Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
CA 02854169 2014-06-23
COMPUTER IMPLEMENTED TRANSACTION RECEIPT ADVERTISING WITH
SCANNABLE CODES AND REAL TIME ADVERTISEMENT SELECTION
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to computer implemented methods
and systems for incorporating advertisements into consumer transaction
receipts at point of
sale or distribution terminals, and more particularly to a transaction receipt
advertisement
solution that automatically monitors consumer-scanning of QR codes in the
advertisements,
and that also ranks available advertisements in real time for any given
transaction in order to
determine the optimum advertisement to display for that transaction.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
It has been previously proposed in the prior art to exploit a transaction
receipt
given to a consumer at a point of sale or distribution (POS/POD) as a medium
for conveying
advertising or promotional content to the consumer. Prior art in this field
includes 'internal
advertisement' systems in which the advertisement or promotion applied to the
transaction
receipt is that of the retailer or distributor that is operating the POS/POD
(i.e. the consumer
receives an advertisement from the same entity it has just transacted with),
and 'external
advertisement systems' in which the transaction receipt incorporates one or
more
advertisements from an outside entity. Known examples of such prior art are
briefly
summarized as follows.
U.S. Patents 6,334,109 and 7,548,874 assigned to International Business
Machines Corporation discloses a system in which advertisements are stored for
conveyance to point of sale or transaction terminals in public locations, and
the
advertisement selected for a particular transaction is matched, at least in
part, according to
information about the consumer, for example as identified by a card reader,
GPS system, or
biometric sensor.
U.S. Patent Application Publications 2007/0221728 and 2008/0052158
assigned to Nutricate Corporation discloses a system that can manage multiple
advertisers
and POS locations at which advertisements can be incorporated into transaction
receipts.
The system manages pre-existing contracts between particular entities and thus
does not
appear to expose an advertiser to a wide variety of different possible
advertisement avenues
unless the advertiser has already established their own relationships
beforehand with
several entities operating different POS locations.
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2
U.S. Patent No. 7,188,154 assigned to the Seiko Epson Corporation teaches
a system for printing advertisements on sales receipts. The POS operator or
clerk enters
customer information (e.g. age and sex) during the transaction, which is
gauged against
criteria entered by the advertiser to identify qualifying advertisements, the
subjects of which
are then displayed to the customer for selection of the type of advertisement
to print on the
receipt. U.S. Patent 7,424,443 assigned to the same entity outlines that the
criteria set out
by the advertiser for matching up the advertisement to a transaction may
include windows of
time during which the advertisement is to be printed, and that in the event of
multiple
transactions qualifying for a particular transaction, the selection may be
made randomly or
by a priority scheme based on how many times the ads have been previously
printed.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2005/0171845 discloses an internal
system for conveying personalized messages from the retail entity operating
the POS
terminal to their consumer. The system is thus not tailored to allow multiple
outside
advertisers to advertise on the retailer's transaction receipt.
In U.S. Patent Application Publication 2011/0231258 assigned to VISA U.S.A.
Inc., different merchants can bid for opportunities to present advertisements
to consumers,
for example on point of sale transaction receipts, and the advertisements are
matched up to
transactions based on comparison of advertisement criteria against spending
patterns of the
consumer concerned.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2008/0221982 assigned to Instream
Media Inc. discloses a system in which multiple advertisers bid on available
advertisement
opportunities during an auction process, and a winner with the highest bid in
the auction
process then has their advertisement image transferred to an advertising agent
(POS
location) where it is incorporated into transaction receipts printed by that
agent. The bid
amount used to determine the winner may be the per-print cost (i.e. price the
advertiser is
willing to pay for each individual print of the advertisement), or the overall
campaign cost the
advertiser is willing to spend over a campaign run period (i.e. a 'maximum'
cap the
advertiser places on the accumulation of the specified pay-per-print cost).
Applicant proposes herein a similar 'bidding' based system in which multiple
advertiser's compete for advertising space through the price they're willing
to pay for each
ad placement. However, a potential drawback of the prior art is that holding
'auctions' of
available advertising opportunities limits the advertisers ability to freely
interact with the
system. That is, there must be an active 'auction' for the advertiser to vie
for an
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advertisement opportunity. As a result of this, an advertiser willing to bid a
greater amount
than the advertiser whose ads are currently being printed cannot obtain
advertisement
opportunity the POS location concerned until the run time of the current
auction expires.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a more 'real time' or 'live'
solution whereby automated, computer-implemented selection of an advertisement
for a
particular transaction receipt is triggered by the transaction itself, and not
based on a
predetermined auction winner.
U.S. Patent No. 8,434,682 assigned to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. teaches a
system for printing an advertising or promotional image such as a QR-code
(quick response
code) on a transaction receipt at a POS location, whereby the consumer can
scan the QR-
code with an intemet-enabled mobile electronic device (e.g. mobile phone or
tablet
computer) in order to be directed to a website URL containing additional
information on the
subject of the advertisement or promotion. However, this is an 'internal'
system that does
not appear to be equipped to handle competitive bidding for advertisement
space by outside
advertising entities.
Even if the QR code printing functionality of the Wal-Mart reference was
incorporated into one of the competitive solutions for external advertisers,
the modified
system would lack the ability to financially capitalize on the extra scannable-
ad functionality
by an advertisement facilitating agency managing the ad campaigns of the
competing
advertisers.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a solution for automatic,
computer implemented tracking actual scans of the printed scannable-code
advertisements,
as providing the facilitator with the ability to track the number of
advertisement scans may be
put to useful purpose, for example to employ a 'pay-per-scan' pricing
structure for the
advertisers, and/or provide a way for the advertiser to track successful scans
of the
advertisement without having to use a dedicated target URL that is reachable
only through
that specific ad campaign.
Accordingly, there remains room for improvement in the area of computer-
implemented transaction-receipt advertising, and Applicant has developed a
unique solution
incorporating advantageous features not disclosed or suggested by the prior
art.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to one aspect of the invention there is provided a method for
management of advertisement campaigns by an advertisement facilitator that
distributes
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advertisement content from advertisers to point of sale or distribution
locations at which said
advertisements are to be incorporated into transaction receipts, the method
comprising:
(a) transmitting advertisement data to a terminal at the point of sale or
distribution, the advertisement data comprising machine readable code image
data from
which an optically scannable code image readable by a mobile electronic device
can be
incorporated into the transaction receipt as an advertisement element of said
transaction
receipt for communication of said optically scannable code image to a
consumer, the
optically readable image data comprising network address data by which reading
of the
optically scannable code image by the mobile electronic device will direct a
network
browsing application of the mobile electronic device to visit an initial
network address; and
(b) in response to visiting of said initial network address by the network
browsing application of the mobile electronic device, (i) automatically
incrementing a visit
count indicative of a number of network address visits associated with said
advertisement
campaign and (ii) automatically redirecting the network browsing application
of the mobile
electronic device to a second network address that is distinct from the
initial network
address and associated with a subject of the advertisement campaign.
