The present invention relates generally to electronic commerce (“e-commerce”) systems and media platforms which may be either mobile or non-mobile (eg. PCs, etc.) to assist in and become part of a marketing network, as well as their use in conjunction with a social communications network to permit individuals and groups (“Participants”) to interactively participate in virtual advertising and promotion. More specifically, the present invention relates to virtual advertising and promotion via the use of electronic coupons, and more particularly a method and system for creating, deploying, transferring, clearing, managing, redeeming and reporting on the use of electronic coupons, rewards or virtual electronic rebates (“VeeBates”) over electronic networks. In this context, a coupon is any ticket or document, whether in tangible, electronic or virtual format, that can be exchanged for a financial discount, rebate or other similar benefit when purchasing a product or undertaking a requested or “pushed” activity and/or obtained (“pulled”) in order to receive a benefit.
The present invention also relates to the obtaining and use of information about actions taken by Participants to permit targeted VeeBates. The present invention further relates to the transfer and/or resale, auction and/or the barter of VeeBates between Participants and the use of VeeBates to permit other persons to become Participants.
The present invention also relates to the use of VeeBates individually and/or within a social network environment, including, but not limited to their use as virtual funds, divisible funds, charitable donations, group common interest aggregation funds, alternate currency funds and transferable virtual assets. Within the social network environment, VeeBates can also be used as direct and indirect motivational elements by permitting others within the social network environment to be advised as to what one of the members is doing or has done and the resultant effect. Thus, members can be told that another has received a VeeBate for having purchased something (or been “pushed” to purchase or do something) and that they can similarly participate. This can further be enhanced by the use of social network “influencers” who are individuals who are followed by others within a social network and whose actions, activities and comments carry weight and cause others to follow and often emulate what the “influencers” do.
In a traditional retail marketing situation, a coupon is a advertisement based promotion, usually in a paper form, that can be exchanged for a financial discount or rebate when purchasing a product or service. C W Post first introduced the concept of a coupon in the United States in 1909 in conjunction with the sale of breakfast cereals and other products. It was designed to help promote the sale of the particular product and often also promote the sale of related products from the same manufacturer.
Coupons are often widely distributed through mail, magazines, newspapers and the Internet and are designed to be redeemed at a retail establishment when the goods or services to which they relate are purchased. Customarily, coupons are issued by manufacturers of consumer packaged goods or by retailers, to be used in retail stores as a part of sales promotions.
Various sales promotion mechanisms exist like prizes, contest, sweepstakes, rewards, games, free samples, product warranties, tie-in promotions, loyalty points, cross-sell, up-sell, premium, memberships, card discounts and gift certificates. These have been used for a long time, to retain loyal customers, increase the repurchase rate of occasional items, attract new buyers, manage inventory and gain market. We refer to all these mechanisms and others, such as instant discount which is similar to haggling or negotiations in the real world, as “coupons” in this invention.
With the advent of Internet shopping, the electronic equivalent of coupons have also come into existence. Internet coupons have become very popular as of late, because the cost is borne by the user (who has to print the coupons themselves) rather than the businesses issuing the coupons. There are generally three types of models that are currently possible (although others which may become operative later are within the scope of this invention):
(a) coupons that are issued at an e-commerce site and redeemed at a physical store;
(b) those issued and redeemed at a single e-commerce site; and,
(c) others that are issued at one e-commerce site and redeemed at another e-commerce site.
The most general electronic coupon generation, presentation, redemption and clearing system should allow a consumer to collect electronic coupons while doing online shopping, or otherwise visiting an e-commerce site, from various e-commerce sites and redeem these coupons online at any e-commerce site or physical store, satisfying the purchase conditions of the offer. The clearing between the issuing and redeeming e-commerce sites should also be electronic, whether off-line or online. The issuing e-commerce site is commonly referred to as the manufacturer and the redeeming e-commerce site is referred to as the retailer.
