WO2009010633A1

WO2009010633A1 - Delivery of advertisements in mobile advertising system

Info

Publication number: WO2009010633A1
Application number: PCT/FI2008/050430
Authority: WO
Inventors: Timo Markus AHOMÄKI; Teemu Aaron Ikonen
Original assignee: Airwide Solutions Oy
Priority date: 2007-07-17
Filing date: 2008-07-16
Publication date: 2009-01-22
Also published as: FI122845B; FI20075548A; FI20075548A0

Abstract

Disclosed is a method and an advertising system for delivering advertisements in a mobile communication network. The method comprises detecting a need to deliver an advertisement to a specific recipient, finding out user specific context information pertaining to said recipient, responsive to the user specific context information so requiring, adjusting at least one aspect pertaining to said advertisement, and delivering said adjusted advertisement to said recipient.

Description

DELIVERY OF ADVERTISEMENTS IN MOBILE ADVERTISING SYSTEM

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention generally relates to advertising in mobile communication systems. The invention relates particularly, though not exclusively, to delivery of advertisements for a particular end user or end user group in a mobile advertising system.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

There are currently various efforts ongoing in relation to advertising in mobile communication systems. Compared to for example Internet advertising, in mobile communication systems there is the advantage that the identities of individual users are known whereby new opportunities arise for targeting advertisements to users.

For example a mobile network operator may operate as an advertising broker, which is an entity that delivers the advertisements of various advertisers to end users. The advertisements may the be delivered to their recipients attached to connections or messages originating from other users or external systems and/or dedicated connections or messages may be used for delivering the advertisements.

While in some cases it may make sense to match advertisements with individual users, the more likely scenario is to target well defined micro segments (that is, groups of users). These segments are typically created using two different processes: static and dynamic profiling. In static profiling, the network operator uses traditional demographic segmentation, possibly amended with some user- expressed preferences, to segment the entire user base. In dynamic segmentation, the operator uses actual, real-time usage information gathered from the network to refine the static profiling. Based on the segmentation, the advertisements are matched to desired recipients and delivered to end users. SUMMARY

Now it has been noticed that context of the recipient may have an effect on how well the recipient matches certain profile. For example time and place may be such contextual factors that affect this. As an example, a specific profile may match the preferences of a recipient during weekdays, while some other profile may be better suited for weekend role and behavior of the same recipient. For this reason conventional static and dynamic segmentation mechanisms may sometimes lead to poor user experience. Therefore further considerations are needed.

According to a first aspect of the invention there is provided a method for delivering advertisements in a mobile communication network, the method comprising detecting a need to deliver an advertisement to a specific recipient, finding out user specific context information pertaining to said recipient, responsive to the user specific context information so requiring, adjusting at least one aspect pertaining to said advertisement, and delivering said adjusted advertisement to said recipient.

The context information may comprise one or more of the following: local time, time zone, location, roaming status, direction and speed of movement, terminal capabilities/type, and available network bandwidth and bearer channels supported by the network.

In an embodiment the adjusting comprises one or more of the following: rescheduling delivery of the advertisement to match local time of the recipient, canceling delivery of the advertisement, modifying the advertisement content to match terminal capabilities/type of the recipient, modifying the advertisement content to match available network capabilities, changing the advertisement to a localized variant to match the location of the recipient, and dynamically modifying segmentation of the recipient. In an embodiment the method comprises finding out said user specific context information by querying said context information from capability servers through an entity providing a unified capability interface.

In an embodiment the method comprises updating profile information pertaining to said recipient based on said user specific context information.

In an embodiment the method comprises updating profile information pertaining to said recipient based on said user specific context information and reactions of the recipient after delivering said advertisement.

The method may be performed by network equipment independently of any recipient equipment.

According to a second aspect of the invention there is provided an advertising system for delivering advertisements in a mobile communication network, the advertising system comprising a processing unit configured to detect a need to deliver an advertisement to a specific recipient, an interface configured to enable finding out user specific context information, wherein the processing unit is further configured to use said interface to find out user specific context information pertaining to said recipient, and responsive to the user specific context information so requiring, to adjust at least one aspect pertaining to said advertisement, and the advertising system further comprises an output configured to deliver said adjusted advertisement to said recipient According to a third aspect of the invention there is provided a memory medium comprising computer executable program code adapted to enable an apparatus to perform the method of the first aspect or any related embodiment.

