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BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to advanced audience targeting systems for the
advertising and direct marketing industries. More particularly, this
invention relates to a unique process of directing different commercial
messages, advertisements and programming to different demographically and
selectively targeted television audiences by relating carrier subscriber
data to other proprietary marketing databases. Still more particularly,
this invention relates to the interests of the cable television and the
newly emerging telecommunications industries that are involved in creating
an electronic highway for video, voice and data, and in providing for a
new common carrier that is superior to existing telephone, postal carrier
and traditional broadcast networks in terms of forging one-to-one
relationships between advertisers and customers, allowing interactive
communications between advertisers and consumers, and efficiently
integrating marketing tactics within a single new medium. In addition,
this invention relates to the provision of proprietary security mechanisms
to facilitate communication with carrier subscribers, which communication
is restricted both by government policy (federal and local) and by
consumer advocacy pressure aimed at protecting subscriber privacy, as well
as by the carriers' own insistence on safeguarding their commercially
valuable subscriber lists.
Currently, the cable television infrastructure is composed of
geographically scattered and unconnected individual cable systems. This
system makes it difficult for advertisers and direct marketers to plan and
execute marketing using this infrastructure on a regional or national
basis. In addition, the level of targeting available in cable television
today is only modestly superior to the level of targeting produced by
traditional national television networks. However, rapidly changing
technology is transforming the cable television industry from a group of
passive, one-way, geographically-separate entertainment distribution
systems into an interconnected grid of interactive communications
networks. When this process is complete, traditional multi-system cable
operators ("MSOs") and other telecommunication carrier companies will be
able to offer to companies that market products and services unparalleled
opportunities to target prime audience prospects more efficiently and to
deliver their sales messages, advertisements and sponsored programming
directly to those prospects that are the natural targets for the products
and services of those companies. Such precision targeting cannot be fully
exploited, however, until new technologies and mechanisms for cable system
signal switching, addressability and interactivity are in place, first
requiring substantial upgrading and rebuilding of the hardware
infrastructure.
The present invention will supplement this rebuilding effort with new
information management techniques and services. These new information
management techniques and services, which currently do not exist within
the cable television infrastructure, are essential to allowing the level
of advanced audience targeting desired by advertisers, cable television
and other telecommunications industries. By providing these new techniques
and services, the present invention will enable MSOs, telemarketing
companies, advertisers, programmers and direct marketers to perform such
functions as: (1) identification of all customers regardless of carrier
system affiliation in order to facilitate the aggregation of customer data
across multiple cable systems and preferred audience targeting; (2)
matching of marketing databases or audience profiles (demographics,
lifestyle and viewing behavior) with appropriately targeted subscriber
addresses; (3) addressing of specific commercials, advertising campaigns
or programming directly to specific households; (4) forwarding of specific
customer requests directly to the appropriate advertisers and direct
marketers; and (5) accomplishing all the above while both protecting
customer privacy and safeguarding the proprietary subscriber records and
other marketing databases involved in these processes.
It is one object of the present invention to solve the problems inherent in
the ability of advertisers and direct marketers to uniformly reach
selected groups of scattered subscriber households within disjointed and
unconnected cable systems and to thereby greatly facilitate their use as
new, national micromarketing tools. It is another object of this
invention, to ensure that, over time, full service networks of voice,
video and data can function together as a new common carrier for
advertising and direct marketing in a manner superior to that of the
existing telephone, postal carrier and traditional broadcast networks. It
is a further object of this invention to make possible for the cable
industry a substantial increase in its share of advertising and direct
marketing by providing services and techniques that facilitate greatly
expanded sales revenue for cable system operators at all levels.
