JP2023550360A - Video ad augmentation using dynamic web content - Google Patents

Abstract

Systems and methods are disclosed for enhancing and adding interactive features to video media displayed via a web browser. The method begins by adding an element to a structured media definition, including a script containing instructions for generating an interactive menu on a web page in the media when the media is played. Instantiating one or more new elements, thereby invoking one or more application programming interface (API) functions provided by the remote server, upon selecting any option from the interactive menu. The structured media definition is sent to a web browser to cause it to load the video and execute instructions. The server backend, when executed by a web browser, receives and processes API calls from the script and sends responses to the API calls to the web browser acted upon by the script. [Selection diagram] Figure 1B

Description

The innovations of this disclosure generally address systems and methods for augmenting online video advertisements to add executable code, including code for creating interactive menus with cross-domain communications.

In virtually all communication media prior to the 21st century, such as television, radio, and print, advertising has only limited effectiveness. The broadcast or publication is the same for all recipients, is passively viewed or listened to by the recipient, is limited to one-way communication, and is separate to purchase what is advertised. media and does not provide the advertiser with any assurance that the recipient saw or heard the ad. Traditionally, even with the state-of-the-art features and two-way communication enabled by computer networks, measuring a consumer's engagement with an online ad is based on the consumer's exposure to the ad, and perhaps even the video content. is limited to verifying that certain portions of the video advertisement are shown to the consumer, such as the first, second, and third quartiles of the video advertisement. There are no reports to confirm that a consumer paid attention to that ad, and there are no reports that exist to confirm that a consumer paid attention to that ad, and that a consumer accidentally clicks, taps, or otherwise interacts with that ad and goes online through that ad. There is also no way to confirm that a sale or other consumer activity is connected to an advertisement unless you go to the store and complete a purchase at the same time.

The digital advertising industry, primarily through its trade association, the Interactive Advertising Board (IAB), has promulgated several de facto industry standards to facilitate the delivery of digital advertising on the Internet. For video advertising, two such standards are VAST (Video Advertising Template) and VPAID (Video Player Advertising Interface Definition), preceded by a standard for mobile application advertising, MRAID (Mobile Rich Media Advertising Interface Definition). The IAB's intention is to consolidate all of these standards into a new standard, SIMID (Secure Interactive Media Interface Definition), which, in addition to consolidating and simplifying the aforementioned standards, , intended to add security to them. These standards, when adopted by HTML5-based or other video playback software, define advertisements with additional features, including allowing external files to be loaded and executed by the video player. make it possible.

Therefore, by tying advertising more directly to purchases, consumers' self-expressed "first-party" data (which is of high quality and useful to advertisers rather than just guessing about what consumers are interested in) The benefits to a system that can create video ads that capture and quantify interest (of greater interest), provide interactivity for a more functional and engaging form of video advertising, and facilitate cross-domain communication. be.

The methods and systems of the present disclosure enhance the experience of viewing advertisements with additions that enhance the message, such as interactive menus that allow direct purchase of items shown within the advertisement or related to the items shown. Supplement the primary video message with content that takes it to a much richer, deeper, and more multifaceted level by reinforcing it with additional aspects. This is a form of multiple additional videos that replace or complement the primary video, allowing advertisers to display many videos instead of just one to eager consumers. It even allows you to take it.

Augmented video advertising can achieve a "full funnel" marketing strategy. Traditional advertising strategies often use three tiers when consumers are "funneled" into a purchase: An "upstream" or "broad" funnel that only advertises a brand, an intermediate funnel that brings consumers interested in a brand to greater awareness of a particular class of products available within that brand, and a transacting funnel after seeing an ad. involves a ``downstream'' or ``narrow'' funnel that solidifies the consumer's desire to purchase a particular product. Augmented video ads start a video promoting a brand, but also provide a menu to browse products within that brand, allowing consumers to even add items to their online shopping cart while remaining within the ad itself. By enabling, all three roles can be fulfilled.

Complementing video ads with truly interactive navigation menus transforms the consumer experience into a "lean forward", actively engaged consumer experience that makes advertising significantly more useful and informative; , leading to actions such as clicks or taps to make a purchase through an ad. While playing a video ad, menus allow consumers to simultaneously browse and click or tap directly to deeper level product information and the specific product itself, or whatever else is most relevant to them. information. For example, a video may be overlaid with a multi-level menu displaying categories of products, and clicking on any category may further display the set of products available within that category.

By using an easy-to-navigate cascading menu format, consumers can preview all possible menu items that they might be interested in and then click, tap, or otherwise select them in one go. You can just go directly to the specific product, information, deal or other purpose you desire. The interface can be adapted to match the advertiser's website, so it is like taking the website to the person in the ad.

The code contained within the video ad tells which branch of the menu the consumer explores and for how long (leading up to that very moment), which video they consume and for how long, which videos they consume, It also allows for tracking, such as whether a particular product has been viewed and/or clicked on and/or purchased. This consumer interaction data is not only extremely granular and accurate, but also better than traditional advertising metrics because it records what consumers actually choose as self-declared displays of interest and intent. It's also far more useful.

In one aspect of the present disclosure, a system for augmenting and adding interactive features to video media displayed via a web browser is disclosed. The system includes one or more processors and a network-coupled server having persistent memory containing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, are serially connected to the one or more processors. execute the steps. First, a server receives an identification of video media to be augmented and a user for definition of a multi-level menu having one or more interactive elements to be superimposed when the video media is displayed to a consumer. Provide an interface. The server then automatically updates the video player on the consumer's web browser to instantiate a multi-level menu and one or more interactive elements within the web browser executed by that web browser during display of the video media. Generate a structured media definition that instructs you to load the script that generates the . A web browser executes a script that causes one or more application programming interface (API) calls to a uniform resource locator (URL) located on a network-connected server when one or more interactive elements are interacted with by a consumer. Load. Upon receiving the one or more API calls, the server establishes or updates a profile of consumer behavior based on which interactive elements were interacted with by the consumer. The server also focuses the content within future video media on products that the consumer has previously expressed interest in through interaction with the interactive element and/or differs from the interactive element that is added by default. Dynamically retarget or even re-optimize future video media delivered to consumers by selecting interactive elements to be added to multi-level menus within the future video media.

