WO2015003243A1

WO2015003243A1 - Method of online advertising

Info

Publication number: WO2015003243A1
Application number: PCT/CA2014/000548
Authority: WO
Inventors: Stephane Leblanc
Original assignee: Stephane Leblanc
Priority date: 2013-07-08
Filing date: 2014-07-07
Publication date: 2015-01-15

Abstract

The method of online advertising comprises offering opportunities to a user to view at least one non-punctual online advertisement, displaying said at least one online advertisement, and offering a reward to the user if he accomplishes a predetermined reward condition associated with viewing said at least one online advertisement

Description

TITLE OF THE TNVENTTON: METHOD OF ONLINE ADVERTISING

CROSS-REFERENCE DATA

The present application claims conventional priority of American provisional application N° 61/843,534 filed July 8^th, 2013,

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to advertising, and more particularly to a system and method of online advertising.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Online advertisement is now commonplace. Different methods are used for online advertisement, for example static images, videos or popup windows. As far as images are concerned, these may be:

Static advertisement: these advertisements appear at specific locations, usually on websites, and are often simply an image that is associated to a specific URL;

- Alternating advertisement: these advertisements are like static advertisements, but a pool of advertisements will alternate at the URL instead of the same advertisement being displayed each time the URL is accessed;

Targeted advertisement: this is similar to alternating advertisement, with the difference that the advertisement from the pool of advertisement that will be displayed, will be one of a number that meet certain criteria that relate to the person visiting the website. These criteria will be picked up through one of a number of ways, for example through an account that the person has setup on the website or through information gathered about this person's customer profile through what websites he visits, what products he buys, or the like. Consequently, the advertisement being displayed is more likely to be one that offers a product or service of interest to the user.

- Video advertisement: when non-advertisement videos are watched on the internet, a video advertisement may run before or during the non- advertisement video, interrupting the non-advertisement video in the latter case.

One problem associated with online advertisement is the lack of actual attention by the internet users towards the advertisement.

For example, image advertisement, as opposed to video advertisement, has become so common now that users often barely notice it. Such images on websites, often referred to as "banners", will sometimes occupy a significant space of a webpage. Many also feel that banners are very disruptive to the web browsing experience. Furthermore, advertisements, and video advertisements particularly, will often create lag on visited websites. And more importantly, it is questionable whether online advertisements, be that images or videos, are commercially worthwhile for the company that pays for displaying the advertisement, due to the overwhelming number of advertisements and the web users becoming desensitized to the presence of those advertisements. Likewise, popup windows are often dealt with by the user by closing the window without the user making any effort to consult the content of the popup window.

It is consequently desirable to develop a new advertisement scheme that would promote visibility of the advertisements. More particularly, advertisements that catch the attention of the internet user are the gist of the present invention.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to a method of online advertising comprising:

- offering opportunities to a user to view at least one non-punctual online advertisement;

- displaying said at least one online advertisement; and

- offering a reward to the user if he accomplishes a predetermined reward condition associated with viewing said at least one online advertisement.

- In one embodiment, said reward is in the form of virtual raffle tickets and the method further comprises organising a prize draw with said virtual raffle ticket offering a chance to win said prize draw.

- In one embodiment, said predetermined reward condition comprises a confirmation step wherein the user must issue a confirmation command.

- In one embodiment, the step of displaying at least one online advertisement comprises segmenting said at least one online advertisement into two or more segments and displaying each segment sequentially, and the confirmation step comprises prompting the user for said confirmation command at least in-between two segments of said at least one online advertisement and awaiting said confirmation command before displaying the other segments of said at least two or more segments.

In one embodiment, the confirmation step further comprises prompting the user for a confirmation command after the final segment of said two or more segments of said at least one online advertisement .

In one embodiment, the method further comprises the step of creating a user advertisement profile associated to a user account both corresponding to the user.

In one embodiment, said at least one online advertisement is a video.