Any foregoing memory medium may be a digital data storage such as a data disc or diskette, optical storage, magnetic storage, holographic storage, phase-change storage (PCM) or opto-magnetic storage. The memory medium may be formed into a device without other substantial functions than storing memory or it may be formed as part of a device with other functions, including but not limited to a memory of a computer, a chip set, and a sub assembly of an electronic device.

Various embodiments of the present invention have been illustrated only with reference to certain aspects of the invention. It should be appreciated that corresponding embodiments may apply to other aspects as well.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention will be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

Fig. 1 shows a block diagram of a system according to an embodiment of the invention;

Fig. 2 shows a flow diagram according to an embodiment of the invention;

Fig. 3 shows logical components of a system according to an embodiment of the invention; and

Fig. 4 shows a block diagram of a device suited for implementing various embodiments of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, like numbers denote like elements. In many of the following examples advertisements are attached to peer-to-peer messages that one user sends to another user. Additionally or alternatively, advertisements can be attached in various other types of traffic, such as application-to-peer messaging, browsing events, video streams or dedicated advertising messages. The messages that are used for delivering the advertisements may be for example SMS or MMS messages or some other messages used in mobile communication systems.

Figure 1 shows a block diagram of a system according to an embodiment of the invention. The system comprises two end users, user A 101 and user B 102, which are connected to a communication network 103 for example via an air interface offered by base stations and other network elements of the communication network (not shown in the figure). Further the system comprises an advertising system 104, which is connected to the communication network 103 or part of the communication network 103. The advertising system 104 is configured to intercept for example messages transferred between the end users

101 and 102 and to attach suitable advertising content to them. Additionally, the advertising system 104 may be configured to attach suitable advertising content to any other messages or connections destined to one of the end users 101 and 102 and/or to send advertising content to the end users 101 and 102 in dedicated messages or connections.

It must be noted that the system of figure 1 may, and usually does, comprise various additional components offering different types of functionalities or services needed in the communication network, but those additional components are not shown herein for the sake of simplicity.

Figure 2 shows a flow diagram according to an embodiment of the invention. The method may be conducted for example in the advertising system 104 of Figure 1. The method initiates when an advertisement belonging to a specific campaign, selected on the basis of static and dynamic segmentation criteria specific to a recipient is to be delivered to this recipient (e.g. user A or user B of Figure 1 ), phase 201. The advertisement may be delivered in any suitable message or connection.

Then context information pertaining to the recipient is queried from capability servers or systems of the mobile network in phase 202. The context information may be for example location, local time, roaming status, time zone, direction and speed of movement, weather, traffic conditions, terminal capabilities/type, available network bandwidth and bearer channels supported by the network, and/or some other information pertaining to the recipient. The context information may be queried or extracted from relevant capability servers either directly or through a capability broker element (or some other centralized element) that provides a unified interface for accessing capability servers. The context information may be served to the advertising system conducting the method (e.g. an advertising engine) through an open interface (API) in real time. By using the unified interface, one may achieve the benefit that the advertising system may be incrementally enhanced with respect to the advertisement targeting capabilities without making major changes to all systems when new capabilities are added as the unified interface provides that no changes are needed in the advertising system even though new capability servers are to be accessed.

In phase 203, the advertisement that is to be delivered to the recipient may then be adjusted based on the context information. The context information retrieved in phase 202 is used to define exclusion/adjustment criteria, i.e. information pertaining to the original advertisement selected in phase 201 is compared to the context information acquired and dependent on the comparison the advertisement that is to be delivered to the recipient may be adjusted. Such adjusting may include for example rescheduling the delivery to match the local time of the recipient, canceling delivery, modifying the advertisement content (or changing media variant) to match terminal capabilities/type of the recipient, modifying the advertisement content to match available network capabilities, changing the advertisement content to a localized variant to match the location of the recipient or even dynamically modifying the segmentation of the recipient - e.g. re- analysing the applicable campaigns to suit the current contextual parameters pertaining to the recipient. That is, the contextual adjustment of the advertisement takes into account user specific context whereas in conventional systems it has been common to rely on static segmentation criteria only, or at best the context (for example time) of the advertisement server/broker.

After the adjustment, the advertisement is delivered in phase 204.