In another aspect of the present disclosure, systems and methods are disclosed for enhancing and adding interactive features to video media displayed via a web browser. The method performed by the system includes adding elements to a structured media definition, including scripts, that causes the video media to instantiate one or more new web page elements when the video media is played. including. The script includes instructions to generate an interactive menu so that selecting any option from the interactive menu calls one or more application programming interface (API) functions located on a remote server. The structured media definition is sent to a web browser to cause it to load the video and execute instructions. The server providing the API backend receives and processes API calls from the script when the script is executed by a web browser and the consumer interacts with the interactive menu. The response to the API call is then sent to a web browser that is acted upon by the script. This two-way communication cycle can be used to enable a myriad of interactions that create value for consumers and advertisers alike, including dynamically changing the video being displayed and dynamically updating the user interface. including enabling shopping, social networking, gaming, and other interactions, all from within video ads.

Other aspects, features and advantages will be more fully apparent from the following detailed description, the appended claims, and the accompanying drawings, which do not limit the scope of any of the embodiments and are provided for illustrative purposes only. would be:

Figures 1A to 1G. Figure 2 shows some example video advertisements with multi-level menus of various styles and functions. 1 illustrates a representative network of computing devices used within a system for serving web pages containing interactive video advertisements with two-way cross-domain communication capabilities. 1 illustrates a representative web-based interface incorporating advertising-enhanced video. A method of providing enhanced video advertisements to consumers is shown in a simplified form. 1 illustrates, in a simplified form, a method for receiving communications from an enriched video advertisement to update a profile or cart associated with a consumer. 1 illustrates, in a simplified form, how to dynamically retarget an advertisement based on a consumer's previous input or engagement with the advertisement or similar advertisements; Examples of dynamically retargeted ads are shown before and after retargeting, respectively. Examples of dynamically retargeted ads are shown before and after retargeting, respectively. 4 illustrates a user interface for defining an interactive menu associated with a given video advertisement. 4 illustrates a user interface for defining an interactive menu associated with a given video advertisement. Demonstrates methods for reviewing and replicating consumer advertising engagement experiences. 1 is a high-level block diagram of a representative computing device that may be utilized to implement the various features and processes described herein.

To address the aforementioned issues, we incorporate scripts into the video definition so that the scripts can be executed by the native HTML5 video player or other video players to create interactive menu overlays or other user interfaces and Facilitates augmentation of video advertisements by allowing the interactive menu or interface to communicate various consumer inputs to a remote server and receive communications accordingly while viewing the advertisement. Methods and systems are provided for. A/B testing shows that when a consumer encounters an interactive navigation menu in an ad, it may be more likely that an ad that lacks a navigation menu, even if the ad is otherwise highly engaging or interactive. click through and convert (i.e., buy an item, register an account, sign up as a sales lead, or whatever action an advertiser might be looking for) at a much higher rate than ) has been shown. Previous A/B testing has shown that such ads perform up to 15 times better in click-through rate and up to 17 times better in conversion rate compared to non-interactive video ads.

Throughout this specification, several specific industry standards are mentioned and preferred embodiments are designed to maximize interoperability with the systems that consumers use to access content and the advertisements that are intercalated with that content. For operational purposes, it uses many of the most common techniques in use today. However, many of the features and functionality described herein can be applied to other technology platforms or contexts without undue experimentation by software developers. For example, while the previously mentioned HTML5 video player is preferred, there will be obsolete standards for displaying content such as Adobe Flash, QuickTime, or HTML6 when it is eventually established. Other formats of future standards may be modified to work within the scheme described herein despite low interoperability and support among modern web browsers. Other aspects of this specification focus on the delivery of websites over the Internet via the HTTP protocol, but over different networks (cable television, satellite networks, local area networks or Ethernet, wide area networks, etc.), content (streaming videos, e-books, online magazines, blogs, emails, social media postings, computer games, mobile apps, other software, or any other element of individual or episodic content), or protocols (used by cable television). quadrature amplitude modification (QAM, or other application-level content delivery protocols, such as FTP, IMAP, or XMPP) may be used to deliver enhanced video ads to consumers.

Additionally, although the preferred embodiment described is the delivery of advertisements embedded within web pages for display on a computing device's web browser, entirely different forms of content delivery may benefit from the same principles. I can receive it. For example, advertisements during television programming on cable television or before video streaming on a television may be communicated via the television remote control and through button presses on the remote, or through a voice command interface and the remote control's microphone. . Similarly, advertisements shown on a display may be navigated or controlled by the voice interface of an automated personal assistant device in the home, such as Amazon Echo's Alexa, Google Home, Apple's Siri, or a similar interface. Advertisements can even be delivered within a virtual reality (VR) headset and interacted with by motion capture accelerometers within the held controller or via hand movements captured by motion capture cameras associated with the VR system. . These and any other forms of human-machine interfaces may be used to select options, traverse lists of options, enter information or other input, and display output of video advertisements to the consumer.

As an introduction to the core concepts described throughout the remainder of the specification, FIGS. 1A-1G illustrate several example video advertisements with multi-level menus of various styles and functions.

When video advertisement 100 is first displayed to a consumer (as shown in FIG. 1A), an interactive menu 105 is visible, superimposed over the video playing below; Menu 105 includes multiple options or elements 110A-110D with which the consumer can interact. Upon clicking or mousing over or otherwise selecting one of the options 110A, a new submenu 115 may appear and be generated to include content related to the clicked element 110A (see FIG. 1B). as shown). This content may include an image 120, text 125, or hyperlink 130, in this case an image of a vehicle for sale, information about that vehicle, and, when clicked, a link for the consumer to view more information and/or make a purchase. may include a link that takes the advertiser to the advertiser's website. Upon interacting with a different element 110B, submenu 115 is regenerated to include different content (as shown in FIG. 1C). Clicking the "exit" button 135 causes the submenu 115 to disappear and continues playing the video while only the menu 105 is displayed.

