Patent Publication Number: US-2010121690-A1

Title: System and method for providing a personalized mobile advertising service

Description:
PRIORITY 
     This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119(a) of a Korean Patent Application filed in the Korean Intellectual Property Office on Nov. 13, 2008 and assigned Serial No. 10-2008-00112977, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates generally to a mobile advertising system offering a user a personalized mobile advertising service, and more particularly, to a system and method for providing a list of advertisements, which are pre-fetched by a mobile terminal, in a mobile advertising system. 
     2. Description of the Related Art 
     The mobile communication market continuously requires creation of new services, which are sometimes achieved through recombination or integration of existing technologies. Current development of communication and broadcast technologies has enabled conventional broadcasting systems and mobile communication systems to provide broadcast services through portable terminals (or mobile terminals), such as mobile phones and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). 
     Accordingly, convergence of mobile communication service and Internet Protocol (IP) has become a priority in the development of next generation mobile communication technologies. 
     Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), a group for studying a standard for interworking between individual mobile solutions, defines various application standards for mobile games, Internet services, etc. Of the OMA Working Groups, Open Mobile Alliance Requirement (OMA REQ) Working Group and Open Mobile Alliance Content Delivery (OMA CD) Working Group are currently researching a technology standard for offering Mobile Advertising (MobAd) services. 
     MobAd is a technology for delivering customized or personalized advertisements based on music, graphic, voice and text technologies to users through mobile terminals (e.g., mobile phones, PDAs, etc.). However, despite the large number of currently available solutions supporting MobAd, each company and service provider use their own unique software, causing a reduction in compatibility and spread of the MobAd service. 
     Features of MobAd can be roughly summarized in the following three points. 
     First, MobAd builds an information database for users and enables realization of personalized advertisements suited for a distinctive feature of each individual. Because a user carries a mobile terminal on their person, the service provider may deliver selected advertisements to the mobile terminal of the user at stated periods or upon request of the user, and advertisements over the mobile terminal can be quickly seen by the user. 
     Second, MobAd facilitates bidirectional interaction. Because MobAd can provide information about advertisements desired by a user in advance, along with associated phone numbers and Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), the user may actively access the advertisements and get more detailed information about advertised goods. 
     Third, MobAd can gauge metrics of users. Mobile terminals, which are interactive media, can attract reactions (or metrics) from users who are exposed to the advertisements. Such metrics may be effectively used to analyze preferences of users and map out a marketing strategy. 
       FIG. 1  illustrates a conventional configuration of a MobAd system and interface connections in a mobile communication system. 
     The MobAd system includes an advertising engine (Ad Engine)  140  and an advertising server (Ad Server)  120 . The Ad Engine  140  is a function group including logical modules, and is located in a user mobile terminal and accesses the Ad Server  120 . The Ad Server  120  is a MobAd Enabler component located in a network, and is used to provide advertisements to the Ad Engine  140  and a Service Provider application (SP App)  130 . The SP App  130 , which is an external entity, is used to request and receive advertisements from the Ad Server  120 , display the received advertisements with contents to the user, and provide advertising metrics (Ad metrics) to the Ad Server  120 . A Web portal, a Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) Relay/Server, a Short Message 
     Service Center (SMSC), and a game server are each an example of the Ad App  130 . A Contextualization and Personalization Resources (C&amp;PR)  110  is a storage of user-related information, and may include user personal features and preferences, etc. The C&amp;PR  110  is used to obtain user requirements during advertisement selection. 
     The Ad Engine  140  interacts with all advertising application (Ad App)  150 , i.e., an application utilizing the MobAd system, and supports a function capable of accessing a MobAd service from the Ad App  150  through the Ad Engine  140 . In addition, the Ad Engine  140  provides an Ad Handling Function, an Ad Metrics Handling Function, and a User/Service/Device Data Handling Function. The Ad Handling Function supports a function of receiving advertisements from the Ad Server  120 , and selecting advertisements stored in a cache of the mobile terminal; or handling and applying criteria to be used to send an advertisement request to the Ad Server  120 , receiving an advertisement request from the Ad App  150 , and providing an advertisement corresponding to the advertisement request. The Ad Metrics Handling Function supports a function of receiving Ad metrics from the Ad App  150 , combining the Ad metrics with information (e.g., the time for which the Ad metrics were measured) that the Ad Engine  140  has, checking and representing the fraudulence of the received Ad metrics, and providing the Ad metrics to the Ad Server  120 . The User/Service/Device Data Handling Function supports a function of handling dynamic/static information about the user/device, and providing MobAd service-related data (e.g., rule, policy, etc.). 
     The Ad Server  120  is a function group including logical modules, and performs such functions as Ad Selection Function, Ad Delivery Function, Ad Metrics Handling Function, and User/Service/Device data handling function. The Ad Selection Function supports a function of handling data provided from other authorized principals for advertisement selection, comparing and filtering advertisements based on given criteria, and selecting advertisements based on given rules and criteria. The Ad Delivery Function provides Ad metadata associated with advertisements or Ad campaigns to the Ad Engine  140  and the SP App  130 , and delivers rules and instructions containing a usage of advertisements. The Ad Metrics Handling Function supports collects impression and user response information of received advertisements from the Ad Engine  140  and the SP App  130 , collects and handles Ad metrics-related information (e.g., information about the time for which the advertisements were exposed), and integrates a variety of received Ad metrics. The User/Service/Device Data Handling Function handles user context data and MobAd Enabler Service-related data, generates and selects groups, generates advertising channels, and handles advertisements and Ad metadata. 
     Table 1 below shows interfaces used between constituent elements (or logical entities) in  FIG. 1 . 
     