In an alternate embodiment, said at least one online advertisement is a sequence of images.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In the annexed drawings :

Figure 1 is a schematic view of an online advertisement system allowing the implementation of an online advertisement method according to the present invention;

Figure 2 is a schematic view showing the main steps of the online advertisement method according to the present invention;

Figure 3 shows the create account step of the method of figure 2 in greater detail;

Figure 4 shows the display advertisements step of the method of figure 2 in greater detail; and

Figure 5 shows the display selected advertisement step of the method of figure 4 in greater detail.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS

According to the invention, there is generally devised a system and method of online advertising that comprises organising a prize draw, with virtual raffle tickets for the prize draw being issued to users upon these users accepting to view online advertising.

The system of the present invention may be accomplished through several different means. For example, the system can comprise an organizing server that hosts a draw database, an advertisement website and associated database and a user database. The server is connected to the internet. Alternately, distinct interlinked servers, a cloud-computer arrangement hosting the above-mentioned components, or any other suitable computerized arrangement could also be used.

The organizing server will contact potential users through any known means, such as by email or through other conventional advertisements, to offer a draw prize and provide a hyperlink for the users to follow. By following the hyperlink, a user is redirected to the advertisement website where he will be invited to create a user account if he does not already have one; or to login to his user account if he already has one. When a new user creates a user account, suitable user coordinates are stored in the user database. These user coordinates may include any desired information from the user such as a user name (for use on the advertising website), password, user's real name, user's street address, user's email address, etc...

Once the user is logged in, he may view one or more proposed advertisements from the advertisement database. The viewing is done through any desired means, for example, an image sequence could be displayed to the user, or a video could be played to the user.

In one embodiment, user input will be required during the advertisement viewing step. This user input can be, for example, that the user is required to issue confirmation commands to advance through a series of images, or that the user issue confirmation commands to advance through segmented parts of a video. It is possible to offer users the chance to enter confirmation commands during the streaming of the video or the displaying of the images without interrupting the video or image display sequence, by offering a timing window to issue the confirmation command after which the video or image display sequence will be interrupted awaiting the confirmation command by the user.

Herein, videos and image sequences, or the like, are called non-punctual advertisements in that they last for a certain time period that may be interrupted to prompt the user for a confirmation command and/or that may comprise a timing window for receiving the confirmation command.

By requiring this user input during the advertisement viewing step, the user's attention is required and this ensures that the user will not simply follow the hyperlink initially provided without however interacting with its content afterwards. This represents confirmation commands for confirming that the user is paying attention to the advertisement.

Once the user has accomplished a predetermined ticket condition, which may be a viewing action or series of advertising viewing actions, such as viewing one advertisement or a series of advertisements, or which may comprise issuing confirmation commands; then the user will be issued a virtual raffle ticket for a prize draw that will occur at a set date and time. This raffle ticket may be sent to the user by email, to his smartphone, or saved on the advertising server in the user database under the user's account.

Alternate input may be required by the user before the virtual raffle ticket is issued, for example answering one or more questions related to the advertisement he viewed. This question could be for example on the content itself (e.g. "what color was the bottle in the ad?") or aimed at the user's appreciation of the advertisement or product (e.g. "on a scale of 1-5, let us know how likely it is that you will buy this product"), or any other suitable question. This further helps ensure that the user paid attention to the advertisement, by forcing the user to interact with the advertisement website environment in the form of confirmation commands for confirming that the user is paying attention to the advertisement.

The user account could further be populated with data regarding commercial preferences of the user to develop a customer profile. This data may be obtained upon the user creating his account through a series of questions regarding product and service preferences; and could also be populated as the user answers questions regarding specific advertisements that he views. This data could then be used to display advertisements that are more likely to be aligned with the user's customer profile.

As the set date and time the raffle draw will occur among all those that bought virtual raffle tickets, under conditions as determined by the organizers of the raffle event. One or more users that obtained virtual raffle tickets may then win the draw prize. The prize may be money, a product, services, or any other suitable reward.