FIGS. 1D-1F illustrate an advertisement 100 that exemplifies the previously described "full funnel" advertising strategy. When video advertisement 100 first begins to play (as shown in FIG. 1D), the video
It is unobstructed by any interface elements, except for an unassuming menu option 110A labeled "Explore." Even if the consumer does not attempt to interact with the "explore" button 110A, the consumer has been exposed to the brand being advertised and the desired "upstream" funnel effect has been achieved. Upon clicking or tapping the "Explore" button 110A, the rest of the menu 105 becomes visible (as shown in FIG. 1E), further familiarizing the consumer with several brand options 110B-110F, and potentially Provoking the consumer to investigate further and see what happens when the consumer clicks or taps on one of the options. The "Explore" button 110A is also replaced with a "Close" button 135 that can be clicked or tapped by the consumer to return to displaying videos only. When the consumer selects menu option 110C (as shown in FIG. 1F), the video advertisement itself changes to a new video highlighting the brand shown in menu option 110C, and submenu 115 displays the menu option 110C that the consumer shows. is generated with an image prompt 120 accompanied by a hyperlink 130 that allows the user to immediately purchase the product. In this way, each stage of the funnel can drive the consumer's interest further forward, and the consumer can progress as far through the funnel as he or she wants to purchase, perhaps even if the ad is shown first. At the time, consumers were unaware of the options associated with the advertised brand.

FIG. 1G shows that menu 105 and submenu 115 both represent images of brand options 110A-110D and specific options within each brand - in this case, a studio or cinematic universe, and associated 100 shows advertisements 100 occupied by trailers for movies. Each time an option is selected from submenu 115, a new trailer begins playing within the body of advertisement 100, allowing the consumer to view any or all of the available trailers. Unlike the interfaces of FIGS. 1A-1F, most menu options do not allow the consumer to navigate away from the video advertisement, but instead only exercise control over video playback. However, the final menu option 110E may be clicked or tapped to take the consumer to an external web page to sign up for the advertised service or purchase one or more products. .

Although described as "video advertising" throughout this document and in various FIGS. It can also be used for content. "Video advertising" should be construed to include any form of video media that is intended to convey a message to an ultimate recipient, whether or not that recipient is necessarily seeking that message. For example, various government, non-profit, or other organizations may provide public service information, severe weather warnings and alerts, solicitations for donations or charity, requests to sign petitions, and/or Amber alerts or "Votes." They can equally benefit from interactive media content that includes public vigilance or calls to action, such as "advocacy" encouragement.

FIG. 2 illustrates a representative network of computing devices used within a system for providing web pages containing interactive video advertisements with two-way cross-domain communication capabilities.

Consumer computing device 200, equipped with software including a web browser, is used to connect to the Internet 205 or another similar network for connecting to various remote devices. Consumer computing device 200 can be a personal computer such as a laptop or desktop, a mobile phone, a tablet, a gaming console, or any other device that can use a web browser to display web pages to the consumer. .

A web browser running on consumer computing device 200 is used to request or navigate to a URL in a particular domain provided by web server 210. The web page at that URL (shown as element 300 in FIG. 3) incorporates instructions to the consumer's web browser, described further below in connection with FIG. Load video advertisements or other dynamic content served by advertising content server 220 or other content servers that store dynamically inserted video content or other information.

Advertisement management server 215 receives communications from the consumer's computing device 200 to deliver information to web server 210 for generating advertisements, and once the consumer begins to view and interact with the advertisement. Used to provide an API for Advertisement management server 215 may also provide a user interface for creating advertisements, as shown in FIGS. 7A and 7B and described further below in connection therewith.

Although servers 210 and 215 may conceivably store all information necessary for their functionality locally on the servers themselves, in a preferred embodiment they are capable of communicating with web server database 225 and advertising management database 230, respectively. be combined. The web server database 225 contains content related to a website that a consumer may request, as well as a specification of enhanced advertisements generated for embedding within that website, as further described in the figure description below. definitions may also be stored. Advertisement management database 230 stores information regarding all advertisements generated using the user interface described in FIGS. 7A and 7B, and as further described below in connection with FIGS. 4-6. Storing consumer impressions of advertisements already served and logs of interactions with the advertisements.

Although a particular division of functionality between devices is described in the above system, other configurations are possible in which functionality is divided differently between devices. For example, any or all of the functions of web server 210, advertising management server 215, advertising content server 220, and databases 225 and 230 may be performed by a single device that is logically running one or more different software modules simultaneously. can. Further, although first web server 210, advertising management server 215, advertising content server 220, and databases 225 and 230 are each described as if they were each a single computing device or database, A cloud-based solution with multiple access points to similar systems that can synchronize their data and all serve as backups to each other is better than a single set of computing devices all stored in one location. is also preferable. The specific number of computing devices and whether the communications between them are network communications between separate computing devices or accesses of local memory on a single computing device are dependent on the function each part has within the overall system. not important.

FIG. 3 depicts a representative web-based interface incorporating ad-enhanced video.

Web page 300 may include multiple content areas 305 and advertising areas 310. In the preferred embodiment, an iFrame is created within the advertising area 310 to load the video and any other elements into the iFrame, so that the iFrame runs the advertisement on the rest of the functionality of the web page 300 and on the web page 300. from any scripts that are As a result, any script running on web page 300 may attempt to affect an element with a particular name or ID, or may attempt to affect elements of the web page in general; There is no conflict.

In some embodiments, advertising area 310 is limited to a banner or floating element to one side of the web page, as shown in FIG. 3. In other embodiments, a modal box or other element 310 may be created to occupy all or a substantial portion of the web page, such that the remainder of the web page 300 is free of charge when the video advertisement is completed and the consumer cannot interact until it is possible to proceed.