Similarly, it is yet a further object of this invention to provide similar
services to ensure that other telecommunications companies involved in
building "the information highway" are able to maximize new advertising
and direct marketing revenue.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
These and other objects of the invention are accomplished in accordance
with the principles of the invention, provisionally called The Electronic
Address ("TEA.sup.SM "), by (1) creating, compiling and updating a
National Directory of cable and other carrier system subscriber names and
address information derived from actual cable system and telephone company
billing records; (2) providing proprietary software to participating
carrier systems to allow modification of the subscriber records; (3)
modifying the subscriber records in a uniform fashion at the carrier
system level using unique electronic address designations by encoding the
subscriber information into encoded binary streams using proprietary
binary conversion rules and binary signatures assigned to the carrier
systems, and changing the conversion rules, signatures and their carrier
designations for security on a monthly basis when the National Directory
is updated; (4) licensing the Directory to qualified data processing
companies or their clients, each of which will receive proprietary
software allowing it first to encode its own client's database and/or
modeled target audience profiles into encoded binary streams using other
proprietary binary conversion rules and binary signatures, and then to
match the client's database or audience profiles to the Directory, while
still maintaining subscriber privacy; and (5) "matching" the Directory to
the client's database or to specific audience parameters, characteristics
and profiles desired by the marketers, using the encoded binary streams
and proprietary software, in a manner that does not reveal the subscriber
name, address or other identifying information and in a manner that cannot
be reverse-engineered. In order to implement a planned advertising "buy"
on cable, the marketer's advertising agency uses a TEA licensee to provide
the TEA operations center with details of the subscriber coverage required
by the campaign, and, by matching these details with the TEA Directory,
the TEA operations center then identifies, with a unique "buy number," the
target subscriber list that results from the match. When a cable system
receives from an advertising agency, advertiser or licensee a media
purchase order identified by the buy number, the cable system distributes
the appropriate advertising messages to the subscribers of that cable
system as designated in the "buy" by using proprietary software that
decodes the subscribers' binary streams and derives the subscribers'
actual cable account information. Thus, the marketer is able to directly
access the targeted subscribers with the intended programming but is
unable to obtain the targeted subscribers' actual addresses and
information. With interactive systems, each cable subscriber also has a
privacy option of refusing to share his name and other information with
the advertiser. In addition, all cable systems and other carriers
associated with TEA are assigned an identifying number that authorizes
access to the TEA operations center.
The National Directory is also equipped with other security to ensure
complete protection of consumer privacy. For example, in addition to the
encoding of subscriber data, the buy number identifying a particular
target subscriber list is encrypted in such a way that it cannot be
discovered by outside entities when it is transferred to the cable system.
In addition, an independent agency will be selected to monitor TEA's
security processes and will be directed by a governing board to include
representatives of industry trade associations and highly regarded
individuals representing government, education and the private sector.
Furthermore, once fully interactive systems are in place, other
embodiments of the present invention will also be used to provide
additional services as outgrowths of its primary advertising/direct
marketing activity. Rather than just serving as a cable system telephone
company subscriber address database, the TEA Directory and system could
also function to (a) directly fulfill subscriber requests for additional
information from advertisers, networks and local systems; (b) facilitate
cooperative cable system and telephone company marketing while securing
the proprietary nature of individual operator databases; (c) provide
instant polling tallies for news or political organizations or for
national or local elections; or (d) provide instant and actual, rather
than estimated, program and commercial delivery data and ratings; or any
combination thereof.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The above and other objects and advantages of the invention will be
apparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, taken
in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which the reference
characters refer to like parts throughout and in which:
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the overall system of the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the process and relationship logic of the
present invention;
FIG. 3 is a block diagram of one embodiment of the encryption and matching
process of the present invention; and
FIG. 4 is a block diagram of the flow and data management procedures of the
system of the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The system of the present invention, provisionally entitled THE ELECTRONIC
ADDRESS ("TEA.sup.SM "), is to be a national telecommunications marketing
system or service bureau, initially serving advertisers, direct marketers
and the cable industry, and, later, other telecommunications industries.
The TEA system should preferably be funded at least in part by a
consortium of MSOs, major national advertisers and individual investors,
and should preferably be operated as an independent public company. TEA
implements a process to enable qualified data processors to create
targeted advertising "buys" for their clients by matching encrypted cable
subscriber data stored in a national TEA Directory to other marketing
databases, in order to compile a list of specific individual cable
subscribers or households that meet the desired criteria or parameters for
the advertisement of the particular product or service provided by the
client. TEA owns proprietary hardware and software that will implement
this process and has household specific data encryption capabilities.
The TEA National Directory aggregates and updates key cable subscriber
billing data (i.e., names, addresses and, potentially, other information)
from multiple and fragmented cable systems and MSOs, and allows licensees
to match this information with third party data sources, proprietary
surveys and other marketing databases. The subscriber data is aggregated
into the TEA system from among the many cable systems and includes
subscriber names and addresses, subscriber cable account numbers and cable
system identification numbers. As the TEA Directory is compiled, the data
is encoded into binary streams using either a standardized electronic
address or specific binary conversion rules or both, as discussed below.
The encoding of data into the TEA directory allows for standardizing of
subscriber data and thus for matching of advertiser data and/or target
audience models with the TEA National Directory, and provides for security
of subscriber information by facilitating the advertisements being sent
directly to the matched subscribers, while not revealing any identifying
subscriber data before, during or after the match is performed.