Preferably step (b)(i) comprises automatically incrementing a cost-incurred
balance owed by the advertiser in response to the incrementation of the visit
count.
Preferably step (b)(i) comprises automatically incrementing the cost-incurred
balance by a pay-per-scan value specified by the advertiser.
Preferably before step (a), the method includes performing an automatic
selection from among a plurality of advertisement campaigns managed by the
facilitator in
order to determine the advertisement campaign for which the advertisement data
is
transmitted in step (a), the automatic selection being based, at least in
part, on the pay-per-
scan value of the advertisement campaign.
Preferably the automatic selection is based partly on said pay-per-scan value
of the advertisement campaign and partly on a pay-per-image value thereof, the
pay-per-
image value having been specified by the respective advertiser and
incorporated into the
cost-incurred balance in step (a) in response to communication of the
optically scannable
code image to the consumer.
Preferably the step of performing the automatic selection comprises
performing a score calculation for each of the plurality of advertisement
campaigns, and the
CA 02854169 2014-06-23
score calculation comprises different weight factors applied to the pay-per-
image value and
the pay-per-scan value.
Preferably step (a) and the automatic selection performed before step (a) are
performed in response to an advertisement request communication received from
the point
5 of sale
or distribution and triggered by a consumer transaction at said point of sale
or
distribution.
Preferably the method includes, after receipt of the advertisement request
communication received from the point of sale or distribution, generating the
machine
readable code image data so as to include at least one query string to be
passed to a
resource at the first network address when visited by the network browsing
application, the
at least one query string comprising identifying information for the
advertisement campaign.
Preferably the at least one query string also comprises transaction
information concerning the consumer transaction.
Preferably the method includes, before step (a), receiving from one of the
advertisers advertisement campaign information that includes identification of
the second
network address and then, in response to visiting of the initial network
address in step (b),
automatically looking up said second network address from said advertisement
complain
information received from said one of the advertisers for use in redirecting
the network
browsing application to said second network address in step (b)(ii).
Preferably the method includes, after receipt of the advertisement campaign
information, automatically assigning a campaign identifier to said stored
details of the
advertisement campaign and storing said identifier in association with said
stored details,
and automatically generating the machine readable code image data so that the
query string
includes the campaign identifier for use by the resource to retrieve the
second network
address from the stored advertisement campaign information and redirect the
network
browsing application to said second network address.
Preferably the network addresses are URLs.
According to a second aspect of the invention, there is provided a system for
management of advertisement campaigns by an advertisement facilitator that
distributes
advertisement content from advertisers to point of sale or distribution
locations at which said
advertisements are to be incorporated into transaction receipts, the system
comprising:
(a) a first server that comprises a computer readable advertisement storage
medium and is in communication with a terminal at a point of sale or
distribution, the
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computer readable storage medium storing advertisement data that comprises
machine
readable code image data for generating a optically scannable code image that
is readable
by a mobile electronic device in a manner directing a network browsing
application of the
mobile electronic device to visit a first network address associated with an
advertisement
campaign to which the advertisement data belongs;
(b) a second server that hosts a target destination of the first network
address
and is configured to (i) in response to visiting of said initial network
address by the network
browsing application of the mobile electronic device, increment a visit count
indicative of a
number of network address visits associated with said advertisement campaign
and (ii)
redirect the network browsing application of the mobile electronic device to a
second
network address that is distinct from the first network address and is
associated with a
subject of the advertisement campaign.
According to a third aspect of the invention, there is provided a method for
management of advertisement campaigns by an advertisement facilitator that
distributes
advertisement content from advertisers to point of sale or distribution
locations at which said
advertisements are to be incorporated into transaction receipts, the method
comprising:
(a) receiving advertisement campaign information from the advertisers for
said advertisement campaigns;
(b) in response to an advertisement request communication received from the
point of sale or distribution and triggered by a consumer transaction at said
point of sale or
distribution, automatically performing a ranking process among at least some
of the
advertisement campaigns and matching a highest-ranked one of said
advertisement
campaigns to said consumer transaction;
(c) automatically transmitting advertisement data of the highest-ranked one of
said advertisement campaigns to the point of sale or distribution for use of
said
advertisement data to incorporate a visible advertisement element into a
receipt for said
consumer transaction.
Preferably step (b) comprises filtering out inactive advertisement campaigns
before the ranking process, and then performing the ranking process only on
remaining
active advertisement campaigns.
Preferably step (b) comprises identifying qualifying advertisement campaigns
before the ranking process as selected ones of the advertisement campaigns for
which
conditions set out in the advertisement campaign information are true of said
consumer
CA 02854169 2014-06-23
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transaction, and then performing the ranking process only on said qualifying
advertisement
campaigns.
According to a third aspect of the invention, there is provided a system for
management of advertisement campaigns by an advertisement facilitator that
distributes
advertisement content from advertisers to point of sale or distribution
locations at which said
advertisements are to be incorporated into transaction receipts, the system
comprising:
(a) an advertiser portal server configured to receive advertisement campaign
information from the advertisers for said advertisement campaigns; and
(b) an advertisement distribution server configured to, in response to an
advertisement request communication received from the point of sale or
distribution and
triggered by a consumer transaction at said point of sale or distribution, (i)
automatically
perform a ranking process among at least some of the advertisement campaigns
and match
a highest-ranked one of said advertisement campaigns to said consumer
transaction and (ii)
automatically transmit advertisement data of the highest-ranked one of said
advertisement
campaigns to the point of sale or distribution for use of said advertisement
data to
incorporate a visible advertisement element into a receipt for said consumer
transaction.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
In the accompanying drawings, which illustrate one or more exemplary
embodiments of the present invention:
Figure 1 is a schematic block diagram of an advertisement management
system of the present invention for placing advertisements on transaction
receipts at point of
sale or point of distribution locations.
Figure 2 is a flow chart diagram illustrating a process by which a new
advertisement campaign is entered into the system of Figure 1 by an
advertiser.
Figure 3 is a flow chart diagram illustrating an advertisement selection
process by which the system determines which advertisement to display on the
receipt of a
given transaction at a point of sale or distribution.