More than one draw prize could be given away at the set date and time.

This method and system of online advertising consequently provides a chance of winning a draw prize in exchange for accepting to view one or more online advertisements.

Credits may also be awarded to the users upon them viewing advertisements.

These credits would be uploaded as data in the user's account on the user database, and could be exchanged by the user for products, services or money, at an exchange rate determined by the managers of the organizing server. The credits could for example allow the user to buy products such as music on a virtual music store, or the like.

Since the advertisements are viewed online, the user could be invited to visit other web sites where advertisements will be viewed, with the virtual path of the user being tracked to allow the user to gain credits or raffle tickets or other rewards, as a result of viewing advertisements. To enhance the advertiser's experience with the system of the present invention, it could be envisioned to allow the advertiser to interact with the advertisement database, for example to add, remove or modify advertisements that are provided therein. Tag words or other identifications could further be added by the advertiser to each advertisement, to target users that have been identified with their customer profiles as having preferences for the types of products or services that an advertiser advertises.

It is noted that the advertisements could of course be set up on a different advertising server and accessed by the user either by downloading them on the organizing server, on his own computer or by accessing the advertising server itself through a link provided on the organizing server.

Figures 1-5 schematically show one way to carry out the invention.

More particularly, figure 1 schematically shows an online advertisement system 8 that comprises an advertisement server 20 that hosts data for an advertisement web site 40 that cooperates with a user database 36, an advertisement database 34 and a draw database 32. Advertisement server 20 is connected through a network 10 to a number of user computers such as user computer 80 that can be a laptop or desktop computer 82, a smart phone 84, an electronic tablet 86 or any other suitable user computer. A user 12 may consequently interact, by means of his user computer 80, with server 20 through the advertisement web site 40.

User database 36 stores user coordinates as mentioned hereinabove. Advertisement database 34 stores advertisements to be displayed to the users.

Draw database 32 stores draw data including draw dates and deadlines, draw prizes, draw rules, and the like.

Network 10 can be any suitable network such as the internet.

It is understood that other means for communicating with user 12 could also be envisioned as mentioned hereinabove, such as email, text messages and the like, instead of communicating with users through a web site 40.

It is further understood that the user database, advertisement database, draw database and website could be hosted and stored on distinct servers. Here, for simplicity, they are considered to be hosted and stored on a same server 20.

Figure 2 is a diagram showing the main steps of the method of online advertising according to the present embodiment.

On the advertisement website 40, there is a login screen displayed 100 for obtaining user input 1 10 such as a username and password. Here, a new user may create an account 120 or an existing user may input his username and password, which will be validated at 130, to login.

Once the user is logged in, the advertisement server 20 will determine the user account type at 140 to determine whether the user is a client user or an advertiser. A client user is a user that will be viewing advertisements; while an advertiser is a user that uploads advertisements to be viewed.

If the user is a client user, then advertisements will be displayed at 150 as described hereinafter.

If the user is an advertiser, then a console for managing advertisements will be displayed at 160 for allowing the advertiser to upload, delete, edit or otherwise manage advertisements in a suitable fashion. The implementation of such an advertiser management will be obvious for one skilled in the art.

Figure 3 shows the account creation step 120 in greater detail.

First, the web site displays a login data entry page at 400 where login data entry may be requested. The login data is read at 405 to confirm that a new account is requested by the user, and will be validated at 410. If the login data entry request is invalid, an error message is displayed at 415. If the login data request is valid, a new user account will be created at 420. A user contact data entry page will be displayed at 425 and user contact data will be read as entered by the user at 430 and validated at 435. If the user contact data is invalid after verification, an error message is displayed at 440. Otherwise, the user contact data is saved in user database 36 at 445. A survey page is displayed at 450. The answers from the survey page are read at 455 and a user advertisement profile, stored in user database 36, is updated at 460. This user advertisement profile can thereafter be used for targeted advertisement.