However, there can also be different classes of coupons based upon the identity issuing authority (i.e. manufacturer or retailer), whether the coupon is targeted to a set of potential customers or untargeted, and whether the number of coupons to be distributed is limited or unlimited. The various classes of coupons serve different purposes. For example, coupons issued by a manufacturer to a group of loyal customers in limited numbers could be intended to retain those loyal customers. Coupons issued by a manufacturer in untargeted mass distribution could be intended to attract buyers for a new product, and coupons issued by a retailer in untargeted limited distribution could be intended to attract customers to a retail outlet.
Normally, when a manufacturer or a retailer issues coupons on a product or a service, a coupon is expected to be used only for that product or service. To save coupon creation and management costs, or to attract new buyers, a manufacturer or retailer may decide to honor the coupons issued by another party. This is referred to as cross-coupon honoring.
In a generic form, electronic coupon systems must allow a buyer to collect electronic coupons while doing on-line shopping (or otherwise visiting an e-commerce site) from various e-commerce sites, and to redeem these coupons on-line at any e-commerce site or physical store, satisfying the purchase conditions of the offer.
Currently, there are several categories of coupon providers within the market. Loyalty coupon providers are usually reliant on others within the value chain and are heavily anchored to online malls, where the transactions are seen at or near real time. They are unable to view offline or in-store offers without being associated with an issuing bank or other institution. Although they might want to provide in-store merchant benefits, they are generally not capable of doing so and are only capable of offers that are a flat percentage. Examples of such entities are Edo Interactive, Cardlytics and Vesdia.
Another category of coupon providers are those who provide mobile coupons to consumers. These mobile coupon providers generally work with a manufacturer or retailer to send location based offers. They are concerned only with the delivery of the offer and not its redemption. Thus, these mobile coupon providers send off-line, merchant funded offers and provide downloadable applications to the mobile devices. However, they rely on bar coded delivery, thus forcing point of sale (“POS”) revisions, either by manual entry of the coupon specifics or a change in the hardware or software at the POS. Examples of such entities are Cellfire, HipCricket and Yowza.
Internet sites have coupons that can be used on line. Examples of companies which provided on line coupons include Cool savings (www.coolsavings.com), E-centives (www.ecentives.com) and Catalina Marketing International, Inc. (www.catalina-marketing.com). Several patents have been issued (e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,761,648; 6,321,208; and 6,584,448). These companies and others provide the capability of targeting and delivering on line print-at-home coupons, or coupons that are printed in-store, to motivate in-store sales. On line retailers usually refer to Internet coupons as “coupon codes,” “promotional codes,” “promotion codes,” “discount codes,” “key codes,” “promo codes,” “shopping codes,” “voucher codes” or “source codes.” Internet coupons typically provide for reduced or no cost shipping, a specific dollar or percentage discount, or some other special offer to encourage reward member 1s to purchase specific products or to purchase from specific retailers.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20060194569 discloses a process for delivering electronic coupons over a wireless network. A wireless network enables user registration, during which the user provides profile information, such as user name and address, etc, to an administration of the wireless network, such as at a Wifi hot spot location, the wireless network then associates, the user with his/her profile information submitted during registration. The profile information is used to identify targeted or personalized electronic coupons for the user, and those targeted electronic coupons are transmitted to the user over the wireless network. The user selects one or more of the targeted electronic coupons, and transmits this selection over the wireless network to a dedicated server, which transmits a request to the user, who then inputs a code, such as a mobile telephone number or an access code for a PDA, associated with the mobile communication device then being used by the user. Upon receipt of this code, the server within the wireless network, then transmits information associated with the selected electronic coupons to the mobile communication device associated with the inputted code. Such information, such as a unique coupon code and/or information summarizing the coupon and the goods or services to which it relates is sufficient to enable a store to clear the selected coupons during an in-store checkout procedure. However, the retailer continues to be intimately involved in the redemption and clearing process, thereby increasing the error factor and cost to the retailer. It may also result in customer dissatisfaction in the event that the retail employee does not properly input data or otherwise causes the clearing to be delayed.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,993,326, to Link et al discloses a method for transmitting advertisement coupons associated with respective advertisers over a wireless network to wireless communications devices. The wireless network is in communication with an advertisements database including advertisement coupons and a user database including identification data of wireless communications device operating in the wireless network. Advertisement coupons to be transmitted to the wireless communications device are stored in a pending database and an advertisement coupon is transmitted over a reverse control channel. The transmitted advertisement coupon is from an account associated with the respective advertiser sponsoring the advertisement coupon, or may be from a storage database containing such coupons.