Figure 4 is a flow chart diagram illustrating an active advertisement
determination algorithm by which inactive advertisements are removed from
further
consideration in subsequent steps of the advertisement selection process of
Figure 3.
Figure 5 is a flow chart diagram illustrating a condition filtering algorithm
by
which the remaining active advertisements in the advertisement selection
process of Figure
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8
3 are filtered to identify advertisements with transaction criteria that match
the current
transaction.
Figure 6 is a flow chart diagram illustrating a scanning and redirection
algorithm by which scanning of a QR-code on the transaction receipt by a
mobile device of
the consumer directs a browser of the mobile device first to a URL hosted by
the system, at
which a scan-count of the advertisement campaign is incremented and from which
the
browser is redirected to a final destination page previously specified by the
advertiser during
setup of the ad campaign.
Figure 7 schematically illustrates a paper transaction receipt printed in
accordance with the present invention to include a scannable QR-code and
associated ad
content in an available advertising space below the transaction details of the
receipt.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
Figure 1 schematically illustrates a Real-Time Advertisement Distribution
Platform (also referred to herein simply as the "Advertisement Platform")
prints
advertisements on receipts. The platform not only distributes advertisement
content to point
of sale or point of distribution (POS or POD) locations for printing of the
advertisement on
the transaction receipts issued to consumers at these locations, but also
provides an
automated solution by which independent advertisers (i.e. advertising entities
that are
independent of the POS or POD entity and of the administrative entity or
facilitator that owns
or operates the Advertisement Platform) can bid on and upload content for such
potential
advertisement opportunities. Accordingly, as the Advertisement Platform is not
limited to
just 'distribution', it may also be considered as an entire advertisement
management or
facilitation system 10 (also referred to herein in simply as the "system").
The system 10 features one or more servers operated directly or indirectly by
the facilitator, which in the illustrated embodiment include advertiser web
portal server 12,
computational servers 14, data server 16, advertisement distribution server 18
and
redirection server 20, which are collectively referred to herein as an
Advertisement Cloud
Server (ACS) 22. A plurality of advertisers 24 each interact with a web portal
or website
hosted by the web portal server 12 through a suitable client device 26 (e.g.
desktop/laptop
personal computer, tablet, smartphone, etc.) capable of communicating with the
web portal
server 12 via the Internet.
Each POS/POD location 28 (e.g. restaurant or retail store establishment)
features a POS/POD terminal 30 that, in a conventional manner, is configured
to enable
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financial transactions between the POD user 32 (e.g. restaurant or retail
store personnel)
and a consumer visiting the establishment to purchase goods and/or services
from same.
Also in a conventional manner, the POS/POD terminal is coupled with a
cooperating printer
that generates a physical paper receipt that summarizes the financial
transaction and is
taken away by the consumer for their later referral thereto if required. The
printer and/or
terminal 30 differs from conventional POS/POD equipment in the incorporation
of an
advertisement embedding software program or algorithm that cooperates with the
advertisement distribution server 18 to incorporate printed advertisement
content therefrom
into the receipt printout.
The system also involves the consumer 34 who possesses a mobile,
preferably handheld, consumer electronics device 36 (e.g. smartphone, tablet
computer,
etc.) capable of communicating with the redirection server 20 via the
Internet, and equipped
with suitable image capture equipment and cooperating software to scan and
decode Quick-
Response Codes (QR-codes) in order to extra a Universal Resource Locator (URL)
address
from the machine-readable QR-code and direct a web-browsing application on the
mobile
device 36 to visit the URL. QR-code reader applications for mobile phones and
tablets
capable of such functionally through the on-board digital camera functionality
of such
devices are well known and readily available, and the consumer's mobile device
thus
requires no specialized hardware or software to benefit from the advertisement
content
distributed by the Advertisement Platform to the POD/POS terminal 30 and
subsequently
conveyed to the consumer by way of the printed POD/POS receipt.
Turning to Figure 2, a process 100 by which an advertiser creates an
advertisement campaign is illustrated. The advertiser visits the web-portal on
his/her client
device 26, at which point the process begins at step 101 where the advertiser
logs into the
web portal with a user ID and password combination, which if the advertiser is
a new user,
are specified by the advertiser and stored by the cloud server 22 for
authentication purposes
during subsequent logins. Having confirmed the identity of the user through
verification of
the entered user ID, at step 102, the web portal presents the advertiser with
a web form or
the like to enable the user to enter basic information concerning the
advertisement
campaign to be initiated, for example including a campaign name by which the
advertiser
will be able to recognize the advertisement campaign from others that have
been, or will be,
entered by that same advertiser; and a daily budget maximum that denotes an
advertising
cost that the advertiser does not wish to exceed on a daily basis.
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At step 103, the advertiser selects from two available options on the web form
concerning the type of advertisement to be placed, particularly whether the
advertisement is
to take the form of a 'coupon' that the consumer can later present to the
advertiser's
business in order to obtain a discount on a product or service offered by
same, or is to take
5 the
form of a standard advertisement having no 'discount' or 'coupon' value. If
the
advertiser selects the coupon option, step 104 prompts the advertiser to enter
a discount or
savings amount (for example, in the form of a dollar amount or percentage)
that the
consumer will receive on the purchase price of a product or service offered by
the
advertiser's business upon redemption of the coupon at same.
10 At step
105 the advertiser is prompted to enter a type of business the
advertiser would like their advertisements to be conveyed to in the subject
campaign. This
option may be presented in the form of a list of pre-defined selectable
business types, for
example populated from the business types of POD/POS users who have signed up
with
facilitator as wanting to offer available advertisement space on their
transaction receipts.
This way, the web portal server 12 can pull the available business types from
a database 38
that is stored by or linked to the data server 16 and contains the pertinent
information
concerning the registered POD/POS users and registered advertiser users.
The
advertisement facilitator or system administrator may be in the business of
selling/leasing
and maintaining/servicing POD/POS equipment, in which case the POD/POS users
are
customers of the facilitator who may be offered a reduction in their POD/POS
equipment/service/maintenance costs in exchange for registering as
advertisement
locations in the system of the present invention.
