AU9727401A - Interactive individual customer targeting system - Google Patents

Description

Regulation 3.2

AUSTRALIA

PATENTS ACT 1990 COMPLETE SPECIFICATION FOR A STANDARD PATENT

ORIGINAL

o o o• o* ooo o• oo0•0 o*eo Name of Applicant: Infovidual Technologies Pty Ltd Actual Inventors: Russell Ainsworth Mark Raphael Address for Service: MADDERNS, 1st Floor, 64 Hindmarsh Square, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia Invention title: INTERACTIVE INDIVIDUAL CUSTOMER TARGETING

SYSTEM

Details of Associated Provisional Application No: PR 2128 dated 18 th December 2000 The following statement is a full description of this invention, including the best method of performing it known to us.

(PatAU131) Technical Field This invention relates to a method and system of providing a high level of interactivity between individual customers and suppliers in targeting individual customers within a focus group.

Background to the Invention Traditionally, the art of enticing a customer to purchase a product has involved advertising that project's product image and information toward the public at large, in the hope that a portion of that public will find the product of sufficient interest to go to a shop and buy it. This involves great amounts of expenditure in preparing an advertising campaign, printing promotional material and distributing or transmitting S: the material to the public. The provable results are, generally unsatisfactory, when compared with the effort and cost involved. This is largely due to the fact that the 0 majority of recipients of the promotional material do not actually look at the 0 15 material, or those who do, are not interested in the product.

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More recently, the concept of targeting a particular customer group to receive relevant advertisements has been experimented with. The aim is clearly to target oooo• effort and funds to more effectively promote product to those members of the buying o o 20 public who are interested in the product or who are otherwise in a position to benefit from the product.

Discussion of the Prior Art To enable such targeting to be performed, data must be collected. This is usually done in the form of questionnaires distributed at random to the general public.

Alternatively, marketing companies telephone individuals at random and obtain desired information through a series of verbal questions and who, with their considerable expertise in such matters, infer purchasing habits and predict trends in the target markets.

A disadvantage of such an approach is that many people are reluctant to divulge information about themselves and do not necessarily provide accurate information.

People often view this as an intrusion into their personal affairs and see no benefit for themselves in supplying the information, or have no interest in doing so.

A further disadvantage of traditional methods is that the data collected is only valid for a certain amount of time. Peoples' tastes and attitudes change over time and such data, necessarily represents a "snapshot" of peoples' tastes at the time, likely to quickly become redundant. Accordingly, the collection of such data, together with associated costs in preparing suitable questions, printing forms, collecting and collating information and paying salaries, need to be repeated at regular intervals to maintain relatively up-to-date "snapshots" of commercially-useful information.

Furthermore, the information gathered by traditional methods is generally only used by a small group of related companies. Thus, there is a certain degree of inefficiency in the use of the collected data.

Additionally, traditional methods are not as effective as they might be in encouraging a consumer to visit a given retail store on a regular basis. A traditional marketing campaign will focus on a given product, and then end there. This does not foster a close relationship between the store and the consumer.

It would therefore be an advantage if a method and system could be developed which provided for useful, easily collected and up-to-date information relating to a targeted customer group and, more specifically, targeted to individual members of a targeted group.

Summary of the Invention According to a first aspect of the invention, there is provided a system of collecting individual consumer information, the system including: an individual consumer identification associated with an individual customer; at least one reader able to read the consumer identification, which is also able to associate with the identification data, details relating to consumer preferences of the individual consumer; a database, operatively connected to the at least one reader, for receiving and logging the consumer preference details associated with the individual consumer; an administrator for controlling the collection and distribution of the information; and one or more retail outlets able to access, via the administrator, information stored on the database.

Preferably, the reader is located at the retail outlets, and collects the individual consumer information upon each purchase of a product.