Traditional distributors of coupons are similarly turning to electronic marketing to permit reward member 1s to access a data base and obtain coupons or “electronic certificates” over online networks. In particular, News America Marketing Properties has found that consumers are gaining direct access to data bases for information and entertainment, whether through phone lines and coaxial cable or by wireless connections from cell systems and satellites. With this so-called “online” access, consumers can use data bases for a range of activities at virtually any time. Besides granting freedom to the consumer, online access gives added efficiencies to companies merchandising products and services, whether those products are sold directly to the consumer by mail or in a store.
At the same time, various types of transactions are currently consummated using certificates such as coupons, tickets, etc. These certificates typically contain transaction data describing the particular transaction (e.g., in the case of a coupon, the transaction data would include a product description, the coupon amount, and the expiration date). These certificates also typically contain identification data such as various numbers, letters, barcodes or other symbols sufficient to uniquely identify each certificate.
As noted by Frost & Sullivan in its December 2009 report entitled When Mobile Coupons Replace Paper Coupons, Everybody Wins:                 “Mobile coupons are the next step in the evolution of the coupon industry. They present new opportunities for the mass distribution of promotional messages to a large number of reward member 1s. Some of the drivers of mobile coupon solutions are as follows:                    Solving the portability problem of paper and Internet coupons consumers always have their mobile phones with them            Presentation of relevant, personalized offers to reward member 1s            Extremely low cost of campaign            Pervasiveness of text messaging                        Some possible implementations of mobile coupon solutions are as follows:                    Unique numerical coupon codes downloaded and managed by dedicated applications on mobile handsets.            Barcodes downloaded to the handset in different formats and read at the POS by capable readers. Interestingly, the reader itself could be a camera-equipped mobile hone.            Special numbers or UPCs downloaded to the handset and redeemed by the visual or electronic confirmation of the coupon code.            Directional coupons—these are special uniform resource locators (URLs) embedded in barcodes, distributed either in print or available on the packaging of products. They are scanned by camera-equipped mobile phones that also have a software client to decode the information. The URL is then used by the web browser in the mobile phone to establish a connection to a relevant website (or to the premium mobile content itself, if available at a discount).            The use of near field communications (NFC) RFID chips in a phone, so that a promotional coupon can be “read” by the phone and then used at the store. This is not expected to happen until retailers install NFC readers in retail outlets.                        One of the most significant challenges for barcode-based mobile coupon solutions is the implementation of new scanning hardware at the retail POS. Such hardware is expensive to install; moreover, the lack of volume has not yet been able to justify the investments in such solutions. This has been a major cause for the limited adoption of mobile coupons at the retail POS. Successful mobile coupon solutions should require little or no change at the retail end for maximum adoption.”        
New America has determined that there was a need for creation of an online “electronic certificate” that can be used for promotional or transactional purposes, much as coupons have been used in such traditional marketing vehicles as newspapers and mail packs. Beyond offering a discount as an incentive to buy a feature product, the coupon is also currency, printed in quantities limited by the issuer and often carrying unique serial numbers, expiration dates and “source codes” which indicate the means by which it was distributed (e.g. newspaper, mail list, in-store dispenser, etc.), so issuers can track the effectiveness of each marketing medium.