At step 106, the advertiser 24 continues to specify details concerning the
advertisement campaign in the web portal by optionally entering conditions or
criteria that
must be met in order for the system to distribute an ad from the subject
campaign to one of
the POD/POS locations 28. Examples of such conditions include a specified time-
of-day
window in which the ad is to be printed; a geographical area within which the
advertiser
wants to limit the ad campaign (e.g. by province/state, county, city,
neighborhood, etc.); a
dollar amount or range that a POS/POD transaction must fall above, below or
within in order
to qualify for printing of the ad; one or more select days of the week in
which the ad is to be
printed; a particular weather condition in which the ad is to be printed (e.g.
sunblock
advertisements printed during sunny weather; umbrella, raincoat ads printed
during rainy
weather; shovel, snowblower, snowmobile, snowbrush/scraper ads printed during
snowfall);
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a temperature value or range that the outdoor temperature must exceed, fall
below or fall
within for the ad to be printed (e.g. waterpark, swimsuit, summer clothing
advertisements
during hot weather; winter accessories, outerwear during cold/cool weather); a
number of
printed ads after which the campaign should be paused; and/or a number of
printed ads
after which the campaign should be disabled or terminated.
At step 107, the web portal presents the advertiser with an option to take
advantage of a 'Pay-Per-Scan' option under which the system will generate a OR-
code to be
incorporated into each printed advertisement in order to direct the consumer
to a URL
specified by the advertiser if the QR code is scanned using the consumer's
mobile device
36. The advertiser can thus use the printed advertisement to drive visitor
traffic to their
website, and/or direct the consumer to additional detailed information or
further promotional
content (e.g. video, photos, animation, etc.) concerning the advertised
subject matter
(product/service/event/etc.) that cannot be conveniently presented in the
relatively-small
sized, and typically black and white, printed receipt-based advertisement. If
the advertiser
selects this option, they are prompted at step 108 to enter the target URL of
their
advertisement, along with a bid value they are willing to pay for each QR-code
that is
actually scanned (e.g. by the consumer whose receipt the QR-code is printed
on). The
scan-tracking solution for enabling this Pay-Per-Scan functionality is
disclosed herein further
below.
At step 109, regardless of whether or not the user chooses to use the Pay-
Per-Scan option, the web portal prompts the advertiser to enter a bid value
they are willing
to pay for each print of an ad, i.e. a Pay-Per-Print value. The web portal may
be configured
to allow a zero value for one of the Pay-Per-Scan and Pay-Per-Print bids if
Pay-Per-Scan
has been selected, but require a mandatory non-zero value for the Pay-Per-
Print bid if the
Pay-Per-Scan option is not selected. In another embodiment, the web portal may
require
the advertiser to specify a non-zero value for both bids when the Pay-Per-Scan
options is
selected.
Finally, the user is prompted at step 111 to upload an image that they wish to
have printed as part or all of the advertisement. If Pay-Per-Scan is not
selected, then the
uploaded image may form the entire advertisement, whereas if Pay-Per-Scan is
selected,
then the uploaded image will be accompanied by a QR-code generated by the
system 10.
In some embodiments, in addition to the image, the web portal may provide a
text field in
which the advertiser can enter text matter that forms part, or all, of the ad
content (i.e. in
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12
addition to, or in place of, an uploaded image). If the advertiser's uploaded
image includes
their own provided QR-code, then the advertiser can use the advertisement to
direct
consumer's to a target URL, but if the advertiser uses the same target URL in
advertisements placed through means other than the Advertisement Platform 10
of the
present invention, then the advertiser will lack the ability to determine how
many visits to
that URL were generated particularly from the Advertisement Platform 10 of the
present
invention. Accordingly, the advertiser obtains less feedback on the
effectiveness of their
current bid value(s) in generating successful QR-based advertisements if they
upload their
own QR-code image instead of using the Pay-Per-Scan option to have the system
10
generate a QR-code for their advertisement. The facilitator may choose to
adopt a policy
that advertiser-provided QR-codes are not acceptable.
The software of the web portal server 12 may be configured to forward the
entered information and selected options from the fields of the web form to
the data server
16, where software running thereon creates an entry for this newly created
advertisement
campaign within the database 38. As shown at step 112, the advertisement
campaign may
initially be entered into the database with a 'pending' status that is used to
prevent
distribution of ads from that campaign until it is approved by the
facilitator.
The web portal is also configured to allow the advertiser to later log in and
make desired revisions to the advertisement campaign, which may include
changing the
type of business originally specified at step 105; changing one or more of the
distribution
conditions/criteria originally specified at step 106; change the Pay-Per-Scan
and/ or Pay-
Per-Print bid value originally entered at steps 108, 109; change the
advertisement image
originally uploaded at step 111; or switch from a non-scannable ad to a Pay-
Per-Scan ad,
and thus add a Pay-Per-Scan bid value. A single advertiser may enter more than
one
campaign, for example to advertise multiple products or services offered by
the advertiser.
The software stored on computer readable memory of the POD/POS terminal
and containing statements and instructions for execution by a processor
thereof is
configured so that at the completion of a financial transaction, instead of
immediately
initiating printing of a paper receipt by the connected printer in a
conventional manner, first
30 sends a request to the advertisement distribution server 18 for an
advertisement to
incorporate into the receipt print job. The
request may include transaction
information/attributes such as the geographical location of the POD/POS
terminal (e.g.
street address, including city and province/state), business/industry type of
the POD/POS
CA 02854169 2014-06-23
13
location, the total dollar amount of the transaction (which may be a tax-
inclusive or tax-
exclusive amount), and the time of day at which the transaction occurred.
Alternatively,
instead of including the street address and business/industry type in the ad
request, the
POD/POS terminal may instead send a unique identifier (POD/POS UlD) that is
associated
with the POD/POS terminal or location, which the data server can compared
against a listing
of POD/POS UlDs in the database 38 so that the system can recognize the
POD/POS
terminal or location that is requesting an advertisement, and can use the
POD/POS UID to
look up associated static information on the POD/POS terminal or location that
does not
change from transaction to transaction, such as the street address or
business/industry
type.
Figure 3 illustrates an ad selection process 200 executed by software on the
advertisement distribution server 18 in response to such an advertisement
request from the
POD/POS terminal 30. At a first step 201, the process initiates an algorithm
300, shown in
greater detail in Figure 4, for compiling a list of active advertisements that
are potential
candidates for the current print job.
Turning to Figure 4, the first step 301 of the active advertisement
determination algorithm 300 requests all campaigns in database 38 from the
data server 16,
and compiles these campaigns into a list that therefore reflects all available
ads that may be
incorporated into the current print job. At step 302, an algorithm for
filtering out non-active
campaigns starts by checking if the end of the list has been reached. So long
as the list isn't
empty (i.e. so long as there is at least one campaign in the database) the
following
subsequent steps are performed. At step 303, a first one of the listed ad
campaigns is
loaded or selected, and is hereafter referred to as the Current Ad.