In encoding the TEA Directory information, TEA first uses specific
proprietary software to assign a unique encoded identifier in the form of
a standardized "electronic address" to each individual household cable
subscriber record that is to be entered into the TEA Directory in order to
standardize all subscriber records across the nation. These electronic
addresses are in a standardized and uniform format, similar to an area
code and telephone number, each having a cable system identification
number, a geographical area identification number, a subscriber house
account number, a subscriber customer identification number and an
identifier for each television and/or individual in the cable subscriber
home. The electronic address aids in directing the targeted advertisements
to the subscribers that have been identified as the targeted households
for a particular commercial message.
The TEA software also encodes the standardized and uniform electronic
addresses into binary streams using a set of proprietary binary conversion
rules. Alternatively, the ASCII data streams, i.e. the alphanumeric
letters and digits of the information within the individual subscriber
billing records, can be encoded directly into the binary streams using a
different set of proprietary conversion rules. The proprietary binary
conversion rules employ a statistical hash mechanism, such as disclosed in
B. H. Bloom, Space/Time Trade-offs in Hash Coding with Allowable Errors,
Communications of the ACM, Vol. 13, No. 7, July 1970, incorporated herein
by reference. The use of this binary encoding system also precludes
reverse engineering. The TEA software extraction method for multiple
dwelling subscriber units (as opposed to single family dwelling units)
further defines the binary conversion rules such that the binary streams
representing the electronic addresses will result in the most accurate
possible match at that address. The software can define N number of
different conversion rules for N number of different address records in
order to define the subscriber in as much detail as possible and thus
result in a more detailed target audience.
Referring to FIG. 1, each cable system 2 is provided with software that
defines a conversion rule specific to that cable system 2 for that
specific TEA Directory update period. Each cable system is also provided
with a unique corporate identification number and a unique digital
signature 4 that are used to identify that system's binary conversion rule
within the TEA system. The cable systems' conversion rules, corporate
numbers and digital signatures change periodically (as often as monthly)
as the TEA Directory is updated; these conversion rules and signatures,
both those that are active and those that have been used in the past, are
retained in a signature bank 5 in the TEA operations center 1. After
encoding its subscriber information, each cable system 2 sends its
corporate number and digital signature 4 to the TEA operations center 1
along with the binary encoded streams 6 of subscriber information that are
to be entered into the TEA Directory, so that the TEA operations center 1
may verify the source of the information and so that the TEA operations
center 1 will be able to determine the conversion rule that was used to
encode the subscriber information and will thus be able to match that
encoded information with encoded information from the advertiser. Later,
the target subscriber addresses that are returned to the cable system 2
following a match will be in the binary code of that cable system; the
proprietary software provided to the cable system 2 by TEA allows the
cable system to then decode the encoded binary streams and facilitates
sending the advertisement directly to the targeted subscribers. These
binary conversion rules change regularly (at least monthly) and allow for
counting of target subscribers before actual use of the list by an
advertiser, post-advertisement verification of properly directed
advertisements and programming.
Once the cable subscriber records have been altered and encoded in this
manner, demographic, lifestyle and, ultimately, actual viewing behavior
data can be appended to each subscriber record without identifying the
actual subscriber's name and address. This would be done in order to
facilitate precise geographic and demographic targeting of national and
regional advertising campaigns, integrated multimedia campaigns,
cross-system marketing and promotional campaigns, and the aggregation of
settop polling data to generate precise cable viewer ratings.
TEA Directory information is encrypted in the manner described in order to
protect subscriber privacy, so that data stolen from the TEA Directory or
intercepted when being sent either from a cable system to compile the TEA
Directory, to a licensee to perform a match or to a cable system for
directing of an advertisement to subscribers cannot be read and the
information contained within cannot be abused. Through the use of these
special encryption techniques and various other security services that are
monitored by an outside governing board, the TEA database security ensures
complete protection of consumer privacy by preventing unauthorized access
to the TEA Directory by outside entities. The process of TEA encoding and
data encryption represents a complex technical undertaking, because
precise engineering and software requirements must be carefully developed
in parallel with participating MSOs in order to ensure interface and
encryption capability and standardized data formats. In addition, the
actual process of encryption/decryption will be seamless, user-friendly
and easily accessible by the participating advertisers and agencies, cable
systems and representative firms, regional interconnects, advertising
traffic, service bureaus and delivery systems so that direct marketing
using the TEA system and this invention can be facilitated.