Advertising area 310 may also be adapted as part of a responsive design using CSS, JavaScript, or other methods to match the dimensions available on the viewing device, the dimensions of the web page incorporating the advertisement, and/or Dynamically resize the ad area based on the layout of the web page that incorporates the ad.

FIG. 4 illustrates in simplified form a method for providing enhanced video advertisements to consumers.

First, a consumer requests to view a web page via his computing device 200 (step 400), and web server 210 receives the request (step 405).

Web server 210 responds to the request with HTML data for the website and also includes a VPAID specification advertisement with the response (step 410). VPAID includes several elements or tags related to displaying the video to the consumer, tracking the consumer's engagement with the video, and enabling the inclusion of additional content such as JavaScript or other executable code. It is an XML-based specification that includes: An example advertisement of a VPAID specification designed to work with the systems and methods described herein is provided below:

In alternative embodiments, specifications other than VPAID can be used. For example, in the future, advertisements are likely to be specified according to SIMID rather than VPAID for security, but SIMID allows for the same dynamic loading process. Any form of ad definition that instructs the video player to load a series of instructions that can change the content of a web page may be used instead, and the VPAID will henceforth be used within each instance of the more general form of Advertisement definitions are used throughout this specification for convenience, not because it is obvious that they can be used equally.

は、ビデオフィルムに「ｖｐａｉｄ．ｊｓ」というタイトルの特定のＪａｖａＳｃｒｉｐｔファイルをロードさせて、広告を再生している間にそれの実行を開始する。 In the above code, the XML element

causes the video film to load a specific JavaScript file titled "vpaid.js" and start executing it while playing the advertisement.

The foregoing code also includes tags such as "<Error>," "<Impression>," and "<TrackingEvents>," each of which specifies one or more possible events that may occur while a consumer views an ad. (i.e., failure to load and play a video, confirmation that an ad has been displayed, and various temporal checkpoints or consumer actions while watching a video, respectively). In each of the examples described above, the tag specifies a URL at the advertising management server 215 to which the HTTP request is sent when the event occurs. A URL can function as a RESTful (representational state transfer) API where each separate HTTP request encodes within the URL itself the event that occurred, the consumer who triggered the event, and any other relevant information. In other embodiments, other forms of communication may be used that do not rely on HTTP requests to specific URLs or are not RESTful APIs, but nevertheless ensure that messages reach ad management server 215. Make it.

This allows advertising management server 215 to store events associated with consumers and react to them in several ways. The ad management server 215 determines which advertisements the consumer engages with for a longer period of time, or whether the consumer chooses to resume or unmute an advertisement after previously pausing or muting it. Based on this information, advertising can be better targeted in the future. Events are based on the actions taken by the consumer while viewing the ad and the consumer's experience during the post-evaluation to understand the consumer's possible thought process while viewing the ad (Figure 8 (see description, detailed below).

The consumer's browser receives the web page and the VPAID ad definition (step 415) and instantiates an HTML5 video player or other video player to display the ad when called by the web page. Code for accomplishing instantiation that can parse and adapt the VPAID definition can be found, for example, in the Interactive Media Ads Software Development Kits provided by Google.

The HTML5 video player or other video player in the consumer's browser executes the VPAID instructions, including loading the video from the advertising content server 220 and executing the JavaScript specified within the "<MediaFile>" tag of the VPAID instruction. (step 420).

JavaScript includes instructions in the page's HTML to create a new iFrame element (step 425). As mentioned above, iFrame is preferred as a better way to protect the content from interference by other scripts that may run on the page. The use of iFrames can also enable cross-domain communication that may be blocked by web browser security settings, given that the script that directs the HTTP request to ad management server 215 does so seemingly from a domain served by web server 210. . However, in other embodiments, a "<div>" or other HTML element that can contain other HTML elements may be used instead.

The iFrame is then populated with the necessary user interface elements and JavaScript to respond to consumer manipulation of those elements (step 430). This may most obviously include menus of the type shown in FIGS. 1A-1C. However, alternative forms of video advertising can include numerous other forms of interactive content, such as:
- filling out and submitting forms, including for the purpose of registering a new user of the Service, logging in as an existing user of the Service, or providing contact information and consent to future communications, such as a mailing list for coupons or special offers;
-browse through a selection of additional content, documents, or other files and submit requests to download one or more of these files;
- Complete surveys or vote in polls and view survey or poll results in real time;
- Bid in online auctions, view the current status of auctions, or browse and participate in other interactive marketplaces with user-submitted content;
Displaying the state of a local or multiplayer game and providing input to join the game by logging in, selecting options, and/or selecting movement or controlling your character or your assets in the game ,
- on one or more social media networks on which the consumer has an account, including textual content, image content, or "likes" or other interactions facilitated by those social networks, such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. enter information to post and view content submitted to social media networks by others;
Display or send instant messages, texts/SMSs, emails, or other forms of electronic communications;
- connection of the consumer's computer 200 to additional input devices, such as a microphone, camera, fingerprint reader;
- Confirming your identity, providing a password, providing a temporary or ad hoc access code, uploading an identity verification token or file, or a second factor in any other form of login to a server or two-factor authentication for the Service; provision of,
Providing payment and shipping information to browse or shop within an online store, add items to an online shopping cart, and/or checkout and complete a purchase from within an ad - filed on September 21, 2020 In the United States, in the United States Handling 63/081, 157, which is in charge of "Methods Inds and Systems for CROSS -DOMAY TWO -WAY COMMUNICATION BY Dynamic Web Content". The whole by referring to the functions described in the advertising context of incorporated herein as - and/or - described more fully below, to or from an advertisement, particularly to facilitate dynamic retargeting and dynamic optimization. Any other form of communication.

The video player begins playing the advertisement (step 435), so that the consumer now has access to the underlying video playback and a persistent, interactive menu (or See both (and other features, such as those described in ).