       
         
           
               
               
             
               
                 TABLE 1 
               
               
                   
               
               
                 Interface 
                 Description 
               
               
                   
               
             
            
               
                 TBD-1 
                 Represents a collection of all interfaces between Ad Server and SP App, 
               
               
                   
                 other than MobAd-2 
               
               
                 TBD-2 
                 Represents a collection of all interfaces between Ad Server and Ad Engine, 
               
               
                   
                 other than MobAd-3 and Delv-1 
               
               
                 TBD-3 
                 Represents a collection of all other interfaces between Ad Engine and Ad 
               
               
                   
                 App, other than MobAd-1 
               
               
                 MobAd-1 
                 MobAd-1 is an interface between the Ad Engine and the Ad App. The Ad 
               
               
                   
                 Engine exposes this interface to the Ad App. The Ad App uses this 
               
               
                   
                 interface to request and obtain Ads and their associated Ads identifiers 
               
               
                   
                 from the Ad Engine, as well as to report Ad metrics data to the Ad Engine, 
               
               
                   
                 accompanied by the associated Ads identifiers. 
               
               
                 MobAd-2 
                 MobAd-2 is an interface exposed by the Ad Server and used by the SP App 
               
               
                   
                 to submit an Ad Request message with some parameters, as well as to 
               
               
                   
                 report metrics data. The Ad Server uses this interface to provide an Ad 
               
               
                   
                 Response to the SP App, which includes Ads and their associated Ads 
               
               
                   
                 identifiers. The associated Ads identifiers will be used for reporting metrics 
               
               
                   
                 data. This interface can also be used by the Ad Server to inform the SP App 
               
               
                   
                 that some ads (stored locally by the SP App) should be deleted. This can be 
               
               
                   
                 achieved either by attaching Ad deletion information to an SP App Ad 
               
               
                   
                 Response, or by supporting an Ad Validity request from SP App to Ad 
               
               
                   
                 Server (e.g.: SP App Validity request may be attached to an SP App Ad 
               
               
                   
                 Request or the SP App Ad Validity request frequency may be set by an SP 
               
               
                   
                 policy). 
               
               
                 MobAd-3 
                 MobAd-3 is an interface between the Ad Server and the Ad Engine. The Ad 
               
               
                   
                 Server exposes this interface to the Ad Engine. The Ad Engine uses this 
               
               
                   
                 interface to request and obtain Ads and their associated Ads identifiers 
               
               
                   
                 from the Ad Server, as well as to report Ad metrics data to the Ad Server, 
               
               
                   
                 accompanied by the associated Ads identifiers. 
               
               
                 DELV-1 
                 Delv-1 is an optional interface exposed by the Ad Engine. The Ad Engine 
               
               
                   
                 receives Ads and/or Ad Metadata over this interface from the Ad Server via 
               
               
                   
                 underlying push and/or broadcast delivery mechanisms. The Ad Server uses 
               
               
                   
                 this interface to push either Ads or notification that Ads are available for 
               
               
                   
                 retrieval. The Ad Server may also use this interface to provide service 
               
               
                   
                 notification to the Ad Engine (e.g. information that SP caching and pre- 
               
               
                   
                 fetching policies have been dynamically updated; An Ad or campaign 
               
               
                   
                 needs to be cancelled ASAP, rules have changed, etc). 
               