S According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of collecting individual consumer information, the method including the steps of: associating an identification code with an individual consumer; associating the identification code with consumer preferences of that individual consumer; receiving and logging the information relating to the consumer preferences associated with the identification code; and providing the stored information to retail parties under the control of an administrator.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a system and method of generating promotional material and providing that material to the individual consumer in accordance with the collected consumer preference information associated with an identification code of that individual consumer.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of providing targeted promotional material to an individual consumer, the method including the steps of: providing a consumer with a consumer identification; obtaining consumer preference information from said consumer; associating said consumer preference information with said consumer identification to provide a consumer profile; updating said consumer profile and targeting promotional material to said consumer in accordance with said consumer profile.

The method also includes up dating said consumer profile with data relating to further consumer preference information subsequently provided by said consumer to thereby provide a consumer profile that reflects the individual consumer's present preferences.

Preferably, the further consumer preference information is obtained by recording data related to purchases made by a consumer. Alternatively, said further consumer preference information is obtained from the consumer by the consumer indicating S.current preferences by answering one or more questions upon visiting a related store .9 :0*60 •or visiting a web site associated with said related store.

9 .9• 15 Preferably, consumer identification is provided to the consumer upon joining a club.

1 Preferably, the consumer identification is obtained by a store from a central administrator.

S 20 Preferably, said store will provide said consumer information to said central administrator.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of preparing a consumer profile to indicate individual preferences of a particular consumer, the method including receiving from one or more stores consumer preference information relating to the preferences of one or more consumers; storing said consumer preference information associated with a consumer identification; and creating a consumer profile for one or more individual consumers as consumer preference information is built up.

Preferably, the method will include providing data relating to consumer profiles to said one or more stores. Preferably, the data relating to consumer profiles for a given consumer is provided only to the store which provided information relating to that consumer.

Preferably, the method also includes returning to the store or stores, consumer identification information that meets consumer profile criteria provided by the said store or stores.

Preferably, the method includes distributing targeted promotional material to consumers meeting consumer profile criteria upon request by said store or stores.

The method may also include receiving a request from a peripheral retailer to ooo o distribute promotional material to one or more consumers meeting profile criteria provided by said peripheral retailer.

The present invention fosters a consumer-retailer relationship by providing constant 999999 inducements to the consumer to visit the retailer on a regular basis. This develops a consumer loyalty which is obviously commercially desirable for the retailer.

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S A preferred embodiment of the present invention will now be described in relation to 20 the following figures.

o 9 Brief Description of Figures Fig 1 shows the elements of the system of the present invention; Fig 2 shows a web site map of the pages of a web site co-ordinating the various elements of the present invention.

Detailed Description of the Preferred Embodiment The system of the present invention involves the co-ordination and integration of many elements. As shown in Fig 1, the central element of the system 10 is the individual consumer 20. Associated with that individual consumer, is an identification code, which is embodied in a membership card 30. Membership card can be a bar coded magnetic strip card or may be a smart card or any other suitable memory device. The consumer 20 will preferably pay a membership fee to join a club, entitling the consumer to participate in the system. The club is promoted by a particular product seller, for example a music shop, and it is the owner of the shop who then has the opportunity to improve, build upon and benefit as does the club member from the soon to be better-informed relationship.

Upon joining the club, the consumer is provided with a membership card 30, upon which is stored the consumer identification data. To initialise the particular preferences of the individual consumer 20, a questionnaire 40 may be provided to the consumer for completion on the spot or for completion at a later date. The questionnaire will prompt for information relating to personal details of the S.consumer, music preferences, video preferences, preferred social activities, and any other information which may be relevant to the particular application of the system.

It will be noted that in this preferred embodiment, the system of the present invention is described in the context of the music retail industry however, it will be appreciated that the present invention is applicable to any industry having consumers and service or goods providers.

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o00o S In general, the consumer 20 will join the club at a music retailer store 50, at which S0.• 20 time, the store will collect the information and provide the member with the o o.

*i membership kit. The membership kit may also contain additional materials such as promotional T-shirts or other promotional products. Information obtained from the questionnaire 40 is received and collated by the administrator 60. Various other tasks of the administrator will be described later in this document. The collated' information is then stored on the central database 70 to provide an initial consumer preference profile for that individual consumer. This information is associated with the identification code of that individual consumer (as can be read from the membership card 30) and the system is then already set up to provide appropriately targeted information to that individual customer.