When the consumer provides input at any time, such as by clicking on one of the menu options 110 (step 440), the JavaScript running within the iFrame changes the menu or other user interface element accordingly. , populating options in a submenu, displaying a different video, confirming that the event is being recorded on a different website (indicating that the shopping cart currently contains items, or creating a new username). (e.g., confirmation that the user has been created) or any other response to the user's input (step 445). In either case, the video continues to play (returning to step 435) until it is paused or closed by the consumer, or it finishes playing and closes itself if that behavior is desired by the advertiser. , or the video is replaced with another video that is dynamically loaded in response to consumer input.

FIG. 5 illustrates in simplified form a method of receiving communications from an enhanced video advertisement to update a profile or cart associated with a consumer.

Initially, the server passively waits for input in the form of an HTTP request to a particular predetermined URL specifying a particular advertisement and a particular event or action associated with that advertisement (step 500).

If input is provided via the previously described URL API (step 505), various operations may be performed on the server side (step 510). Inputs may include active consumer decisions such as clicks, taps, or other indicators of consumer intent;
Other information may also be included, such as the total amount of time a particular menu item is displayed before the consumer moves on to a different user interface element. Reinforced VPAID ads are therefore able to track every second of view, clicks within each menu, and time spent on each branch of a menu - a limitation that unreinforced VPAID ads discussed above. It's not just statistics at the quartile level, as it used to be.

As a result of this finer granularity of information, advertising platforms are increasing their cost per impression (or more generally, cost per thousand impressions) or cost per click (cost per thousand impressions) on video ads. can offer alternative payment models for advertising other than those (which are rarely offered due to shockingly low rates of click-throughs). In addition to improved click-through rates that make cost-per-click achievable, the augmented video ads described here also reduce cost per second of video viewed, cost per second of engagement (e.g., calculation and evaluation of a fixed amount for each instance of a specific behavior by the consumer) and/or for a guaranteed period of time during which the consumer interacts with the menu and therefore watches the video rather than a different part of the web page) enable. Such actions may include completing a video, completing a quadrant of a video, or, for example, clicking on a menu to open a submenu, adding an item to a shopping cart, or logging into a website through an interface. may include, possibly, engagement with an interactive interface. Consumer tracking is based on the consumer's subsequent purchases of items that appeared within the advertisement or that the consumer interacted with within the menu during the advertisement, and costs are assessed as a percentage of sales caused by the advertisement. It may also be possible to

If the input requires a response (step 515), advertising management server 215 sends the appropriate response (step 520). The response may simply be a confirmation or some aspect of the user interface, such as loading a new menu element, prompting the consumer to log into a third party website or single sign-on system, or indicating that the item has been added to a shopping cart. may contain more detailed instructions for updating.

Once the operation is initiated and a response is provided, the system periodically returns to waiting for input as long as the server is running and expecting possible input related to advertisements (step 500).

FIG. 6A illustrates in a simplified form how to dynamically retarget an advertisement based on a consumer's previous input or engagement with the advertisement or similar advertisements.

If the advertisement is displayed a second time, steps 400-430, as shown in FIG. 4, are repeated as before from the consumer's perspective.

The JavaScript call to server 215 notifies ad management server 215 of the identity of the consumer being detected (or information stored within a cookie, tracking pixel, or other information associated with that consumer's web browser). (step 600).

Advertisement management server 215 then searches within its local storage or database associated with the advertisement and the consumer to review any events previously captured when the consumer first viewed the advertisement. Check (step 605).

Upon determining that the consumer has interacted with the advertisement (step 610), advertisement management server 215 sends instructions to dynamically retarget the user interface or aspects of the advertisement (e.g., show a different video, or down the menu branches).

In some embodiments, this dynamically targeted aspect may include, for example, automatically opening a menu branch that the user had previously opened, or automatically opening a menu branch that the user had previously opened, or a second video that the consumer had displayed instead of the primary video. It can be as simple as automatically reverting the advertisement to the state where the consumer previously left it, such as automatically displaying the next video.

In other embodiments, other data may be referenced, including third party data associated with the consumer. For example, the advertising management server 215 may access information recording which products the consumer was viewing on the advertiser's own website, and then identify the products, including product name, image, price, category, etc. retrieves information from a product database (typically based on a SKU or a product-specific identifier such as a UPC or ISBN) that describes the product, and then puts that content into an interactive menu provided to the consumer. , so that the consumer can be presented with products in which he or she has previously expressed interest. The menu also has a new menu branch for "Recently Viewed" items that expands to display all products viewed by the consumer and directs the consumer's attention to the items with which the consumer is most likely to engage. obtain.

Other uses include, for example, advertisements for dating services that are customized to show the profiles and/or photos of potential dates the consumer has been considering, destinations the consumer is exploring. advertising for travel services that are customized to include, or for online music services that are customized to include references to or even audio clicks of music records that the consumer searches for or browses on the site; Advertisements from music artists, advertisements for sources of medical information or devices that are customized to indicate references to diseases, conditions, or medications, as determined by the consumer's previous searches; It may include advertisements for medical or legal or other service aggregators that are customized to show viewed service providers or other service providers in the same field.

Other forms of optimizing advertising include consumers viewing travel information that shows hotels or travel packages for those locations, even if the consumer is not specifically looking at hotels or travel packages; Even if a consumer is not specifically looking online, a geolocation feature is shown that allows them to see ads customized to show restaurants or retail stores or offices or bank branches near their location. or other optimizations based on a combination of a consumer's location with other online or offline data about that consumer, or location-related data, demographic data, credit card purchases, etc. It may include any other customization based on data or any other data source that can be used as a basis for targeting individuals with advertisements.

Alternatively, if there are no relevant prior events associated with the consumer to consider, the server confirms the transmission without further instructions (step 620).

In any event, advertising management server 215 then waits for additional input (returning and repeating steps 500-520).

6B and 6C show examples of dynamically retargeted advertisements before and after retargeting, respectively.