At step 304, a total of the advertising costs incurred for that campaign on
the
current date is checked against the daily budget maximum that was specified by
the
advertiser for that campaign at step 102. If the daily budget has not been
exceeded, a
status of the Current Ad is checked at step 305 to see whether it is still
pending approval by
the facilitator. If the ad has already been approved (i.e. is not still
'pending'), then at step
306, the algorithm checks if the Current Ad has been paused (i.e. determines
whether the
number of ads actually printed exceeds an ad-pause limit that may have been
set at step
106). If the Current Ad has not been paused, at step 307, the algorithm checks
if the
Current Ad has been disabled (i.e. determines whether the number of ads
actually printed
exceeds an ad-disable/ad-termination limit that may have been set at step
106). If the
CA 02854169 2014-06-23
14
determination is that the daily budget has been exceeded or the Current Ad is
pending,
paused or disabled, it is removed from the Active List of campaigns at step
308.
Steps 302 to 307 are then repeated until every advertisement campaign from
the database has been reviewed, whereby the Active List now represents all the
ads that
have not exceeded their daily budgets, are not still pending review by the
facilitator, and are
not currently paused or disabled. At step 309, this Active List is then sent
back to the ad
selection process 200 of Figure 3 for determining which ad is to be printed
from among the
ad campaigns of the Active List.
Turning back to Figure 3, at step 202, the ad selection process 200 takes the
Active List returned from the Active Advertisement Determination Algorithm 300
and initiates
a Condition Filtering Algorithm 400 to determine which of the advertisement
campaigns in
the Active List have distribution conditions/criteria (as specified by the
advertiser at step
106) that match the conditions of the POD/POS transaction for which an ad is
being
requested.
Figure 5 shows the Condition Filtering Algorithm 400 that is performed on
each ad campaign from the Active List. At step 401, the algorithm loads the
values of the
'distribution conditions/criteria' specified by the advertiser in step 106
from their respective
fields of the database entry for the currently selected ad campaign, along
with the POS/POD
transaction attributes sent from the POS/POD terminal 30, and any POS/POD
terminal/location attributes looked up in the database 38 based on a POS/POD
terminal/location identifier (POS/POD UID) included in the ad request. At step
402, the
algorithm checks whether the time of day of the current POS/POD transaction in
question
(for example, as reported from the POS/POD terminal 30; or as approximated by
the arrival
time of the ad request at the ad distribution server) falls within the time-of-
day window
specified by the advertiser.
At step 402, the algorithm checks whether the time of day of the current
POS/POD transaction in question (for example, as reported from the POS/POD
terminal 30)
falls within the time-of-day criteria specified by the advertiser. At step
403, the algorithm
checks whether the geographical location of current POS/POD transaction is
match for the
geographical location criteria specified by the advertiser for the currently
selected ad
campaign, for example by checking whether the city and/or province/state of
the POS/POD
street address matches the target city/province/state specified by the
advertiser for the
currently selected campaign. At step 404, the algorithm checks whether the
totoal dollar
CA 02854169 2014-06-23
amount of the transaction in question falls within the targeted range or
above/below the
threshold value specified by the advertiser for the currently selected
campaign. At step 405,
the algorithm checks whether the targeted business/industry type specified by
the advertiser
for the currently selected campaign matches that of the current POS/POD
transaction. At
5 step
406, the algorithm checks whether the day of the week of the transaction in
questions
matches the one more days of the week specified by the advertiser. The POS/POD
terminal
may transmit the day of the week of the transaction as part of the ad request,
or may
transmit only date information, from which the advertisement distribution
server can
determine the day of the week.
10 At
steps 407 and 408, the algorithm checks whether the weather and
temperatures conditions at the POS/POD location are a match for those
specified by the
advertiser. To perform this function, the advertisement distribution server 18
queries an
external weather service database resource for the geographic location of the
POS/POD
location, and compares the received response from the weather resource against
the
15
advertiser's target weather and temperature conditions/criteria. From this,
it will be
appreciated that the overall collection of transaction attributes against
which the advertiser's
conditions is not limited to information obtained directly from the POS/POD
terminal 30 or
database 38, and may include data obtained by combining this directly received
information
with additional data from external resources.
Steps 403, 407 and 408 that involve the use of geographical information may
employ external geocoding/reverse-geocoding resources in order to convert
between
geographic co-ordinates (i.e. longitude & latitude) and street addresses. For
example,
where a weather resource capable of responding to geo-coordinate queries is
employed,
greater accuracy in determining the weather conditions and/or outside
temperature at the
POS/POD location may be obtainable compared to looking up of such
weather/temperature
information using a city name from the street address of the POS/POD location.
Using a
geocode conversion tool allows greater convenience to the advertisers by
allowing them to
enter their readily-known street address rather than the geographic
coordinates of their
location. In addition, the facilitator will likely need or want the street
address of the
POS/POD location anyway, for example for billing, POD/POS service/maintenance,
or other
purposes.
If any of steps 403-408 fails to result in a match of the advertiser-specified
conditions/criteria against the transaction attributes, then the conditioning
filtering algorithm
CA 02854169 2014-06-23
16
for the currently selected ad campaign is terminated at step 409, and the
currently selected
advertising campaign is returned to the ad selection process 200 as a non-
match or
mismatch for the transaction in question, whereby it is filteedr out from the
list of active
advertisements being considered. On the other hand, if a positive match is
determined for
each of steps 403-408, then the currently selected advertisement campaign is
returned to
the ad selection process 200 at step 410 as a candidate for printing on the
transaction
receipt. The Condition Filtering Algorithm 400 is repeated for each
advertisement campaign
in the Active List.
Turning back to Figure 3, having used the Condition Filtering Algorithm 400 to
generate a list of candidate ads by filtering out non-candidate ads from the
Active List, a
score is calculated for each candidate ad campaign at step 203 by executing a
Score
Algorithm 500 for each candidate. For each candidate, this algorithm 500
calculates a
numerical score by which the candidate is subsequently ranked among all the
other
candidates in step 204, whereby at least the first highest ranked candidate is
selected for
printing on the transaction receipt.
The Score algorithm 500 may employ any of a number of possible score
calculations, which may vary significantly in complexity. For example, in one
embodiment, a
simplistic scoring method may be employed that simply assigns the Pay-Per-
Print bid value
specified by the advertiser in step 109 during creation of the ad campaign as
the score for
the candidate ad. However, a more preferable scoring method would take into
consideration both the Pay-Per-Print bid value and the Pay-Per-Scan bid value.