It must be noted that not all advertisements need to be adjusted and that it is possible that this kind of context query and consequent adjustment may be conducted only for some campaigns or individual advertisements. For example some specific campaign or advertisement type (or some other information pertaining to an advertisement) may trigger that context is queried and consequently the advertisement adjusted if necessary.

Figure 3 shows logical components of a system according to an embodiment of the invention. The system comprises three processing layers: design 301 , execution 302, and delivery 303. The processing layers co-operate with a profile database 304 and capability servers 305. Further the system comprises two end users: user A 101 and user B 102.

It must be noted that for example the processing layers of figure 3 are logical components and that each of them may involve one or more physical components. They may be processes running in the same physical device or in two or more separate physical devices. Also the database of figure 3 may reside in the same physical device with the processing layers or alternatively they may reside in different physical devices. Furthermore some other data storage may replace the database. Still further, there may be one or more capability servers involved. In an embodiment of the invention the capability servers are accessed through a capability broker element that provides a unified interface for accessing capability servers.

In an embodiment of the invention the system of figure 3 operates as follows. First an advertising campaign is designed in the design layer 301. For finding suitable target group for the campaign, profile information 3-1 is pulled from the profile database 304. Then the advertising campaign 3-2 is input to the execution layer. The execution layer may for example instantiate the advertising campaign, reserve delivery resources and map the campaign to individual users (e.g. based on their segmentation parameters). The campaign (consisting of the target group (segment) and the individual the advertisement(s) of the campaign) is then ready for delivery.

Let's then assume that the user A sends a message 3-3 to the user B. The message may be for example an SMS or MMS message. The delivery layer 303 intercepts this message. In an embodiment of the invention, the delivery layer is part of or integrated to functionality that provides transfer of messages, which is typically a messaging center such as SMSC or MMSC, and the delivery layer intercepts and examines all messages that are transmitted through the message transfer functionality. Alternatively the delivery layer may intercept and examine only messages that fulfill some predefined criteria. Additionally or alternatively, messages may be intercepted also in case the messaging protocol that is used supports separate forward operation. For example if user A forwards certain MMS message to user B without editing the message, the terminal of the user A may use a "MM1_Forward.REQ" operation defined in 3GPP TS 23.140 V6.9.0, in which only identifier of the message is actually forwarded from user A to user B and the content is delivered to user B from the messaging system on the basis of the forwarded identifier. In this case the intercepting may happen between the messaging center and the user. Still another possibility is to have the intercepting functionality integrated directly to the network without any messaging center. An example of such integrated intercepting functionality is SMS interception on SS7 (Signaling System #7) telecom signaling level.

The delivery layer requests 3-4 from the execution layer an advertisement to be attached to the message 3-3. The execution layer selects 3-5 suitable advertisement for the message based on any suitable mechanism. After having selected the advertisement, the execution layer responds with the selected advertisement 3-7.

The delivery layer performs capability queries 3-8 in various capability servers of the system to find out contextual parameters related to the recipient of the advertisement. It must be noted that the delivery layer may perform the capability queries before or after requesting the advertisement from the execution layer or both before and after. If capabilities are queried before, some or all of the capabilities may be provided also to the execution layer to be used in the advertisement selection. Then, if necessary, the capability layer performs contextual adjustment 3-9 of the advertisement on the basis of the queried capability information and attaches the possibly adjusted advertisement to the message 3-3 and forwards the resulting message 3-9 to the user B.

Further it is possible that the delivery layer receives certain capability triggers with the advertisement 3-7 from the execution layer. The capability triggers cause the delivery layer to query certain capabilities that may then be used for adjusting that particular advertisement. Also instructions pertaining to how the advertisement is to be adjusted may be received from the execution layer together with the advertisement.

In a similar manner as discussed above, advertisements may be selected and adjusted also for any other type of messages or connections.

Additionally, the execution and delivery layers may update 3-11 the profile database 304 in various phases of the procedure.

The processing of the messages in figure 3 may also comprise some billing activities, e.g. writing respective CDRs (call data record). Also some external system may be notified of the advertisement delivery.

Let us now consider a situation where a particular user has opted in to a marketing campaign delivered via video clips. In the campaign, the users get a video advertisement delivered to their handset at a predefined time of day - say 9 am - every weekday. The clip that is presented to the user on a certain day may be selected from a set of available clips using for example the static and dynamic criteria mentioned above. Let us then assume that our particular user takes a holiday and travels to a location residing in a different time zone. In conventional solutions the campaign scheduling would most likely remain anchored to the user's home time zone (or the time zone of the advertising server/broker), and the actual delivery time in the holiday destination may be very inconvenient for the user. Moreover, it is possible that mobile networks in the holiday destination are not able to deliver video content at all, or that receiving such content is very expensive to the user in terms of roaming traffic charges.