When advertisement 650 is first displayed (as in FIG. 6B), the advertisement generally supports a particular brand according to a "full funnel" concept, and the consumer is encouraged to browse menu 655, and the hierarchy down to submenu 660 where specific models are advertised. A consumer's click or tap to reach submenu 660 is recorded at the advertising management server, even if the consumer never purchases that particular model.

However, the second time advertisement 650 is displayed (as in FIG. 6C), there are some distinct changes. First, the primary content of advertisement 650 is different, i.e., the consumer is familiar with, and at least wants to know about, the brand and at least one model within that brand, so this ad display In contrast, "full-funnel" strategies are no longer pursued. The primary content of the ad will center on specific models that have been shown to have caught the eye of consumers in the past. Menu 655 now adds a "Recently Viewed" option 665, the content of which includes items the consumer has viewed repeatedly in the past or items the consumer has viewed directly on the advertiser's website. and that information is provided to the advertiser through direct channels from the advertiser's website or through cookies or other tracking markers stored on the consumer's web browser. There is. Advertisements are therefore hyper-targeted, firstly to models the consumer has previously researched, secondly to other recently viewed items of interest, and thirdly to accurately gauge the consumer's interests. Focus on other items from ads for which you have little data. Offers that generate a higher density of interest for consumers can drive much higher click-through rates than even interactive but non-targeted ads.

7A and 7B illustrate a user interface for defining an interactive menu associated with a given video advertisement.

User interface 700 can be used to create a new advertising campaign, whether from scratch or by use of cloning tool 705 on an existing campaign.

After selecting a particular ad to edit, pop-up window 750 allows for the creation of a menu tree 755 with multiple layers (both primary menu 105 and sub-menu 115, and potentially tertiary menus or other hierarchical structures). generate). Each option on the menu tree can be associated with further sub-menus, and each menu or sub-menu item can include a text label 760, an image or potentially even a video, or other interactive content within that portion of the menu. The content 765 and options can be hyperlinked to include a URL 770 that takes the consumer to a different web page when clicked on.

The user interface also allows advertisements to be associated with tracking pixels that are generated when JavaScript or other scripting language is run on the browser to create the menu. This allows limited tracking of consumer engagement to occur in parallel with the primary engagement through the menu, allowing images to be sent to the ad management server 215 or By loading from ad content server 220, the advertiser is notified that its ad is being loaded. The use of tracking pixels also allows third parties working with advertisers to be notified that consumers are being shown their advertisements.

When the publish button 710 is clicked, the JavaScript or other scripting language necessary to generate the interactive menu is automatically created and stored on either the advertising management server 215 or the advertising content server 220. . A VPAID or other definition for the advertisement is also generated and delivered to web server 210 and included with the web page served by that server. Other features of the interface include previewing live renderings of ads during editing, generation of demo pages for other client reviews of live campaigns and/or for demo purposes, and tracking, such as scripts for analytics or other purposes. May include the addition of tracking assets other than pixels.

FIG. 8 illustrates a method for reviewing and reproducing a consumer's advertising engagement experience.

If an advertiser wishes to review a consumer's experience with a particular advertisement, a user interface is provided that first selects the advertisement based on the selection (step 800) and then selects a particular advertisement from the set of consumers who have seen the advertisement. Based on the consumer's selections (step 805), those interactions may be browsed. After retrieving all received events at the intersection of that consumer and that advertisement from the storage of all consumer events (step 810), the events are ordered in time to establish a log of the consumer's experience. Yes (step 815).

This log can be visually structured in two ways to facilitate understanding. In one visualization, a timeline may be created to show the amount of time spent watching the video and at what point in the video the consumer began interacting with the menu or other user interface element (step 820). ). For example, an advertiser may want a consumer to watch a video for 7 seconds before clicking a menu item to open a submenu, then pause for 1 second before clicking on a particular item in that submenu, and then , once that item becomes visible to the consumer, it may be possible to see the consumer displaying special interest in that one item based on unhesitating engagement. Having only the data that the consumer clicked on the item 8 seconds after the video started is of no use in demonstrating consumer interest.

In some embodiments, the log data may be used to generate an animation that approximately accurately reproduces the consumer's experience (step 825). For example, a video may begin playing to the advertiser with a cursor representing the consumer's own cursor visible on the screen. At the moment a consumer interacts with a user interface element during video playback, the displayed cursor can move to the same element, and the user interface in the animation displays the user interface exactly as the consumer sees it at that moment. Updated as shown. This information is used to gain intuition regarding how consumers are interacting with ads, and if the underlying video uses similar coloring within the same areas at the same moment the user interface is being displayed. To assist in troubleshooting any unforeseen issues related to the interaction between advertisements and user interfaces, such as the user interface's chosen color scheme being difficult to see or illegible, can be beneficial.

Although FIG. 2 illustrates a preferred configuration of a computing device for accomplishing the software implementation methods described above, those methods are essentially based on a standard desktop computer and/or web server. It does not rely on the use of any particular dedicated computing device. For the purpose of illustrating possible such computing devices, FIG. 9 may be utilized for each of the computing devices and/or systems to implement the various features and processes described herein. 1 is a high-level block diagram of a representative computing device. FIG. A computing device may be described in the general context of computer system-executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by a computer system. Generally, program modules may include routines, programs, objects, components, logic, data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types.

As shown in FIG. 9, the components of the computing device include one or more processors or processing units 500, a system memory 510, and a bus 515 that couples various system components, including the memory 510, to the processor 500. get (but not limited to them).

Bus 515 may be any of several types of bus structures, including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, an accelerated graphics port, and a processor or local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. Represents one or more. By way of example, and not limitation, such architectures include an Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, a Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus, an Enhanced ISA (EISA) bus, a Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) local bus, and a Peripheral Component Inter (PCI) bus. connect ) including buses.

Processing device(s) 500 may execute computer programs stored within memory 510. Any suitable programming language may be used to implement the routines of particular embodiments, including C, C++, Java, assembly language, etc. Different programming techniques can be employed, such as procedural or object-oriented. The routines can execute on a single computing device or multiple computing devices. Additionally, multiple processors 500 may be used.