To illustrate this preference, if a first advertiser did not select the Pay-
Per-
Scan option and thus has a default Pay-Per--Scan bid value of zero, and a
second
advertiser selected the Pay-Per-Scan option and entered Pay-Per-Print and Pay-
Per-Scan
values whose sum exceeds the Pay-Per-Print value of the first advertiser, then
the
facilitator's 'potential income value' for printing the second advertiser's ad
exceeds the
facilitator's 'actual income value' for printing the first advertiser's ad,
even if the second
advertiser's Pay-Per-Print value is less than that of the first advertiser.
However, the second
advertiser's ad only achieves its 'potential value' if the QR-code of the ad
is actually
scanned, and it is only reasonable to expect that not every scannable ad will
be scanned, as
a consumer would not be expected to scan the QR code of an advertisement whose
subject
matter does not interest them.
CA 02854169 2014-06-23
17
Accordingly, a weighted score calculation may be employed that assigns a
greater weight to the Pay-Per-Print value than to the Pay-Per-Scan value.
Another
embodiment may employ one or more variable weighting factors, for example
where the
weight assigned to the Pay-Per-Scan value increases if tracking of the number
of printed-
but-unscanned versus printed-and-scanned occurrences within a scannable ad
campaign
reveals that a relatively high percentage of the running total number of
printed ads have in
fact been scanned. Accordingly, the system can employ adjustable weighting
factors in the
score calculation, where the system monitors and learns from the successful
Pay-Per-Scan
ads that have been scanned within a given campaign or within all campaigns of
a particular
advertiser. Accordingly, the system can employ different weighting of the
factors in the
score calculation for different ad campaigns and/or different advertisers. The
system may
employ a combination of manually adjustable weighting and automatic self-
adjusting
weighting, for example using static factors entered and editable by the
facilitator, and
variable factors that are self-adjusted by the system based on the tracked
history of a
campaign or advertiser.
In some embodiments, the score may be based on additional factors over
and above the bid amount values, and may be thought of a Relevance Quality
score that is
not only taking into consideration the dollar value of the ad to the
facilitator, but also a
determination of how relevant (i.e. how suitable a match) the ad campaign is
for the given
transaction and/or POS/POD location. For example, the score algorithm may
calculate a
distance between the street address or geo-coordinates of the advertiser and
that of the
POD/POS location of the current transaction, whereby with all other factors
being equal, the
advertiser located closer to the POD/POS location will obtain a higher
relevancy score.
At step 204, once the scores have been determined and assigned to all the
candidate ad campaigns, the candidates are accordingly ranked from highest to
lowest
score. Step 205 optionally allows printing of multiple ads on a single
transaction receipt.
The number of ads that can be printed on a receipt may be subject to approval
or
authorization of such a number by the POS/POD user. According an 'ad quantity'
integer
value may be associated with each POS/POD terminal 30, and may be either sent
to the ad
distribution server 18 as part of the ad request communication from the
POS/POD terminal
30, or may be retrieved from the database 38 based on the POD/POS UID that is
transmitted in the ad request. At step 205, if the ad quantity value is one,
then only the ad of
the first highest ranked candidate campaign is selected for printing on the
receipt. If the ad
CA 02854169 2014-06-23
18
quantity value is two, then the ad of the first two highest ranked candidate
campaigns are
selected for printing on the receipt, for example with the first highest
ranked candidate being
printed in a more prominent position on the receipt than the second highest
ranked
candidate. For example, the print job may be configured to print the
transactional details at
the top of the paper receipt, followed by the first ranked ad immediately
therebeneath, and
the second ranked further down the receipt below the first ranked ad.
Accordingly, the 'ad
quantity value' represents a number of available advertising spaces or spots
on the
transaction receipt, which are filled sequentially according to the rank of
the advertisement
campaigns.
At step 206, the final image(s) to be transmitted from the ad distribution
server to the POS/POD terminal 30 is/are selected or compiled. In the event
that the
highest ranked candidate is a print-only (i.e. non-scannable) ad campaign and
only one ad
space is available for the receipts at the POS/POD terminal 30 in question,
then step 206
merely involves selecting the advertisement image that was uploaded by the
advertiser at
step 111.
On the other hand, if the highest ranked candidate is a scannable ad
campaign, then the advertiser-uploaded image needs to be accompanied by a
OR¨code.
In such a case, at step 206, the ad distribution server looks up a unique
identifier (ad UID) of
the highest ranked ad campaign entry in the database 38 (if not previously
retrieved) and
generates a QR-code in which a URL is encoded that includes the domain name
(or IP
address) and path of a resource hosted by the redirection server 20 and a
query string that
will pass the ad UID to the resource. This way, the QR-code is configured such
that
scanning of the OR-code of the printed ad by the consumer device 36 will
automatically
direct the intemet-browsing application of the consumer's device 36 to the
resource, where
the ad UID is automatically passed to the resource. So for example, if the
resource is found
at http://www.exampledomain.com/ad_redirect, and the ad UID for a particular
ad campaign
is 0001, then the QR-code for one ad campaign might feature an encoded URL
that reads
http://www.exampledomain.com/ad_redirect?ad_uid=0001, while the encoded URL of
another ad campaign might read
http://www.exampledomain.com/ad_redirect?ad_uid=0002.
The QR-code image and advertiser-uploaded image may be compiled into a
single image. If the ad quantity for the transaction is greater than one, then
this image
preparation step 206 is repeated for the next highest ranked campaign, until
such image
preparation is complete for all available ad spaces, at which time the
collection of images (or
CA 02854169 2014-06-23
19
a compilation thereof into a single image) is transmitted to the POS/POD
terminal 30 at step
207 for printing of the image(s) together with the transaction details by the
receipt printer
connected to the terminal 30. If the ad content specified by the advertiser
includes text
matter entered into an available text field of the web portal, the text matter
accompanies the
image(s) transmitted to the terminal 30 for printing.
After step 207, having completed the ad selection process and having
successfully communicated the ad content of the selected ad campaign(s) to the
POS/POD
terminal 30, the ad distribution server or an associated billing server
charges an account of
the respective advertiser of each such printed ad campaign at step 208 for
their respective
Pay-Per-Print bid amount for that campaign. This amount is also added to a
running daily
total of incurred Pay-Per-Print and Pay-Per-Scan costs for use in step 304 of
the active
advertisement determination algorithm of Figure 4 in the event that another ad
request is
received by the ad distribution server later on in the same day. It should be
appreciated that
additional or alternative budget limit time frames may be employed other than
a daily or 24-
hour budget limit (e.g. weekly, monthly, etc.).