In an embodiment of the invention such situation can be avoided by taking into account the context of the user in the advertisement delivery. For example in the system of Figure 3 the delivery layer would query current location and local time of the user as well as capabilities of the local mobile network and would then adjust for example the delivery time of the advertisement according to the queried information. Additionally, the delivery layer might adjust the content that is delivered for example by replacing the video clip by a corresponding text content as receiving text content is not likely to incur high costs to the recipient. The queried contextual parameter may also lead to that the advertisement is not delivered at all at that time. This may be caused by a preference set by the user or the advertiser (it might not make sense to deliver a strictly local advertisement to some distant holiday location, for example).

In an embodiment of the invention conventional user profiling is refined by contextual profiling. In that case the user profiling takes into account not only the services accessed or advertisements reacted to by users but also attaches contextual parameters, such as location and time, to these events. That is, when a user accesses a service at a specific location or at a specific time or a combination of these, one or more contextual profiles are adjusted accordingly, whereas conventionally only accessing the service was accounted for irrespective of the time and location of the user. In other words, now the system not only creates a dynamic profile for a user based on actual usage patterns, but also splits the profile into several "sub profiles" or "contextual profiles" based on usage in a specific location, at a specific time, etc. Thus, one user may then be associated with more than one contextual profile, such as a "home profile" and an "away profile" as well as a "morning profile" and a "daytime profile". Different contextual profiles account for different roles or behaviour exhibited by the users at different times and/or in different locations.

As an example, let us consider a user with the following usage behaviour:

- During weekdays, the user accesses business related information from a city center.

- During weekdays, the user responds to food related coupon advertisements from the city center. - During weekends, the user accesses music related services from a suburban location.

- During weekends, the user does not respond to coupon advertisements.

This information may lead to two contextual profiles for this user: 1 ) a weekday profile, which segments the user as a "business user" and places a large weight on lunch coupon campaigns, and

2) a weekend profile, which segments the user as a "music lover" and places a lower weight on coupon advertisements.

Should this user now reside in the weekend location during a working day, the contextual adjustment of advertisement delivery according to various embodiments of the invention would take into account the location of the user and thereby suspend sending of the lunch coupons, even though normally these would be sent to this user during weekdays.

By means of using the contextual profiles provided by some embodiments of the invention one may achieve the benefit that advertisement matching may be sensitive to user specific context, such as location, time or other parameters. It is common that there are more than one media variant of one advertisement, because different end user devices have different content handling capabilities. Thus, one media variant may suit one user while another user requires another type of media variant in order to be able to see the advertisement. The actual media variant that is used for a specific recipient is selected in the delivery process either from a set of existing variants or some transcoding mechanism may be used for modifying the original advertisement content to better match capabilities of a specific end user device. Conventionally, the capabilities of the end user devices have been defined in user preferences or provided by the end user device itself. Now, the contextual adjustment of advertisements according to various embodiments of the invention may be configured to query terminal (or end user device) capabilities from a terminal database maintained by a network operator and to use the queried capabilities for selecting suitable media variant for a particular user. In this way the user does not need to update any user preferences when starting to use a new communication device nor does the terminal have to be able to provide such information (providing such information may not be standardised for all conceivable use cases).

The invention may be implemented by means of a computer program running on a suitable hardware platform or by means of any other suitable combination of hardware, software, special purpose circuits and/or logic.

Figure 4 shows a block diagram of an apparatus 400 suited for implementing various embodiments of the invention. The apparatus 400 may be a typical computer, such as a general-purpose computer or a server, with possibly distributed functions. The apparatus comprises a processor 401 for controlling the apparatus and a memory 402 including a computer program code or software 403.

The processor 401 is typically a central processing unit (CPU) or a master control unit MCU. Alternatively, the processor may be a microprocessor, a digital signal processor, an application specific integrated circuit, a field programmable gate array, a microcontroller or a combination of such elements. The software 403 includes instructions for the CPU 401 to control the apparatus 400 such as an operating system and different computer applications. The software 403 may comprise instructions for controlling the apparatus to provide some functionality of the invention. The instructions may for example control the apparatus to operate as an advertising system according to some embodiments of the invention.