Another central element of the system of the invention is the interaction between the retailer and the individual consumer 20 via the Internet. Upon joining the club, the 7 consumer is provided with a web site address and a password to access the web site of the administrator 60 of the system 10. Consumer 20 can access the Internet via any appropriate terminal 80. The administrator web site 90 allows the consumer to perform many functions and provides the consumer with many services. The web site will be described in greater detail below. In brief however, as an alternative to completing questionnaire 40, the consumer is able to complete a similar questionnaire on the Internet which is then directed to the administrator 60 and stored on central database 70 as before.

Over time, as consumer 20 makes purchases at music store 50 and/or any other participating music store 50', the consumer's preference profile will be built up and refined to more narrowly focus the consumer's individual preference profile. This is °•accomplished by recording details of the consumer's purchase at the point of sale of each purchase. Of course, this data need not be captured at the exact point of sale, but may be retrieved from sale records at the end of each day for example, and eeeoe added to the profile later. The consumer will enter store 50, select one or more desired items for purchase and proceed to the counter to complete the purchase. At i the counter, the attendant will swipe the member's card 30 into reader 51, which S reads member identification information. In association with that, the attendant will enter details relating to the consumer's purchase including the date, the time of o°purchase, the place of purchase and the titles of the items purchased. Alternatively, the Point of Sale (POS) system used by the retailer can collect such information automatically. These details are sent via electronic means to administrator 60 which then updates central database 70 with the newly acquired details. In this manner, the individual consumer's 20 profile is refined and kept up-to-date. This effectively represents a live and continuous "snapshot" of each individual customer's current and changing tastes.

The interaction of the various retailers and wholesalers within the system will now be described, beginning with retail music store 50 (and any other participating retail stores The retail store's initial participation has already been described above.

There are various other interactions between the music store 50, the customer 20 and the administrator 60 which occur. Firstly, to enable the participating store to sign up new members, the store 50 must request from administrator 60 membership kits to be given to joining members. Upon receipt of the request, the administrator 60 will send to the retail store 50 the required number of membership kits, in exchange for payment for those kits. The music store 50 can also request from the administrator assistance in creating promotional material, including letters and artwork. Again, administrator 60 will receive these requests, process them and return the ordered products to retail store 50. Most importantly, the retail store 50 can request member profile information from administrator 60, which has been stored on central database 70. For example, the music store may wish to promote albums by the group "The Beatles", and would request from administrator 60 collected details about its .oo.

customers who have indicated an interest in "The Beatles". Even further, the music store 50 may request that administrator 60 organise mail-outs to be conducted. In this event, administrator 60 will locate those individual consumers who fit the required profile (ie are Beatles fans and have visited music store 50 before), create the required S promotional material and send the promotional material to these specified members after review and authorisation by the store 50. This allows music store 50 to specifically target customers who are likely to return to their store and who are Sinterested in the specific product being promoted by music store 50. The mail-out S. 20 organised by administrator 60 will have a greater chance of attracting consumers than previous methods because the customers have been uniquely targeted and the information about individual customers' preferences is up-to-date. Music store also benefits from other services provided by administrator 60 through web site 90 as will be discussed in detail further below.