Figure 4 shows the advertisement display step 150 in greater detail.

First, the user advertisement profile is retrieved from user database 36 at 200. This allows an advertisement strategy to be determined at 210 according to predetermined criteria. If a random advertisement strategy is determined to be applicable for this particular user or for this particular advertisement display, for example if no conclusive advertisement strategy can be obtained at 210 or if the user advertisement profile is empty or non-existent, then a random advertisement is selected at 220. A random advertisement is displayed at 260.

Otherwise, a list of compatible advertisements is computed at 230 from the advertisement strategy and one or more compatible advertisements from this list are displayed at 240. This may include a user selection step where the user selects one or more advertisements, or it may include automatic selection where the advertisements are displayed according to predetermined criteria. The user is then prompted to select an advertisement if necessary at 250, and the selected advertisement is finally displayed at 260. User input is optionally obtained after the advertisement display at 270 where questions related to the viewed advertisement are to be answered by the user. The answers to these questions may help confirm that the user has indeed viewed the advertisement; and/or they may be used by the advertiser in future advertisement or commercial strategies; and/or may be used to further populate the user advertisement profile.

Depending on the advertisement server's configuration, the advertisement display step 150 could be recursive until a predetermined number of iterations or other criteria are met.

The advertisement display step 260 includes intrinsic user input distinct form the user input obtained at 270 after the viewing of the advertisement. Figure 5 shows the advertisement display step 260 in greater detail, in particular with regard to this intrinsic user input.

First, an initial advertisement segment is set as the current ad segment at 300. This initial advertisement segment is selected from a list of compatible ad segments or at random as noted above; but, furthermore, the selected advertisement is segmented into two or more sequential segments and the current segment is selected as the first of these segments. The current advertisement segment is then displayed to the user at 310 for viewing. An advertisement segment confirmation command is requested from the user at 330 either dynamically during the viewing of the advertisement or by stopping the viewing of the advertisement after the first advertisement segment. If an error or invalid confirmation command is entered, the display selected advertisement step is terminated unsuccessfully. If a valid confirmation command is entered, the next advertisement segment is set as the current advertisement segment at 340 and then steps 310 to 340 are repeated until there is no next advertisement segment found, namely the entire advertisement or set of advertisements has been viewed. A final advertisement confirmation command may be requested from the user at 360. If a command error occurs or if the command is invalid, the display selected advertisement step is terminated unsuccessfully. Otherwise, the user advertisement profile is updated with data relating to the viewing of the advertisement or set of advertisements at 370 and a reward is issued at 380, for example in the form of credits or a raffle ticket for a draw that will occur at a determined date.

Claims

1. A method of online advertising comprising:

offering opportunities to a user to view at least one non-punctual online advertisement;

displaying said at least one online advertisement; and

offering a reward to the user if he accomplishes a predetermined reward condition associated with viewing said at least one online advertisement.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein said reward is in the form of virtual raffle tickets and the method further comprises organising a prize draw with said virtual raffle ticket offering a chance to win said prize draw.

3. A method according to claim 1 , wherein said predetermined reward condition comprises a confirmation step wherein the user must issue a confirmation command.

4. A method according to claim 3, wherein the step of displaying at least one online advertisement comprises segmenting said at least one online advertisement into two or more segments and displaying each segment sequentially, and the confirmation step comprises prompting the user for said confirmation command at least in-between two segments of said at least one online advertisement and awaiting said confirmation command before displaying the other segments of said at least two or more segments.

5. A method according to claim 4, wherein the confirmation step further comprises prompting the user for a confirmation command after the final segment of said two or more segments of said at least one online advertisement .

6. A method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of creating a user advertisement profile associated to a user account both corresponding to the user.

7. A method according to claim 1 , wherein said at least one online advertisement is a video.

8. A method according to claim 1 , wherein said at least one online advertisement is a sequence of images.