The apparatus 400 further comprises a network interface unit NJNF 405 such as a LAN (Local Area Network), Ethernet or WLAN (Wireless LAN) unit. The apparatus 400 could also comprise a user interface (not shown), such as a display and a keyboard, but the user interface may be implemented also by means of a remote connection through the network interface unit.

It should be appreciated that in this document, words comprise, include and contain are each used as open-ended expressions with no intended exclusivity.

The foregoing description has provided by way of non-limiting examples of particular implementations and embodiments of the invention a full and informative description of the best mode presently contemplated by the inventors for carrying out the invention. It is however clear to a person skilled in the art that the invention is not restricted to details of the embodiments presented above, but that it can be implemented in other embodiments using equivalent means without deviating from the characteristics of the invention.

Furthermore, some of the features of the above-disclosed embodiments of this invention may be used to advantage without the corresponding use of other features. As such, the foregoing description shall be considered as merely illustrative of the principles of the present invention, and not in limitation thereof. Hence, the scope of the invention is only restricted by the appended patent claims.

Claims

1. A method for delivering advertisements in a mobile communication network (103), the method comprising detecting (201 ) a need to deliver an advertisement to a specific recipient

(101 , 102), characterized in that the method further comprises finding out (202, 3-8) user specific context information pertaining to said recipient, responsive to the user specific context information so requiring, adjusting (203, 3-9) at least one aspect pertaining to said advertisement, and delivering (204, 3-10) said adjusted advertisement to said recipient.

2. A method according to claim 1 , wherein said context information comprises one or more of the following: local time, time zone, location, roaming status, direction and speed of movement, terminal capabilities/type, and available network bandwidth and bearer channels supported by the network.

3. A method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein said adjusting comprises one or more of the following: rescheduling delivery of the advertisement to match local time of the recipient, canceling delivery of the advertisement, modifying the advertisement content to match terminal capabilities/type of the recipient, modifying the advertisement content to match available network capabilities, changing the advertisement to a localized variant to match the location of the recipient, and dynamically modifying segmentation of the recipient.

4. A method according to any one of claims 1 -3, further comprising finding out said user specific context information by querying (3-8) said context information from capability servers (305) through an entity providing a unified capability interface.

5. A method according to any one of claims 1 -4, further comprising updating (3-11 ) profile information pertaining to said recipient based on said user specific context information.

6. A method according to any one of claims 1 -4, further comprising updating (3-11 ) profile information pertaining to said recipient based on said user specific context information and reactions of the recipient after delivering said advertisement.

7. An advertising system (104, 400) for delivering advertisements in a mobile communication network (103), the advertising system comprising a processing unit (401 ) configured to detect a need to deliver an advertisement to a specific recipient (101 , 102), characterized in that the advertising system further comprises an interface configured to enable finding out user specific context information, wherein the processing unit (401 ) is further configured to use said interface to find out user specific context information pertaining to said recipient, and responsive to the user specific context information so requiring, to adjust at least one aspect pertaining to said advertisement, and in that the advertising system further comprises an output (405) configured to deliver said adjusted advertisement to said recipient

8. An advertising system according to claim 7, wherein said context information comprises one or more of the following: local time, time zone, location, roaming status, direction and speed of movement, terminal capabilities/type, and available network bandwidth and bearer channels supported by the network.

9. An advertising system according to claim 7 or 8, wherein said adjusting comprises one or more of the following: rescheduling delivery of the advertisement to match local time of the recipient, canceling delivery of the advertisement, modifying the advertisement content to match terminal capabilities/type of the recipient, modifying the advertisement content to match available network capabilities, changing the advertisement to a localized variant to match the location of the recipient, and dynamically modifying segmentation of the recipient.

10.An advertising system according to any one of claims 7-9, wherein said interface provides access to capability servers (305) through an entity providing a unified capability interface.

11.An advertising system according to any one of claims 7-10, wherein the processing unit is further configured to update profile information pertaining to said recipient based on said user specific context information.

12.An advertising system according to any one of claims 7-10, wherein the processing unit is further configured to update profile information pertaining to said recipient based on said user specific context information and reactions of the recipient after delivering said advertisement.

13.A memory medium comprising computer executable program code (403) adapted to enable an apparatus to perform the method of any of claims 1 -6.