Figure 6 illustrates a sequence 500 of steps initiated by scanning of the OR-
code of a scannable ad printed on a transaction receipt. At step 501, the
consumer, or
another person with access to the consumer's printed receipt, scans the QR-
code with a
suitably equipped internet browsing device, which in a conventional manner
automatically
opens an internet browsing application and directs the same to visit the web
resource
specified by the URL encoded within the QR-code, as seen at step 502. At step
503, the
query string of the URL passes the ad UID of the ad campaign from which the
scanned ad
originated to the resource hosted on the redirection server, from which the ad
UID is passed
to the data server 16 and used to look up the ad campaign entry in the
database 38 and
retrieve the advertiser-specified URL therefrom. At step 504, the advertiser-
specified URL is
used by the resource to redirect the web browser application of the consumer's
mobile
device 36 to that URL, whereby the consumer reaches the intended target
website specified
by the advertiser.
When the resource at the redirection server receives a visit and checks the
received ad UID of the query string against the database, the successful match
of that
received UID to an ad campaign in the database 38 provides confirmation that
the QR-code
of an ad from that campaign has been scanned. Accordingly, in response to this
match, at
step 505 the billing server charges the account of the advertiser for that
campaign for the
CA 02854169 2014-06-23
Pay-Per-Scan amount that was bid for that campaign by the advertiser. The
redirection
algorithm performed by the redirection server software thus provides a means
by which the
facilitator can monetize the scannable advertisement option offered by the
system in order
to increase revenues compared to use of a Pay-Per-Print model alone.
5 Each
scan of the QR-code of an ad campaign confirmed by a visit to the
resource hosted by the redirection server 20 is used not only used for billing
purposes, but is
also used to increment a visit counter that keeps a running total of the
number of scans for
that ad campaign, which the advertiser is able review by logging into the web
portal. If the
scan count is low, the advertiser may choose to increase one or both of their
Pay-Per-Print
10 and Pay-
Per-Scan bid amounts in order to try and achieve a higher ranking among the
advertisers competing for available advertising space, and/or modify their
condition settings
to try and increase the number of transactions for which their ad campaign
will qualify as a
candidate for printing. The ad selection process 300 of Figure 3 may likewise
increment a
running print count for any advertisement campaign whose ad is printed,
whereby the
15
advertiser can access such information through the web portal to better
appreciate the
effectiveness of their current campaign settings. For example, comparison of
the print count
and scan count for a Pay-Per-Scan campaign provides feedback on the number of
advertisement prints that are being successfully converted to scans, and thus
resulting in
traffic to the target URL specified by the advertiser for that campaign.
20 Using
the URL (other network address) of a facilitator-hosted resource as an
initial destination from which the ad-scanning consumers are redirected to the
advertiser's
target URL (or other network address) not only enables the facilitator to
track the number of
scans and charge the advertiser for same, but also allows the facilitator to
capture other
useful information that may be beneficial to the facilitator and/or the
advertiser. For
example, the URL encoded into the QR-code may include additional query strings
other
than the ad UID, such as a unique identifier for the transaction (transaction
UID) in response
to which the QR-codew as generated. The transaction UID may be generated by
the
advertisement distribution server in response to an ad request from a POS/POD
terminal 30,
and then stored in the database 30 in an entry also containing one or more
transaction
attributes. Such transaction attributes may include those discussed above,
and/or other
transaction related information, including particular
items/foodstuffs/services purchased in
the transaction (as identified by the POS/POD terminal 30), or consumer
related information
CA 02854169 2014-06-23
21
entered into the POS/POD terminal 30 by the POS/POD location personnel, such
as the
postal/zip code of the consumer's residence, the sex of the user, etc.
When a OR-encoded URL with multiple query strings including the ad UID
and the transaction UID is scanned, the redirection server 20 can pass the
transaction UID
on to the data server 16 in order to look up the stored transaction attributes
in the database
38, and therefore link these transaction attributes to a confirmed
advertisement scan. The
advertiser can access this linked information via the web portal, and use such
information
for statistical purpose, for example to attempt to identify any correlation
between consumer
QR-code use and industry/business types, industry/business locations, purchase
types,
consumer types, consumer residence locations, consumer sex (male vs. female),
etc.
Accordingly, the system may employ static OR-codes, i.e. printed OR-codes
that for a given ad campaign are the same for each and every transaction, or
dynamic QR-
codes, i.e. OR-codes that differ for every transaction, even for ads printed
under the same
ad campaign. The generation of the QR-codes at step 206 in the illustrated
embodiment,
i.e. only after the ad-request communication from the POS/POD terminal 30 has
been
received and the ad-campaign has been selected for printing, allows the use of
either static
or dynamic QR-codes. On the other hand, in another embodiment that is
configured to only
allow use of static OR-codes, the static QR code for a given ad campaign may
optionally be
generated prior to receipt of an ad-request communication by the ad
distribution server, for
example immediately upon completion of the ad campaign creation process by the
advertiser, or upon approval of the ad campaign by the facilitator for
activation. Advertiser's
wanting to make use of the extra information that can be garnered from dynamic
QR-codes
may be charged an additional fee by the facilitator, whether on a flat-rate or
per-scan basis,
for example in the form of a surcharge added to the Pay-Per-Scan bid amount.
As the system and method of the disclosed embodiment performs a new
determination of active ad campaigns, new filtering of candidate campaigns
from non-
qualifying campaigns, and new ranking of the candidate campaigns in real time
in response
to each and every ad-placement opportunity (i.e. every time a POS/POD terminal
is set to
print a receipt), new advertisement campaigns can be added at any time, and
existing
campaigns can be edited at any time, thus providing greater convenience and
flexibility to
advertisers who do not need to wait for an 'auctioning off' of available
advertisement space
in order to compete for advertisement opportunities.
CA 02854169 2014-06-23
22
A more generalized summary of the detailed embodiment above is provided
as follows for further guidance on the general layout and operation of the
system and the
sequence of events carried out by same.
When the POD is required to print a receipt, it first contacts the ACS to
provide it information, such as an address of the POD, industry type of the
POD and more.
The ACS then uses the information provided by the POD to look up other
information stored
on the ACS. Once the detailed profile is retrieved, the ACS generates a list
of
advertisements for which the advertiser-specified transaction critera yields
true, and
calculates a ranking Score to determine which advertisement should be printed
at the given
POD. Once the ACS determines the advertisement for a given POD, it sends a
list of
advertisements to the POD to format and print. Once the printing is done, the
POD may then
send the confirmation message to the ACS that the provided advertisement has
been
printed. At this point, the ACS will then charge the advertiser at the
specified pay per print
(PPP) rate.
