AU2015100827A4 - Savings Sponsorship through Advertising - Google Patents

Abstract

Nudge - Savings Sponsorship through Advertising Innovation Patent Application NUDGE is an application, or layer for integration into existing applications, which focuses on helping consumers reach their sales goals faster. NUDGE is connected to users' general banking and savings accounts. NUDGE users upload information about themselves and their savings goals, and the application also records and tracks certain other user information including frequency and value of savings deposits. NUDGE includes a 'Savings Sponsorship through Advertising' element. This is a platform which connects advertisers with users of the NUDGE application or application layer. When an advertiser pays to access a NUDGE user, and the user chooses to view the advertiser's message and/or take a subsequent action, the majority of the advertising fee is directed into the user's savings account as a 'Savings Sponsorship'. The advertising fee will be comparative to other cost-per-reach platforms such as Search Engine Marketing CPC (cost per click) or CPM (cost per mille, or thousand), but rather than the funds going to the advertising platform, the majority is provided as a cash deposit to the consumer. The result is that the consumer is closer to their savings goal and the advertiser wins favour with the user, who is more likely to use their saved funds to purchase from the advertiser as a result of the sponsorship. Andrew Wilson c/o The Other Dimension P/L C207/11 Chandos St, St Leonards, NSW AUSTRALIA, 2065

Description

1 Nudge - Innovation Patent Application ADVERTISER-SPONSORED SAVING PLATFORM INDUSTRY: FINANCIAL SERVICES, MARKETING, DIGITAL MEDIA BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [001] Organisations need to reach consumers with information about their products or services. Many platforms and channels exist for this purpose, such as traditional broadcast media (television and radio), print (newspapers and magazines), outdoor or ambient installations, and, more recently, digital channels. [002] Digital channels include websites, emails, apps, and SMS. Digital channels typically have the advantage of being more easily measurable and more highly targeted than non-digital channels. Digital technology allows for the inclusion of advanced features that can track consumer responses to an organisation's content or messages. [003] Where an organisation does not own the channel, platform, or database, the organisation typically pays the channel, platform, or database owner for access to the audience. Examples include digital display advertising and electronic direct mail (EDM) campaigns to a targeted database. [004] In addition, organisations often rely on consumers using search engines to find information about their products or services. When consumers enter a search query on a search engine, the results returned are typically a mix of paid advertising and 'organic results'. [005] Paid advertising fees on search engines usually take the form of 'cost per click' (CPC), or 'cost per mille' (CPM), where CPM represents one thousand exposures. Management of CPC or CPM on search engines is referred to as 'Search Engine Management' or SEM. This is distinct from 2 'Search Engine Optimisation' or SEO, which focuses on increasing rankings in the organic results. [006] CPC and CPM rates vary depending on the competitive environment, and are based on the particular search keyword or phrase entered into the search engine by the consumer. Advertising rates for each keyword or phrase are determined by an auction process. [007] The greater the number of organisations wanting to target consumers searching for a particular keyword or phrase, the higher the advertising rates are likely to be, based on the auction results. In 2014, keyword phrases relating to life insurance in Australia attracted a CPC of up to $190. These advertising fees are paid to the search engine. SUMMARY [007] The invention is a digital platform that uses data insight from a financial savings application to align advertisers with consumers who are likely to spend on the advertiser's products or services. Consumers are incentivised to view advertisers' messages in return for cash deposits from the advertisers into their savings accounts, with the transfer automated via the financial savings application. TECHNICAL PROBLEM [008] Consumers may benefit from exposure to an advertiser's messages by finding information about a product or service, or by receiving a special offer or discount. However, advertising fees themselves are retained by the channel, platform, or medium. In particular, the advertising revenue charged by a search engine is retained by the search engine.

3 [009] Research suggests consumers - particularly younger demographics are increasingly hostile towards traditional advertising, and possess less brand loyalty than previously. [010] Consumers may deliberately avoid digital advertising through the use of ad-blocking software and e-mail filters. [011] Organisations may not be aware of how ready the consumer is to purchase a good or service when the consumer uses a search engine. [012] Organisations do not typically know the value of a consumer's savings account or their intended use for such savings. SOLUTION TO PROBLEM [013] The invention is connected to a financial services application. [014] The invention records data both from explicit consumer input and monitored consumer behaviour. [015] Consumers input their own data such as age, gender, savings goal amount, savings goal timeframe, category of intended purchase using savings funds (e.g. holiday), and various other profile fields into the financial services application. The consumer also provides the details of their nominated savings account into the financial services application. The invention is able to access this data automatically. [016] In addition to explicitly-requested data, the invention also monitors certain consumer behaviour. This includes number and frequency of savings deposits, value of savings account, frequency of acceptance of advertiser messages from the financial services application and various other behaviours. [017] The invention then provides a platform for organisations to select the consumers they wish to advertise to. The platform provides segmentation 4 across each of the input variables noted in [015] and [016] as well as external data sources. [018] The invention sends an advertiser's message to the consumer via the financial savings application. [019] The consumer can choose to take an action to view or discard the advertiser's message. If the consumer chooses to view the message, the invention deposits a significant portion of the fee charged to the advertisers into the consumer's nominated savings account. The consumer may be required to take an additional step to receive this deposit, such as clicking on a call to action within the advertising message. [020] The invention retains the portion of the advertising fee not paid to the consumer's savings account. [021] The fee charged to advertisers for sending messages is determined based on an algorithm that is part of the invention. [022] The fee varies dependent upon the competitive interest in the consumer or consumer segment, where higher competitive interest equals a higher fee. [023] The fee also varies based on the consumer's proximity to their savings goal, and therefore their likelihood of readiness to purchase. The nearer the goal, the higher the fee. ADVANTAGEOUS EFFECTS OF INVENTION [021] The invention connects advertisers with consumers in a targeted manner, including through the use of insight into the consumers' finances. [022] The invention rewards consumers for receiving messages from advertisers, making consumers more receptive to the advertising 5 message and more likely to have positive perceptions about the advertiser's brand. [023] The invention uses advertising revenue previously captured by search engines and other channels to actively help the consumer reach their goal by making deposits into their savings accounts. CONTACT Andrew Wilson c/o The Other Dimension P/L C207/11 Chandos St, St Leonards, NSW AUSTRALIA, 2065

Claims (5)

1. A software platform, or application layer for inclusion within an existing application, which provides advertisers access to consumers via an app that is connected, via a data feed, to and from the consumer's nominated savings account.

2. A software platform, or application layer for inclusion within an existing application, in respect to Claim 1, which provides consumer segmentation based on user information input into the app in addition to monitored user behaviour.

3. A software platform, or application layer for inclusion within an existing application, in respect to Claims 1 and 2, which allows organisations to send an advertising message to a segmented list of consumers.

4. A software platform, or application layer for inclusion within an existing application, in respect to Claim 1, which deposits a percentage of the fee charged to advertisers directly into the user's nominated savings account when the users takes an action to view the advertiser's message, and/or takes an additional action such as clicking through from the notification to a website.

5. An application, or application layer for inclusion within existing applications or software, which allows the user to nominate to pay for a specified online purchase in increments, in the form of a virtual layby, and whereby the user can nominate this payment option on the seller's site and have the item put aside by the seller, and upon the user making the requisite number of payments into their savings account and this information being supplied by automated data feed to the application or application layer, the funds are forwarded to the seller and the item is shipped to the 2 user. CONTACT Andrew Wilson c/o The Other Dimension P/L C207/11 Chandos St, St Leonards, NSW AUSTRALIA, 2065