An extended arrangement of the present invention will involve not only retail music stores but other industries which may have a connection with the music retail industry. A wholesaler of music products such as Sony or Philips, can benefit from the compiled database information stored on central database 70. For example, wholesaler 100 may wish to obtain an instant "snapshot" of music consumers at the time. This would be useful for their own market research. Because the information stored on central database 70 is current and detailed, it is possible for wholesaler 100 to determine the effects of any promotional campaigns it has conducted in relation to a particular product. For example, if the wholesaler has been promoting a particular album for the last month, then the results of such promotion will be reflected on the information stored on central database 70. The information provided to wholesaler 100 will enable them to assess the effectiveness of their advertising campaign and may indicate to them that there is a narrower focus group existing among the consumers which will enable the wholesaler to better target their next promotional campaign. The participation of wholesaler 100 will always be through administrator No retail or wholesale stores have direct access to the database. Thus administrator 60 will control what information is distributed. It is not the intention of •administrator 60 to divulge personal individual information to external companies but it will allow access to non-individual, commercial information. It may also be possible for wholesaler 100 to request that administrator 60 organise a targeted mailout promotion to customers who meet the wholesaler's specific requirements. Again, administrator 60 will have discretion as to whether or not to conduct such a mail-out ooooo3 in conjunction with the stores 50. It will be noted that the mail-out could be in the form of letters or e-mails directed to web site 90 to be accessed by the individual upon logging onto the web site under their own unique identification code.

It will also be possible for other retailers (herein generally defined as "peripheral retailers") to benefit and participate in the system. For example, travel store 110 may participate in the system by offering, via administrator 60, travel packs to customers who may benefit from that service. For example, if a group of customers have indicated previously that they enjoy travel, and may be fans of a particular artist or music group, then the travel store 110 can offer to these selected customers via administrator 60, travel packs to provide discounted travel to attend an overseas concert being performed by the customers' favourite band.

Furthermore bookstore 120 may similarly participate in the system by offering to selected customers, via administrator 60, discounts to particular books relating to an interest indicated by the individual customer. Similarly, concert ticket retailer 130 may also target individual customers to sell or offer discounted tickets via administrator 60 to the selected customers for a particular concert by a band or artist in which the particular customer has indicated an interest.

Another feature of the present invention involves the use of a kiosk 140 which will generally be situated in one or more music stores 50. The kiosk prompts the customer to swipe their membership card 30 and will give the customer a chance to win a prize each time they swipe their card (possibly limited to one swipe per day). This acts as an incentive to customers to visit music retail store 50 and increase the opportunity for the store 50 of the customers buying stock from the store 50. Upon swiping the card 30, the kiosk may also prompt the customer to select most preferred song or album titles from a given list. This continues to refine and update the customers' preference profile data stored on central database It can be seen that each of the participants benefits greatly from each other participant's involvement. In particular, customer 20 benefits in many areas in ooee# exchange for the information they provide. Such benefits include the provision of promotional material which promotes products which are of particular interest to them, it provides customer 20 with special offers relating to products of special #oointerest to them as well as discounts for products and the opportunity of winning 20 prizes targeted to their preferences upon each purchase of a product and/or visit to a music retail store The various interactions described above between the various participants of the system may be done in many ways but most conveniently, through the Internet via web site 90 administered by administrator 60. This web site will now be described in greater detail with reference to Fig 2, which shows a site map of the various pages available on the web site.

As discussed above, when a consumer 20 joins the club to enable them to participate in the system, they are provided with a web site address, a member login name and a password, to enable them to access the web site. Because each member is uniquely identified through their login name and password, each page of the web site can be customised to that individual member as described below. Similarly, each of the participating music retail stores 50, wholesale stores 100, and any other participating stores 110 to 130 will each have a unique login name and password to allow them to access a dedicated part of the web site that will cater to their particular needs.

Beginning with the member login, the member simply types in the address of the web site provided to them with their membership kit and are prompted to enter their login name and password at page A.

Once logged in, the member is taken to the member home page B, which welcomes the individual member by name. The member is then given a number of options to access other pages. At B1, a listing of the member's music collection is displayed.

This includes the title of each CD or other item in the member's collection. It can also include details including time and place of purchase. This listing can act as a useful catalogue system for the member, and is also particularly useful as an official record of the member's collection for insurance purposes should the member's collection be stolen or damaged. This listing is updated automatically when the member i purchases any item at a participating music retail store. This listing is taken directly from database 70 and is kept up-to-date since this data is collected at the time of purchase of the item.

o:ooo At page B2, the member is able to update his or her collection list by manually inputting recently bought items. This will be useful in cases where the member did not purchase the item at a participating store or in the instances where the member has a pre-existing collection acquired before joining the club, which would not have been logged at each purchase. This facility also allows the member to make notes relating to the whereabouts of a particular title in their collection. For example, if the member has lent one or more of the items to a friend, a note can be made, thereby allowing the member to keep track of the collection.