After the information in the TEA Directory has been aggregated,
standardized using unique electronic addresses and encoded using binary
conversion rules, the TEA system is utilized to provide micromarketing and
direct marketing for advertising agencies that desire to market their
clients' products or services to a very specific group of individuals or
households based on particular cable subscriber information. In order to
facilitate the large number of processing requests that will be made by
direct marketers and advertising entities, TEA may optionally license
access to its Directory (for restricted purposes) only to qualified data
processing companies. Typically, an advertising agency will use a TEA
licensee to provide access to the TEA Directory, operations center and,
thereby, to the details of the cable subscribers required for the
advertising campaign. An advertising entity that itself has data
processing capabilities can also be a TEA licensee and can thus bypass use
of a separate service bureau. A company that licenses use of the TEA
Directory will be required to pay either an annual license fee or a use
fee. In return, the licensee will receive access to the TEA Directory and
software that will allow it to binary encode its client's database or a
modeled profile of its client's target audience and to match the Directory
of TEA cable subscribing homes with its client's database or modeled
audience profile.
The unique electronic address encoding and the proprietary binary
conversion rules for encoding the TEA Directory information will be
changed periodically (at least monthly) with every update of TEA's
Directory so as to prevent the Directory from being used by a licensee
beyond the term of its license. The licensees that qualify to use the TEA
Directory, i.e., companies and advertisers using the TEA Directory for
advertising and direct marketing, often called Service Bureaus, will be
capable of enriching, and will be authorized to enrich, the information
within the Directory through third party demographics sources, local
surveys, pay-per-view subscribers (called "video on demand") information,
home shopping transactions, viewer program ratings, data requests and
other cable usage information.
In the typical situation involving an embodiment of this invention, as
shown in FIGS. 1-3, the licensee 8 possesses proprietary software 10 that
enables it to choose from the TEA Directory a specific audience to be
targeted with an advertiser's commercial messages or programming. The
advertising agency's client, the advertiser, first requests that the
agency 12 advertise certain of the advertiser's products or services to a
particular focused group of cable subscribers. Different advertiser
requirements will dictate variations in the techniques used by the
advertising agency 12, through a TEA service bureau or data processing
licensee 8, to identify prospective customers from among the TEA Directory
of cable subscribers. Generally, the ability to standardize addresses,
match names and addresses, overlay third-party sources, perform geographic
mapping functions and, in many cases, provide database modeling will be
essential. In addition, data files containing cable system boundaries,
street and business locations, and latitude/longitude coordinates will be
required.
Identification of a prototype target audience might involve a multi-step
process. In the first step, the advertising agency 12 defines the basic
targeting needs of the client. For example, is the target restricted to a
particular geographical area? Is the target to be existing customers only?
Is the target to be potential customers only, based upon some preselected
criteria such as demonstration and category of use? In the second step,
the advertiser identifies the trading area of key retail and service
providers where relevant. Where available, the advertisers would submit a
current customer list with addresses or would purchase from third party
data sources or from the key retail and service providers customer lists
14 for products or services that are so related to the product or service
to be advertised such that the customers on those lists 14 would most
likely be considered potential customers of the client. In addition, the
advertisers could submit a profile of current customers so that a target
audience profile can be formulated and so that the TEA database can be
modeled to identify similar target prospects for the direct marketing. In
the third step, after having identified the client's specific needs, the
TEA licensee 8 prepares a blind "pre-buy" summary that allows the
prospective client to evaluate and quantify the planned campaign. To
prepare this pre-buy summary, the licensee 8 uses TEA software 10 to
binary encode its third party data 14 and then to match this encoded data
with the TEA Directory in order to identify the actual electronic
addresses of cable subscribers to whom the particular advertising or
programming is to be directed.
Encryption of a client's customer database is done using the same binary
conversion rules that were used by the cable systems 2 to binary encode
their cable subscriber information in creating or updating the TEA
Directory. The TEA operations center 1 provides the TEA licensee 8 with
digital signatures 16 to identify the conversion rules used by each cable
system within the market areas encompassed by the client's customer
database so that the licensee 8 may binary encode its client's customer
data using those same conversion rules. However, TEA will not disclose to
licensees 8 which conversion rules were used by which cable systems 2 to
encode their data. Instead, in order to allow the cable systems 2 and the
TEA licensees 8 to refer to the same binary conversion rules while
preserving the confidentiality of the encoded data, TEA maintains a
computerized database within the TEA operations center 1 called the
Relational Signature Database ("RSDB") 18 in order to internally
cross-reference the digital signatures 4 used by the cable systems during
the different TEA Directory update periods and the digital signatures 16
used by the licensees 8 in encoding their databases. Then, TEA uses the
corporate number of each cable system whose market areas encompass the
customers on the client's customer database and, by cross-referencing the
digital signature 4 used by each cable system during each of the different
TEA Directory update periods with the signature information in the RSDB
18, derives the corresponding digital signatures 16 to be provided to the
licensee 8 for use in binary encoding its client's database.
