System and Method for Targeting Advertisements

Abstract

An advertisement selection system is presented in which vectors describing an actual or hypothetical market for a product or desired viewing audience can be determined. An ad characterization vector is transmitted along with a consumer ID. The consumer ID is used to retrieve a consumer characterization vector which is correlated with the ad characterization vector to determine the suitability of the advertisement to the consumer. The consumer characterization vector describes statistical information regarding the demographics and product purchase preferences of a consumer, and is developed from previous purchases or viewing habits. A price for displaying the advertisement can be determined based on the results of the correlation of the ad characterization vector with the consumer characterization vector.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 229,784, entitled System and Method for Generating a Consumer's Profile Characteristics from the Consumer's Purchase Record, filed Aug. 28, 2002, Attorney Docket No. T707-13, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 774,473 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,560,578), entitled Advertisement Selection System Supporting Discretionary Target Market Characteristics, filed on Jan. 31, 2001, Attorney Docket No. T707-11, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 268,526 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,216,129), entitled Advertising Selection System Supporting Discretionary Target Market Characteristics filed on Mar. 12, 1999, Attorney Docket No. T707-00, which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 205,653, (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,457,010), entitled Client-Server Based Subscriber Characterization System, filed Dec. 3, 1998, the en...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0017] One advantage of the present invention is that discretionary target market parameters can be specified and do not necessarily need to correspond to an existing market, but can reflect the various market segments for which the advertisement is targeted. The market segments can be designated by demographic characteristics or by product preferences.

[0018] Another advantage of the present invention is that demographic samples of present purchasers of a product are not required to define the target market.

[0019] The present invention can be used to determine the applicability of an advertisement to a consumer based on demographics, product preferences, or a combination of both.

[0020] In a preferred embodiment of the present invention the correlation is calculated as the scalar product of the ad characterization vector and the consumer characterization vector. The ad characterization vector and consumer characterization vector can be composed of demographic characteristics, product purchase characteristics, or a combination of both.

[0021] In a preferred embodiment pricing for the displaying of said advertisement is developed based on the result of the correlation between the ad characterization vector and the consumer characterization vector. In a first embodiment the pricing increases as a function of the correlation. This embodiment can represent the situation in which the party which determines the correlation also controls the ability to display the advertisement.

[0022] In an alternate embodiment the price for displaying the advertisement decreases as a function of the degree of correlation. This embodiment can represent the situation in which the consumer controls access to the consumer characterization vector, and charges less to view advertisements which are highly correlated with their interests and demographics. A feature of this embodiment is the ability of the consumer to decrease the number of unwanted advertisements by charging a higher price to view advertisements which are likely to be of less interest.

Problems solved by technology

There are several difficulties associated with the collection, processing, and storage of consumer data.

First, collecting consumer data and determining the demographic parameters of the consumer can be difficult.

Although information such as credit history is stored on multiple databases, storage of other information such as the specifics of grocery purchases is not typically performed.

Even if each individual's detailed list of grocery purchases was recorded, the information would be of little use since it would amount to nothing more than unprocessed shopping lists.

Consumers will generally find it desirable that advertisements and other information is matched with their interests, but will not allow indiscriminate access to their demographic profile and purchase records.

Although it is possible to collect statistical information regarding consumers of particular products and compare those profiles against individual demographic data points of consumers, such a methodology only allows for selection of potential consumers based on the demographics of existing customers of the same or similar products.

Images