paid searches and may be further
contrasted with, for example, display ads. Such information as drawn from
the data intelligence may also allow for the higher success rates related to
redundant ad placement based on the prior behavior of a particular
audience. The same can be true for the avoidance of redundancy when,
for example, data intelligence may be used to keep certain ads or creatives
from repeatedly reaching an audience with, for example, low click-through
rates. Redundancy avoidance may also include the avoidance of
competing ads or creatives, whether or not placed for the same entity.
[0026] The delivery engine 26 may also choose to deactivate and/or modify
certain creatives based on data intelligence and/or user direction. By way
of non- limiting example, the data intelligence may be collected from
several ad or creative types over any number of varying media formats,
allowing for even more sophisticated optimization based on the allocation
of impressions and clicks in the various media formats. Media formats may
include, but are not limited to, internet, t.v., radio, mobile devices,
kiosks,
billboards, product placements, and print. By further way of non-limiting
example, data intelligence gathered during a run of a creative on the radio
may effect the play of an ad on the internet. The delivery engine 26 may
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additionally allow for the interplay between data intelligence and real time
metrics or community-based information. This real time intelligence
gathering may also be used to calibrate a campaign(s) of multiple ads or
creatives. By way of non-limiting example only, a campaign of with several
creative versions may be measured based on gathered data intelligence
and optimized to improve, for example, click-through. Such optimization
may be done in real time and over multiple media types. The optimization
may, by way of further non- limiting example, call for the addition of ads or
creatives not currently apart of the campaign(s). Thus suggesting what
type of ads or creatives are required for maximum optimization regardless
of whether or not the ads or creatives reside in inventory.
[0027] Optimization of ads and creatives increases the value of ad and
creative
inventory and may, for example, provide for greater value pre and post
delivery. The data intelligence may also allow for real-time valuations
based on pre-existing and predicted variables, thus maximizing the value
of the placed ad or ad/creative inventory, Value can be also maximized for
premium and non-premium content. Functionality within the delivery
engine 26 may also allow for variable rate sampling and frequency cap
forecasting.
[0028] Because the bids for advertising time in the present invention may vary
as
discussed above, the present invention lends itself to auction-style
placement of advertising, in which bids are solicited for particular
locations,
times, or blocks of advertising. Auctions may be held, for example, on line,
and may be broken down by media outlet type of ad (i.e. television,
internet, etc.), product type of ad, or in any similar manner.
[0029] Further, it is known in the existing art to engage in a myriad of
different
types of advertisement online. Two such advertisement types are; a
search advertising model, in which a user undertakes to search for a good
or service of interest and receives, as part of or as indicated with a search
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result(s), advertisements relevant to purchasing the good or service for
which the search was made and/or to purchasing goods or services related
to the good or service for which the search was made; and a display
advertising model, in which a user is actively viewing a web site and
receives, as part of the web site under review, advertisements for the
purchase of goods or services relevant to the content of the web site under
review. Needless to say, the former operates on the principal that, if a user
searches for a good or service, he/she would like to buy that good or
service, and the latter operates on the principal that if a user is interested
enough in the content of a web site to view that web site, he/she is also
likely interested in buying goods or services related to the content of that
web site.
[0030] The display advertising model mentioned hereinabove is typically
embodied as banner on a web site. For example, such banners may
appear above, below, to the left, or to the right of the content being viewed,
but typically do not impinge upon the content being viewed. The search
advertising model mentioned hereinabove is typically embodied as
advertisements/banners placed proximate to search results on the search
results page responsive to the user search. For example, such
advertisements may appear along a right hand side of a search results
page, while the search results are displayed along the left hand side of the
same search results page.
[0031] As discussed immediately above, it is necessarily the case that the
correlations performed between the user's searched or viewed content and
the advertisements provided will increase the relevance of, and thus the
response to, the advertisements. However, such responses in the form of
either clicks on the advertisements or purchases made through the
advertisement link, once obtained at a particular rate, cannot be further
improved by the relevance of the advertisements produced. Rather, the
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only manner to improve the response rate once relevant advertisements
are produced is to improve the advertisements themselves based on the
users viewing the advertisements.
[0032] The present invention provides such improved response advertisement
through the provision of brand affiliations with the goods and services
being advertised, as discussed hereinthroughout. As discussed, the
present invention allows for the production of advertisements having brand
sponsorship that is optimized to the market sought. That is, the brand
sponsor selected for an advertised good or service is, though the use of
the present invention, selected to best correspond to the characteristics of
the purchaser sought by the advertisement.
[0033] This effect is illustrated with respect to Figures 3 and 4. Figure 3
illustrates
the effect of the present invention with regard to a search advertising
model, and Figure 4 illustrates the effect of the present invention with
respect to a display advertising model. In each Figure, a brand sponsor
has been selected who will indicate, to the user for whom the
advertisement is deemed most relevant, trust, quality, value, a relationship
to the user, and/or an overall positive feeling. The sponsor is either
selected by the advertiser in the present invention for inclusion with the
subject advertisement, based on the profile of a desired purchaser and the
characteristics of that sponsor as they relate to that profile, which relation
is
set forth or suggested by the present invention, or the sponsor is selected
by the present invention for inclusion in or with the subject advertiser's
advertisement based on a desired responder profile for the advertisement
entered by the advertiser to the engine of the present invention.
[0034] As illustrated graphically in Figures 3 and 4, a positive correlation
of a
brand sponsor to a brand, which is necessarily also a correlation of a brand
sponsor to those purchasers most interested in buying the subject brand,
correlates positively to a increased transaction rate. In other words, to the
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extent the present invention provides brand affiliations, sponsorships, and
the like that are well-suited to the sponsored brand, that brand will show an
increase in the number of users who are shown that advertisement and
that either click that advertisement or purchase that brand through that
advertisement. It is estimated that the increase in the desired response
rate in accordance with the use of the present invention may typically be a
3 to 5 times increase, based on the increased positive correlation between
the sponsored brand and the brand sponsor provided by the present
invention, although those skilled in the art will understand that more or less
improvement in the transaction rate may occur based on the
implementation of the present invention.
[0035] Thus, in accordance with the present invention, and as illustrated in
Figures 3 and 4, an increased correlation of a brand sponsor to a
sponsoring brand, and thus an increased correlation of a sponsoring brand
to a desired purchaser's profile, is provided. This increased correlation
generates an improved transaction rate in accordance with the present
invention, for at least a search advertising model and a display advertising
model.
[0036] As will be apparent to those skilled in the art, the engines within the
endorsed advertising engine of the present invention may draw on any
number of communication access points and media sources, including
wired and wireless, radio and cable, telephone, television and Internet,
personal electronic devices, satellite, databases, data files, and the like,
in
order to increase content in the vault, contribute content for intelligent
selection of brand associations, and best allow for recommendations and
delivery.
[0037] Although the invention has been described and pictured in an exemplary
form with a certain degree of particularity, it is understood that the present
disclosure of the exemplary form has been made by way of example, and
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that numerous changes in the details of construction and combination and
arrangement of parts and steps may be made without departing from the
spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the claims hereinafter.