               
                   
               
            
           
         
       
     
       FIG. 2  illustrates a conventional process of receiving advertisements in a mobile terminal. 
     Referring to  FIG. 2 , the Ad Engine  140  in the mobile terminal sends an Ad Request message to the Ad Server  120  in step  201 , receives the requested advertisement from the Ad Server  120  in step  202 , and stores the received advertisement in a storage or a cache in step  203 . The Ad Server  120  may deliver an advertisement upon request of the 
     Ad Engine  140 , or may deliver an advertisement even in the absence of request from the Ad Engine  140 . If there is a new advertisement or an existing advertisement is updated, the Ad Engine  140  may send a request for the advertisement and its associated Ad metadata to the Ad Server  120  in step  201 . The Ad Server  120  may deliver, to the Ad Engine  140 , a personalized advertisement that is generated based on contextualization information such as a location and a storage status of the mobile terminal, and personalization information such as sex, age, personal preferences and interests of the mobile terminal&#39;s user. 
     Upon receiving an Ad Request message from the Ad App  150  in step  204 , after storing the advertisement delivered from the Ad Server  120  in the cache, the Ad Engine  140  selects an advertisement meeting the criteria among the advertisements received from the Ad Server  120  by filtering the stored Ad Apps in step  205 , and delivers the selected advertisement to the Ad App  150  in step  208 . If none of the advertisements stored in the Ad Engine  140  match the advertisement requested by the Ad App  150 , the Ad Engine  140  may forward the Ad Request message received from the Ad App  150  to the Ad Server  120  in step  206 , and receive a matching advertisement to the advertisement requested by the Ad App  150  from the Ad Server  120  in step  207 . 
     As described above, the user sends an Ad Request message to the Ad Engine  140  through the Ad App  150  in order to request an advertisement. If there is an advertisement among pre-fetched advertisements, which is matched to the criteria satisfying personalization information received from the user and contextualization information, the Ad Engine  140  provides a personalized mobile advertising service by selecting the advertisement and delivering the selected advertisement. However, because the user may not previously know a list of the pre-fetched advertisements stored in the Ad Engine  140  of the mobile terminal or an incentive of an advertisement at issue, before the user receives the advertisement, the user has no alternative but to receive advertisements depending on the Ad Selection or Filtering function of the Ad Engine  140 . Therefore, a need exists for a method of providing a personalized mobile advertising service that enables a user to select and view desired advertisements by enabling the user to previously know a list of pre-fetched advertisements stored in the Ad Engine  140  and incentives of the advertisements, if advertisements are pre-fetched and stored in the Ad Engine  140 . 
     In addition, conventionally, because the Ad Engine  140  previously downloads advertisements from the Ad Server  120  and stores the downloaded advertisements in the cache, even though contracts are changed due to the frequent policy changes or the regulations owing to features of advertisements, the related advertisements cannot be corrected or deleted, and after the change of the advertisements, the user cannot help but continuously view the wrong advertisements until the lifetime of the advertisements expires. Therefore, there is a need for a method capable of correcting, deleting, or canceling stored advertisements upon request of an Ad Server, even after the advertisements are stored in a mobile terminal. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention is designed to address at least the above-mentioned problems and/or disadvantages and to provide at least the advantages described below. Accordingly, an aspect of the present invention provides a system and method for enabling a user to acquire a list of pre-fetched advertisements stored in an Ad Engine of a mobile terminal and incentives of related advertisements, before actually receiving the advertisements. 
     Another aspect of the present invention provides a system and method for correcting or deleting advertisements, among the pre-fetched advertisements stored in a mobile terminal. 
     In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, a method for providing a personalized mobile advertising service by a mobile terminal in a mobile advertising system is provided. The method includes receiving a message for requesting an advertisement list through an advertising application; filtering advertisements that have been received from an advertising server and stored, and providing the requested advertisement list to a user through the advertising application; and receiving a request message for a predetermined advertisement among advertisements included in the provided advertisement list through the advertising application, and delivering the requested advertisement to the advertising application. 
     In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, a mobile advertising system for providing a personalized mobile advertising service is provided. The system includes an advertising server for providing advertisements; and an advertising engine for receiving an advertisement request through an advertising application, filtering advertisements provided from the advertising server, and providing the requested advertisement to the advertising application. The advertising engine receives a message for requesting an advertisement list through the advertising application, filters advertisements that have been received from the advertising server and stored, and provides the requested advertisement list to a user through the advertising application. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       The above and other aspects, features, and advantages of certain embodiments of the present invention will be more apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which: 
         FIG. 1  is a diagram illustrating a conventional configuration of a MobAd system and connections of interfaces in a mobile communication system; 
         FIG. 2  is a diagram illustrating a conventional process of receiving advertisements in a mobile terminal; 
         FIG. 3  is a diagram illustrating a procedure for providing a list of pre-fetched advertisements and incentives of advertisements to a user by a mobile terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention; and 
         FIG. 4  is a diagram illustrating a process of updating pre-fetched advertisements according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
     