After the licensees have converted their own clients' data to a binary
encoded format using TEA software, they will then match their files to the
binary encoded streams in the TEA Directory, again using TEA software 10.
This encryption technique continues to guarantee the privacy of the
subscribers on the TEA Directory. After the match is completed, each TEA
licensee 8 can provide its client with a target listing 20 of the cable
systems to be targeted. The TEA licensee will first assign a "buy number"
22 associated with the potential cable advertising "buy," i.e., the result
20 of the match between the TEA Directory and the customer list or
parameters given by the client. The licensee 8 will then pass the "pending
buy" data 20 along to TEA, which will retain this data in its pending buy
files 26 within the TEA operations center in the form of a sequence number
24 for each cable system according to the month and year (using the YYMM
method for year/month) of the cable subscriber data supplied.
The TEA licensee 8 will communicate back to the client the pending buy file
number 22 and a summary of the number of addresses to be targeted. This
transmission of the pending buy number 22 could also involve encryption of
the pending buy number using a traditional public/private key method or a
session key method to ensure the privacy of the pending buy information
20. If the client decides to target advertise or direct market using the
TEA pending buy, the advertiser will use that pending buy number during
communications with its agency 12 (and/or cable representative firm) or
the licensee 8, which will relay the file number to the actual cable
systems upon making the "buy." Each pending buy file 26 will be accessible
only by the cable entities with market regions that encompass subscribers
whose electronic addresses are targeted within the pending buy 26. A cable
system 2 will be unable to access an electronic address pending buy file
26 unless it has received a media insertion order referencing a TEA
pending buy number 22 from the client or the advertising agency 12.
Moreover, access to the TEA operations center 1 by each cable system 2
will be electronic, requiring an identifying PIN (personal identification
number) or a digital signature in order to access a pending buy file with
its specified electronic addresses. In addition, each buy number 22 and
its corresponding pending buy file 26 remain encoded, requiring the cable
system 2 to decode them with binary conversion rules using proprietary TEA
decoding software 28. When a cable system 2 accesses the pending buy file
using its PIN, the TEA software 28 will convert the encoded binary streams
or electronic addresses 20 within the pending buy file 26 into traditional
customer account numbers "on the fly" at the cable system 2. In turn, each
cable operator's file of account numbers to be targeted will be directed
by the cable operator's insertion ad server for household delivery based
upon controller scheduling software. Proof of delivery of the
advertisements or programming will be performed not by TEA but rather by
the cable system's own scheduling log of homes and of messages delivered.
By virtue of this system, advertisers and their clients can verify
delivery of the directed advertisements and programming.
Once interactive cable systems are in place, viewers may interface with the
cable medium in order to provide responses or interaction where
appropriate. Responses from interactive programming/advertising will be
captured on a file server, providing an account number associated with the
buy file number that was originally provided, thus enabling advertiser
response analysis. An interacting subscriber who desires privacy in his
communications may opt only to receive advertiser information, i.e., to
interact with the carrier without having his name, responses or other
household-specific information revealed to the advertiser or programmer.
Subscriber responses to TEA-placed advertisements are provided on-line or
in batch mode to TEA. TEA then sends two lists to its licensees for
fulfilment: one list of respondees to targeted advertisements (identified
by a buy number) who desire product information fulfillment and a second
list of respondees who desire only one-time information fulfillment with
their privacy preserved.
Consumer and government concerns regarding privacy of information and
security of data present a formidable barrier to the cable industry's
ability to seize a large share of direct marketing revenue. Increased
federal scrutiny of cable rates and tiering strategies may also pose
special problems for the cable industry over the upcoming years. In
addition, many existing cable franchise agreements prohibit the use of
subscriber data for any purposes other than for billing or for
service-related communications, thus preventing its use for outside direct
marketing purposes. The various TEA Directory security processes would
directly address all of these issues and would represent a preemptive move
by the cable industry that could potentially eliminate new regulatory and
public relations problems in the future. First, the TEA Directory security
would virtually guarantee the security of subscriber data by effectively
buffering information in such a way so that identifying subscriber data
cannot be released to outside entities and, in effect, will always remain
within the province of its respective MSO. In addition, encryption of TEA
database information provides security against the release or proprietary
subscriber data. The TEA system also provides reliable mechanisms to
enable subscribers to voluntarily block the release to advertisers of
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