Page B3 allows the member to update details, for example any change of address or contact details.

Page B4 contains the questionnaire which is also included in the membership kit given to the member upon joining the club. This gives the member the option of either filling in the questionnaire by hand or electronically.

Page B5 allows the member to contact the administrator and provide any comments, questions or feedback that the member may have for the administrator. Page B5.1 provides a thank you note to the member in response to their comments made at page At page B6, there is provided information relating to the home store of the member.

SThe home store is the store at which the member joined the club, and is generally the store nearest to the member and the one visited most frequently by the member.

Note that it is possible for one member to join more than one store. Such information may include any new products which have recently been received by the store, any sales that are currently occurring and any other special events which may be of interest to the particular member. Again, this information can be tailored to the i individual member in accordance with his or her personal profile built up through the system.

Page B7 allows the member to change his or her password. Page B8 contains legal information relating to privacy and terms and conditions of using the system.

At page B9 the member is provided with the opportunity of forming a personal reminder system, such that an e-mail or other form of notification will be sent to the member on a date prior to the set date. Such special events could include meetings or birthdays or anniversaries of friends and family.

A similar series of pages is available to be accessed by the retail store 50 to provide the store with relevant information to the operation of their business in the participation in the system. As described above, each store is given its own login name and password, entry of which will bring them to store home page C. At this page, the store is provided with a number of options relevant to its business.

The first option at page C1, provides the store with accounting information relevant to the business.

The second page, C2 provides the store with useful advice relating to marketing in general and marketing using the various services of the system. One philosophy behind the system is to help each of the participants to make full use of the system and increase the benefit derived therefrom. A further example of this can be seen at page C3, which provides further information relating to training of staff to efficiently use all services provided by the system.

At page C4, the store is provided with an electronic order form through which they 15 can purchase merchandise from the administrator for sale in their stores.

.oo..I At page C5, the store is able to change personal details such as contact details and address if applicable.

S. 20 At page C6, the store is able to order new supplies of membership packs which are 00 •given to new members as they sign up with the club.

At pages C7 to C7.3, a number of useful reports are able to be generated and accessed. These reports can provide the store with up-to-date information on their most popular product, with related information as to what type of customer group purchased the best selling products, who the distributors were, and the title and artist of the product. The reports also allow each individual store to see how it is performing in relation to other stores both in the same State and country-wide. The reports can also provide projections of trends emerging in the industry to allow the store to tailor its marketing and retail services accordingly.

The store is able to contact the administrator to ask questions, provide comments and any feedback at page C8.

Pages C9 and C9.1 allow the store to request that a mail-out be coordinated by the administrator to send promotional material to selected customers. In placing the request, the store will identify to the administrator the type of product to be promoted, and any sale or special offer details related to their product. Upon receipt of this request, the administrator will process the information and compile a list of relevant customers who would benefit most from receiving this information and who would be most likely to respond to the mail-out.

Pages C10 to C11.1 complete the mail-out process and provide the store with any feedback relating to the mail-out, and the store may similarly provide the administrator with feedback received in response to the mail-out.

9 I.]0 At page C12, the system provides for "approval screening". This allows the administrator to review and veto, if necessary, any information that is administered .i to its members.

At page C13, there is provided the facility for the store, who is preparing a mail-out or some other advertising literature in a rough form, to submit this to the administrator 60 for copywriting. This will involve specialised staff preparing the brochure or other advertising literature in a form suitable for dissemination to the selected consumers. Similarly, a request may be made by the store to the administrator 60 for the administrator to prepare some artwork for use on promotional material. All these services are provided with the aim of facilitating the store's participation in the system and increasing profits to both the store and the administrator.