    
    
     Throughout the drawings, the same drawing reference numerals will be understood to refer to the same elements, features, and structures. 
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION 
     The matters defined in the description, such as a detailed construction and elements, are provided to assist in a comprehensive understanding of certain embodiments of the invention. Accordingly, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that various changes and modifications of the embodiments described herein can be made without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. Also, descriptions of well-known functions and constructions are omitted for clarity and conciseness. 
     In the following description, representative embodiments of the present invention will be presented to achieve the technical tasks stated above. Although names of entities defined by  3   rd  Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), which is a  3   rd  generation mobile communication standard, or by MobAd of Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) will be used in the description, the standards and entity names are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention, as the present invention is applicable to any other systems having similar technical backgrounds. 
     In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, a system and method for enabling a user to acquire in advance a list of pre-fetched advertisements stored in an Ad Engine of a mobile terminal and incentives of related advertisements before actually receiving the advertisements are provided. 
       FIG. 3  illustrates a procedure for providing a list of pre-fetched advertisements and incentives of advertisements to a user through an Ad App  150  by an Ad Engine  140  in a mobile terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
     Referring to  FIG. 3 , in step  301 , the Ad Engine  140  sends an Ad request that is made by a user through the Ad App  150  (not shown), to the Ad Server  120  at stated periods or according to a preset schedule. 
     In step  302 , the Ad Server  120  selects the requested advertisement and delivers the selected advertisement to the Ad Engine  140 . The Ad Server  120  may deliver an advertisement upon request of the Ad Engine  140 , or may deliver an advertisement even in the absence of a request of the Ad Engine  140 . 
     In step  303 , the Ad Engine  140  stores the advertisement received from the Ad Server  120 . However, if the Ad request in step  301  was made by the user through the Ad App  150 , the Ad Engine  140  may immediately deliver the advertisement received from the Ad Server  120  to the Ad App  150  without storing the received advertisement. 
     In step  304 , the user sends a request for an Ad list to the Ad Engine  140  through the Ad App  150  using an Ad List Request message that includes a field used for requesting a list of pre-fetched advertisements. Regarding the Ad List Request message, a new separate message may be used, or a new file defined for requesting an Ad list may be included in the existing Ad Request message. For example, the Ad List Request message may be configured as shown below in Table 2 below. 
     
       
         
           
               
               
             
               
                 TABLE 2 
               
               
                   
               
               
                 Name 
                 Description 
               
               
                   
               
             
            
               
                 Ad Request-ID 
                 ID of the Ad Request Message, globally unique 
               
               
                 Ad App-ID 
                 ID of the Ad App, globally unique 
               
               
                 Version 
                 Version of the Ad Request. The newer version 
               
               
                   
                 overrides the older one 
               
               
                 User-ID 
                 ID of the user who wants to request the ad 
               
               
                 Name 
                 Specify the name of user who wants to request 
               
               
                   
                 the ad, possibly in multiple languages 
               
               
                 List for pre-fetched ads 
                 If this parameter is set, the Ad Engine will 
               
               
                 and Incentives 
                 provide the list of the pre-fetched ads and the 
               
               
                   
                 brief description of each advertisement 
               
               
                   
                 incentive, if available 
               
               
                 Advertisement 
                 The advertisement that will be requested 
               
               
                   
               
            
           
         
       
     
     In step  305 , the Ad Engine  140  determines whether there are any advertisements pre-fetched from the Ad Server  120  by filtering the stored Ads, and sends an Ad List Response message to the Ad App  150  according to the determination results. That is, if there are pre-fetched advertisements, the Ad Engine  140  delivers a list of the pre-fetched advertisements and incentives of the advertisements to the Ad App  150  in step  306 . If the Ad Engine  140  has pre-fetched advertisements but has no Ad list of the pre-fetched advertisements, the Ad Engine  140  sends an Ad List Response message with state information indicating the absence of the Ad list, to the Ad App  150 . As to the Ad List Response message, a new separate message may be used, or the existing Ad Response message may be used. For example, the Ad List Response message may be configured as shown in Table 3 below. 
     