With more particular reference to the process from the viewpoint of the POD,
when the POD terminal prints a receipt, it establishes a connection to the ACS
through any
one or more various types of available communications means, including a
simple Internet
connection, VPN connection, phone connection, cellular network connection,
etc. The
method of connection is not a limitation of the present invention, thus being
generalized
simply as a connection. Once the POD successfully establishes a connection to
the ACS
through an agreed protocol (of which there are various types, and thus does
not limit the
present invention), the POD presents its identity, which is transmitted
through an open
secured or non-secured connection (of which a secured connection is
preferable, without
limiting the present invention) to the ACS and waits for a response from the
ACS. Once data
is received from the ACS, the POD obtains the advertisement schema in an
agreed format
(for example well-known data-passing formats such as XML, clear text,
serialized data,
JSON, and others, which are not detailed further herein since they are not a
limitation of the
present invention) and starts downloading the advertisement image via an
active
connection. Once advertisements are downloaded, the POD prints them on the
given receipt
media. Once advertisements are printed, the POD may start communicating with
the ACS to
indicate that the advertisements are printed.
With more particular reference to the process from the viewpoint of the ACS,
the ACS remains in hibernation mode until there's an incoming packet on a
specific port via
CA 02854169 2014-06-23
23
a communication connection. Once the ACS verifies that the connection is
valid, it will
validate the protocol to ensure it is an agreed protocol. Once the ACS
validates the
connection, it will accept the POD identity and authenticate the POD. Once the
POD is
authenticated, the ACS will look up the POD's identity in a database of pre-
registered
information. The ACS will then compile the POD identity and begin looking for
all
advertisements that meet all conditions of the POD. The ACS will then
calculate a Score for
each advertisement that matches the attributes of the given POD transaction.
The ACS will
then choose advertisements starting from the highest Score and compile a list
of
advertisement schema which will be sent back to the POD.
Furthermore, after the POD prints advertisements, the ACS may receive
acknowledgment that the advertisement has been printed. The ACS then
disconnects the
communication connection and charges the advertiser based on the bidding Pay-
Per-Print
rate. Finally, it will log all necessary information into the database, which
is used herein in a
generalized manner to encompass all suitable forms of data storage, and should
not be
limited to a particular database type or structure.
The advertisement may include or consist of a QR-code, which will allow the
user (the person reading the advertisement, which may be the consumer involved
in the
POD transaction, but may alternatively be another party) to use their device
to scan the
code. The advertiser is charged based on a bidding model for the Pay-Per-Scan
(PPS)
option. The advertisement to be printed is determined by the ACS based on its
calculated
Score. The advertisement with the highest Score will have the highest
probability of being
displayed.
Advertisement criteria can be specified as conditions that will be used to
determine whether the advertisement is printed for a given transaction. For
example:
1. An advertiser can specify when to print the advertisement based on the
time, date,
and day of the week.
2. The geographical location where the advertiser wants to print the
advertisement can
be a condition. Location is determined using postal codes, cities, country,
communities, etc.
3. The type of industry that the advertiser wants to target can be a
condition. For
example, a Japanese restaurant, a clothing store, pubs, a computer store, etc.
CA 02854169 2014-06-23
24
4. The value of the receipt can be a condition. The advertiser can specify
that they only
want to appear on receipts that are greater than, less than, equal to, greater
than or
equal to, or less than or equal to value X, which is defined by the
advertiser.
5. The weather at the POD can be a condition. For example, advertisements may
only
display when it's raining since the advertiser is selling umbrellas.
6. The temperature at the POD can be a condition.
7. Purchasing behavior for a target audience at the POD that is printing the
advertisement can be a condition.
8. Through facial recognitions at POD, advertisers can specify personal
characteristics
or conditions under which the advertisement should appear. These personal
characteristics can include gender, age group, hair style, etc.
Although the detailed embodiment outlines the performance of certain tasks,
processes or algorithms by certain server units within the advertisement cloud
server or
ACS, it will be appreciate the distribution of these steps of the overall
method among
multiple servers may vary, or even potentially be handled by a single server
of sufficient
capability. Likewise, steps described as being performed by the POS/POD
terminal may be
performed by a suitably equipped printing device coupled thereto, or other
auxiliary or
peripheral device having, or being connected to, a suitable processor for
execution of
statements and instructions on a machine readable memory or medium of that
device. The
software or algorithms referred to herein are stored on computer or machine
readable
memory and features statements and instructions for execution by a processor
in order to
enable a computer to perform the steps, processes, tasks and algorithms
described herein.
While the word "print" is used throughout the forgoing description, the scope
of the present invention is not limited to printed receipts in particular.
That is, the same
general process for incorporating an advertisement into a transaction receipt
can likewise be
employed for an electronic receipt displayed on a video screen, contained in
or attached to
an email, embedded within another form of digital media, etc. Accordingly,
advertisements
that can be distributed on this platform are not limited to printable 2-
dimensional images or
text, and for example may include 2-dimensional/3-dimensional videos, etc.
Accordingly, for
scannable ads for which a QR-code is transmitted from the ACS to the POS/POD
terminal,
the Pay-Per-Print value may instead be referred to as a Pay-Per-Image value,
i.e. referring
to the fee charged for conveyance of a QR-code image to the POS/POD terminal,
CA 02854169 2014-06-23
regardless of whether that QR-code image is subsequently printed on a physical
medium, or
simply displayed in a scannable manner (for example, on an electronic display
screen such
as that of a desktop, laptop or tablet computer or mobile phone). Although the
detailed
embodiments are described in terms of employing QR-codes, other machine
readable
5 codes may be used if similarly capable of containing an encoded URL or
other network
address that can be decoded and used to direct a web browser or other network
browsing
application to that URL or network address.
The functionality of the present invention can be achieved by independent
software performing printing jobs, or can be fully integrated into the
software, such as the
10 main software of an overall point of sale (POS) system, which offers the
ability to print the
receipt. The foregoing embodiments do not detail all possible kinds of
software or platforms
that can provide the functionality, but rather employs generalize devices,
software, and web-
based technology that can provide receipts as the point of sale (POS) or Point
of Distribution
(POD), as available options for implementing the described systems and methods
will be
15 apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art.
Since various modifications can be made in my invention as herein above
described, it is intended that all matter contained in the accompanying
specification shall be
interpreted as illustrative only and not in a limiting sense.