Finally, at page C15, there is provided information relating to member administration. This allows the store to change details of those members who joined at that store. For example, a member may advise the store of a change of address, and the store can make these changes on the spot.

A participant of the system need not necessarily be an individual store, but may be the head of a chain of stores. This head can facilitate and organise the involvement of each of the stores from a central location and will deal directly with the administrator through the Internet site. Identical services provided through the store pages is provided to the head of the chain at pages D1 through to D17.

As discussed above, distributors and wholesalers may also participate in the system and will also be given a unique login name and password to access their particular S area of the web site. These are given at pages E to E8. Similar services as those provided to the store and store chains are provided to the distributors.

The administrator 60 will also have its own dedicated part of the web site through which it can interact with each of the participants. The pages provide for interactions reflecting those already discussed in relation to the other participants. This is shown at pages F to F9.

.20 It will also be possible to tailor individual web pages for particular companies or participants who, in specific circumstances, require slightly different services or organisation. These are shown at pages G8 to G9 and H to H5. The interaction shown in these pages in Fig 2 are similar to those previously discussed and need not be detailed any further.

The system and method described above provides for a unique way of targeting individual customers in a given industry and involving multiple participants within the industry and within affiliated industries. The market information collected by the system provides useful commercial information that is detailed, accurate and far more current than is available from traditional systems. The unique combination of each of the elements of the system provide commercial benefits for each of the participants and allow the individual consumer to obtain highly-targeted material, discounts, offers and opportunities to win prizes that are of interest to them as individuals and which encourages them to use the system more often.

While the above has been described in relation to the music industry, it will be appreciated that the concept of this invention is equally applicable to any industry such as the automotive manufacturing industry including manufacturers, distributors, retailers and consumers, together with associated automotive clubs.

Further applications can include service industries such as the medical industry, with participation between pharmaceutical companies, specialists, general practitioners, pharmacies and patients.

It will also be appreciated that the above has been described in relation to a particular embodiment and many variations and modifications may be made to the method jc': and system described.

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Claims (11)

1. A system of collecting individual consumer information, the system including: an individual consumer identification associated with an individual consumer; at least one reader able to read the consumer identification, which is also able to associate with the identification data, details relating to consumer preferences of the individual consumer; a database, operatively connected to the at least one reader, for receiving and logging the consumer preference details associated with the individual consumer; an administrator for controlling the collection and distribution of the information; and one or more retail outlets able to access, via the administrator, information stored on the database.

2. A system according to claim 1 wherein the one or more readers are located at the retail outlets. ooeo°

3. A system according to claim 2 wherein the one or more readers collect the 20 individual consumer information upon each purchase of a product by the consumer. o•

4. A method of collecting individual consumer information, the method including the steps of: associating an identification code with an individual consumer; associating the identification code with consumer preferences of that individual consumer; receiving and logging the information relating to the consumer preferences associated with the identification code; and providing the stored information to retail parties under the control of an administrator.

A method of targeting a consumer with promotional material, the method including: providing a consumer with a consumer identification; obtaining consumer preference information from said consumer; associating said consumer preference information with said consumer identification to provide a consumer profile; distributing promotional material to said consumer in accordance with said consumer profile.

6. A method according to claim 5 wherein said consumer profile is updated with data relating to further consumer preference information subsequently provided by said consumer. o *go

7. A method according to claim 6 wherein said further consumer preference information is obtained by recording data related to purchases made by said consumer.

8. A method according to any one of claims 5 or 6 wherein said further consumer o* preference information is obtained from the consumer indicating current preferences 20 by answering one or more questions upon visiting a store, or visiting a web site associated with said store.

9. A method according to any one of claims 5 to 8 wherein said consumer identification is provided to the consumer upon the consumer joining a club.

A method according to any one of claims 6 to 9, including obtaining said consumer identification from a central administrator. a

11. A method according to any one of claims 6 to 10, including providing said consumer preference information or further consumer preference information to said central administrator. Dated this 18 t day of December, 2001 INFOVIDUAL TECHNOLOGIES PTY LTD By its Patent Attorneys MADDERNS a