       
         
           
               
               
             
               
                 TABLE 3 
               
               
                   
               
               
                 Name 
                 Description 
               
               
                   
               
             
            
               
                 Ad-Response-ID 
                 ID of the Ad-Response Message, 
               
               
                   
                 globally unique 
               
               
                 Ad-Request-ID 
                 ID of the Ad-Request, globally unique 
               
               
                 Ad App-ID 
                 ID of the Ad App, globally unique 
               
               
                 List for pre-fetched ads 
                 Specify the list of pre-fetched advertisements 
               
               
                 and Incentives 
                 and the brief description of each advertisement 
               
               
                   
                 incentive 
               
               
                   
               
            
           
         
       
     
     If it is not possible to provide an Ad list because of the absence of pre-fetched advertisements, the Ad Engine  140  may send an Ad request to the Ad Server  120 , receive the requested advertisement, and deliver the received advertisement to the Ad App  150  as illustrated and described in steps  206  to  208  of  FIG. 2 . 
     In step  307 , the user sends a request for a desired advertisement to the Ad Engine  140  based on the received Ad list and incentives. In step  308 , the Ad Engine  140  provides the user-requested advertisement among the pre-fetched advertisements to the user through the Ad App  150 ). 
       FIG. 4  illustrates a process of updating pre-fetched advertisements stored in a mobile terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
     Referring to  FIG. 4 , the Ad Engine  140  sends an Ad Request message to the Ad Server  120  in step  401 , receives the requested advertisement in step  402 , and stores the received advertisement in step  403 . Upon receiving an Ad request from the Ad App  150  in step  404 , the Ad Engine  140  filters the stored advertisements in step  405 , and delivers the requested advertisement to the Ad App  150  in step  406 . 
     However, in step  407 , if, for example, contracts of the pre-fetched advertisements have been cancelled or certain advertisements must be updated prior to an expiration set for the advertisements due to policy changes, the Ad Server  120  adds IDs of the advertisements to be updated to an Ad Update message and sends the Ad Update message to the Ad Engine  140  in step  410 . The Ad Server  120  may use a variety of channels such as Peer-to-Peer (P2P), BCAST, and Multicast, when sending the Ad Update message. 
     Before sending the Ad Update message in step  410 , the Ad Server  120  may send an Ad List Request message to the Ad Engine  140  in step  408  in order to acquire an Ad list stored in the mobile terminal. Then, in step  409 , the Ad Engine  140  delivers an Ad list stored in the mobile terminal to the Ad Server  120 . 
     Upon receiving the Ad Update message from the Ad Server  120 , in step  411 , the Ad Engine  140  corrects, adds, or deletes advertisements corresponding to IDs of the update-requested advertisements among the pre-stored advertisements based on the update request from the Ad Server  120 , and in step  412 , sends an Ad Update message indicating the update of the advertisements to the Ad App  150 . Then the Ad App  150  stops displaying the advertisements in which the updated contents are reflected, or displays the corrected advertisements, and sends an Ad Update Response message to the Ad Engine  140  in step  413 . The Ad Engine  140  forwards the Ad Update Response message received from the Ad App  150  to the Ad Server  120  in step  414 . 
     As is apparent from the foregoing description, the above-described embodiments of the present invention provide a personalized mobile advertising service that enables, if there are pre-fetched advertisements in the Ad Engine, the user to acquire, in advance, a list of pre-fetched advertisements stored in the Ad Engine and incentives of the advertisements, and select and view desired advertisements. 
     In addition, considering that unlike the general communication information data or amusement data, advertisements are contents that are susceptible to policies or contracts, the above-described embodiments of the present invention immediately cope a change in an advertisement, due to a change in contracts as result of policy changes or regulations of the advertisements, using the Ad update procedure and method proposed by the present invention, thereby enabling a user to receive updated advertisements. 
     While the present invention has been shown and described with reference to certain embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.