A computing device typically includes a variety of computer system readable media. Such media can be any available media that can be accessed by a computing device and includes both volatile and nonvolatile media, removable and non-volatile media.

System memory 510 may include computer system readable media in the form of volatile memory, such as random access memory (RAM) 520 and/or cache memory 530. The computing device may further include other removable/non-removable, volatile/non-volatile computer system storage media. By way of example only, storage system 540 may be provided for reading from and writing to fixed, non-volatile magnetic media (not shown and typically referred to as a "hard drive"). Although not shown, a magnetic disk drive for reading from and writing to a removable, non-volatile magnetic disk (e.g., a "floppy disk") and a removable device such as a CD-ROM, DVD-ROM or other optical media Optical disk drives for reading from and writing to non-volatile optical disks can be provided. In such cases, each may be connected to bus 515 by one or more data medium interfaces. As further shown and described below, memory 510 includes at least one program module having a set (e.g., at least one) configured to perform the functions of embodiments described in this disclosure. May include program products.

Programs/utilities 550 have a set of program modules 555 (at least one), including, by way of example and not limitation, an operating system, one or more application software, other program modules, and program data within memory 510. can be stored in Each of the operating system, one or more application programs, other program modules, and program data, or some combination thereof, may include an implementation of a networking environment.

The computing device may include one or more external devices 570, such as a keyboard, pointing device, display, and/or one or more devices that enable a user to interact with the computing device. It may also communicate with any device (eg, network card, modem, etc.) that enables it to communicate with other computing devices. Such communication may occur via input/output (I/O) interface(s) 560.

Additionally, as discussed above, the computing device may be connected to one or more networks and network adapters 580, such as a local area network (LAN), a general wide area network (WAN), and/or a public network (e.g., the Internet). can communicate via. As shown, network adapter 580 communicates with other components of the computing device via bus 515. Although not shown, it should be understood that other hardware and/or software components can be used with the computing device. Examples include (but are not limited to) microcode, device drivers, redundant processing units, external disk drive arrays, RAID systems, tape drives, data archive storage systems, and the like.

The invention may be a system, method, and/or computer program product at any possible level of technical detail of integration. A computer program product may include a computer readable storage medium (or media) having computer readable program instructions thereon for causing a processor to perform aspects of the invention.

A computer-readable storage medium can be a tangible device that can hold and store instructions for use by an instruction execution device. The computer-readable storage medium can be, for example, but not limited to, electronic storage, magnetic storage, optical storage, electromagnetic storage, semiconductor storage, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. A non-exhaustive list of more specific examples of computer readable storage media includes: portable computer diskettes, hard disks, random access memory (RAM), read only memory (ROM), erasable programmable read only memory (EPROM). flash memory), static random access memory (SRAM), portable compact disk read-only memory (CD-ROM), digital versatile disk (DVD), memory stick, floppy disk, punched card, or instructions recorded on it. a mechanical encoding device, such as a raised structure within the groove, and any suitable combination of the foregoing. A computer-readable storage medium is defined herein as radio waves or other freely propagating electromagnetic waves, electromagnetic waves propagating through a waveguide or other transmission medium (e.g., a pulse of light through a fiber optic cable), or through a wire. Not considered to be inherently transitory signals, such as transmitted electrical signals.

The computer readable program instructions described herein may be transferred from a computer readable storage medium to a respective computing/processing device or to an external computer or external storage network, such as the Internet, a local area network, a wide area network, and/or an external storage device. Or you can download it via wireless network. The network may use copper transmission cables, optical transmission cables, wireless transmissions, routers, firewalls, switches, gateway computers, and/or edge servers.
A network adapter card or network interface within each computing/processing device receives computer readable program instructions from the network and stores the computer readable program instructions in a computer readable storage medium within the respective computing/processing device. Transfer for.

Computer readable program instructions for carrying out the operations of the present invention include assembler instructions, Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) instructions, machine instructions, machine dependent instructions, microcode, firmware instructions, statesetting data, integrated circuit instructions, etc. or any combination of one or more programming languages, including object-oriented programming languages such as Smalltalk, C++, or the like, and procedural programming languages such as the "C" programming language or similar programming languages. It can be source code or object code written in . The computer-readable program instructions may be executed entirely on a user's computer, partially on a user's computer, as a stand-alone software package, partially on a user's computer, and partially on a remote computer, or on a remote computer or Can run entirely on the server. In the latter scenario, the remote computer can be connected to the user's computer through any type of network, including a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN), or the connection can be (through the Internet using the Internet) to an external computer. In some embodiments, an electronic circuit, including, for example, a programmable logic circuit, a field programmable gate array (FPGA), or a programmable logic array (PLA), personalizes the electronic circuit to carry out aspects of the invention. The computer readable program instructions may be executed by utilizing state information of the computer readable program instructions for the computer readable program instructions.

Aspects of the invention are described herein with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems), and computer program products according to embodiments of the invention. It is understood that each block in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer readable program instructions.

These computer readable program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing device to create a machine, so that they may be executed by the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing device. The instructions create a means for implementing the functionality/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks. These computer-readable program instructions that can instruct a computer, programmable data processing device, and/or other device to function in a particular manner may also be stored within, and are thus stored within, a computer-readable storage medium. Computer-readable storage media having instructions therein include articles of manufacture that include instructions that implement aspects of functionality/operation specified in flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.

Computer-readable program instructions may be loaded onto a computer, other programmable data processing device, or other device that causes a sequence of operational steps to be performed on a computer, other programmable device, or other device to produce a computer-implemented process. The instructions executing on a computer, other programmable device, or other apparatus may implement the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.

The flowcharts and block diagrams in the figures illustrate the architecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementations of systems, methods, and computer program products in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. In this regard, each block in a flowchart or block diagram may represent a module, segment, or portion of instructions, which includes one or more executable instructions for implementing the specified logical function(s). . In some alternative implementations, the functions noted within the blocks may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, two blocks shown in succession may actually be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks may be executed in the reverse order, depending on the functionality involved. Each block in the block diagrams and/or flowchart diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchart diagrams, represent specialized hardware that performs the functions or operations specified, or that performs the combination of specialized hardware and computer instructions. Note also that it can be implemented by a software-based system.

The descriptions of various embodiments of the invention are presented for purposes of illustration and are not intended to be exhaustive or limited to the disclosed embodiments. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to those skilled in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the described embodiments. The terminology used herein is used to best describe the principles of the embodiments, practical applications, or technical improvements over the technology found in the marketplace, and to help those skilled in the art understand the embodiments disclosed herein. selected to enable understanding.

Claims (21)

A system for augmenting and adding interactive features to video media displayed via a web browser, the system comprising:
A network-attached server comprising one or more processors and persistent memory containing instructions, the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, to be augmented with the one or more processors. receiving an identification of video media;
providing a user interface for the definition of a multi-level menu having one or more interactive elements that are superimposed when the video media is displayed to a consumer;
a script executed by the web browser to instantiate the multi-level menu and the one or more interactive elements in the web browser during display of the video media in a video player on the consumer's web browser; automatically generates a structured media definition that instructs the web browser to load a structured media definition located on the network-connected server when the one or more interactive elements are interacted with by the consumer; loading a script that causes one or more application programming interface (API) calls to a uniform resource locator (URL);
upon receiving the one or more API calls, establishing or updating a profile of consumer behavior based on which interactive elements were interacted with by the consumer;
Make the content in future video media focus on the product that the consumer has previously expressed interest in through interaction with the interactive element and/or dynamically retarget or re-optimize the future video media delivered to the consumer by selecting interactive elements to add to a multi-level menu within the video media; ,A system comprising networked servers. A system for augmenting and adding interactive features to video media displayed via a web browser, the system comprising:
one or more processors;
persistent memory containing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to have a server backend that receives and processes API calls originating from the web browser; to provide,
Adding an element to the structured media definition of one or more new web page elements that includes a script that includes instructions for generating an interactive menu for the video media when the video media is played. creating an instance, thereby calling one or more functions of the API upon selection of any option from the interactive menu;
transmitting the structured media definition to the web browser, thereby causing the web browser to load the video and execute the instructions;
receiving API calls from the web browser based on a consumer's interaction with the interactive menu, and sending a response to the API call to the web browser acted upon by the script; A system comprising memory. 3. The system of claim 2, wherein the response causes a different video to play when acted upon by the script. Provided within the instructions are instructions for determining whether the consumer has interacted with the video media at a previous point in time and, if so, automatically updating a user interface of the video media according to the previous interaction. 3. The system of claim 2, further comprising: 5. The automatic updating of the user interface of the video media according to the previous interaction returns the user interface to the same state that the consumer caused the user interface to assume during the previous interaction. system described in. 3. The system according to claim 2, wherein the structured media definition is in a format compatible with VPAID, and the script is written in JavaScript. The one or more new web page elements include an iFrame to shield the operation of the script and elements of the user interface from interference due to any scripts or name collisions within the web page hosting the video media. 3. The system of claim 2, comprising: 3. The system of claim 2, wherein the interactive menu is a multi-level hierarchical menu that presents different visual options in a secondary menu each time the consumer selects a different option from the primary menu. 3. The system of claim 2, wherein selecting an option from the interactive menu after the loading of the video causes playback of a different video to begin in place of an already loaded video. The instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to:
obtaining data from a third party indicating prior interest in a product by the consumer viewing the video media;
3. The system of claim 2, further comprising: dynamically updating the interactive menu to include one or more new options based on the data indicating previous interest. The instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to:
obtaining data from a third party indicating one or more of demographic attributes, location, and purchase behavior of consumers viewing the video media;
and dynamically updating the interactive menu to include one or more new options based on the data indicative of one or more of demographic attributes, location, and purchase behavior. , the system of claim 2. A computer-implemented method for augmenting and adding interactive features to video media displayed through a web browser, the method comprising:
providing a server backend that receives and processes API calls originating from the web browser;
Adding an element to the structured media definition of one or more new web page elements that includes a script that includes instructions for generating an interactive menu for the video media when the video media is played. creating an instance, thereby calling one or more functions of the API upon selection of any option from the interactive menu;
transmitting the structured media definition to the web browser, thereby causing the web browser to load the video and execute the instructions;
receiving an API call from the web browser based on a consumer's interaction with the interactive menu;
sending a response to the API call to the web browser acted upon by the script. 13. The method of claim 12, wherein the response, when acted upon by the script, causes a different video to play within the video media. Provided within the instructions are instructions for determining whether the consumer has interacted with the video media at a previous point in time and, if so, automatically updating a user interface of the video media according to the previous interaction. 13. The method of claim 12, further comprising: 15. The automatic updating of the user interface of the video media according to the previous interaction returns the user interface to the same state that the consumer caused the user interface to assume during the previous interaction. The method described in. 13. The method of claim 12, wherein the structured media definition is in a format compatible with VPAID, and the script is written in JavaScript. The one or more new web page elements include an iFrame to shield the operation of the script and elements of the user interface from interference due to any scripts or name collisions within the web page hosting the video media. 13. The method of claim 12, comprising: 13. The method of claim 12, wherein the interactive menu is a multi-level hierarchical menu that presents different visual options in a secondary menu each time the consumer selects a different option from the primary menu. 13. The method of claim 12, wherein selecting an option from the interactive menu after the loading of the video causes playback of a different video to begin instead of an already loaded video. obtaining data from a third party indicating prior interest in a product by the consumer viewing the video media;
13. The method of claim 12, further comprising dynamically updating the interactive menu to include one or more new options based on the data indicating previous interest. obtaining data from a third party indicating one or more of demographic attributes, location, and purchase behavior of consumers viewing the video media;
and dynamically updating the interactive menu to include one or more new options based on the data indicating one or more of demographic attributes, location, and purchasing behavior. 13. The method according to claim 12.

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