Known coupon dispensing systems, for example, fail to interactively communicate between a service center and a third party, as pointed out in U.S. Pat. No. 5,303,197 to Axler. While the Axler patent permits an operator to periodically “visit” a dispensing machine, this does not allow “real time” interactivity (e.g., it does not permit the operator to access and analyze demographical data contemporaneous with its input). Nor does Axler envision the creation of an online “electronic certificate” and system for incentive and consumer matching through the retailer sales log and a card issuer transaction log, with concomitant consumer reward application and social communication, as is contemplated and disclosed by one aspect of the current invention and as will be described as an example below.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,401,032 shows a data processing system and method which seeks to emulate the attributes of a coupon over an online network (i.e., an “electronic coupon” is created). The direct access to consumers provides issuers a greater degree of control in targeting the offer, restricting its use and tracking both the selection and redemption process and makes it possible for service providers, such as restaurants and hotels, to use an online electronic certificate as a promotional means and a way to lower overhead in providing such transactions as dining, travel and ticket reservations. However, the system requires the consumer to access and select the coupon, in much the same way as they would select coupons from a newspaper or magazine. This continues to result in the creation of ads and coupons that may be of no significance or use to consumer or which may not be effectively accessed by the consumer at the time they are needed or wanted (e.g. during the redemption process). Moreover, such coupons continue to include the redeeming entity (usually the retail store, hotel or restaurant, by way of example) in the verification and redemption stream and require it incur the overhead, albeit somewhat reduced, of reclaiming the coupons.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,420,606 to Begum et al. for “Instant Electronic Coupon Verification System” describes an instant electronic coupon verification system for a single physical store, where the store provides shoppers with an electronic device to view, select and store from a plurality of coupons and later redeem the coupon on reaching a checkout counter, based on items purchased. This is also limited only to physical stores and does not talk about any targeted coupon distribution.
The effectiveness of coupons can be greatly improved by targeting a specific profile of customers for coupons of specific products. Among targeted coupons, U.S. Pat. No. 5,502,636 to Clarke for “Personalized Coupon Generating and Processing System” proposes a personalized coupon generating and processing system which identifies a group of consumers, that are likely to be responsive to coupons of predefined products and then distribute the coupons.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,909,673 to Gregory for “Method and System for Creating Site Specific Coupons at a Plurality of Remote Locations Which are Controlled by a Central Office” proposes a central server connected to multiple remote sites to allow the retailers to be able to customize discounts and coupon details according to the particular store location. A general coupon template is loaded onto the central server alone, with site specific information to be printed on each coupon. A particular remote processing station at a remote site can call in to the central server and download the general coupon template and the site specific information for that particular site. The remote processing station then combines the template with the site specific information and prints the site specific coupon. These inventions describe mechanisms only for generation of targeted coupons, without any mention of online coupon redemption, verification and clearing.
Recent wireless couponing techniques and processes are reflected in U.S. Pat. No. 7,308,254 to Rissanen for “Wireless Electronic Couponing Technique” and U.S. Pat. No. 7,640,183 to Burns for “Electronic Coupon Processing System”. The former describes a methodology comprising and supporting wireless coupons that may be downloaded, viewed, credited (used) in electronic format throughout their distribution life cycle. The coupons are stored, carried and used in a wireless mobile terminal such as a mobile phone. The electronic coupons may be delivered to the terminal by methods including: downloading to the terminal from the Internet; pushing to the terminal by e-mail-type messages; downloading to the terminal by a short-range radio link such as Bluetooth; or scanning from a printed paper by using a (built in or external) scanner in a mobile terminal, or via an infrared link or by other methods. They may also be downloaded from a wireless LAN connection.
The patent indicates that an important distinction from previous Internet coupons and print coupons is the fact that the coupon files are stored in the memory of the mobile terminal, or a coupon ID number string is stored in the mobile terminal and the visual representation may be downloaded separately from a network server as needed or when excess bandwidth capacity exists. Thus, the coupon files are easily carried by the consumer at all times, and are readily available as the need rises (like when visiting a retail store, a restaurant, gas station, etc.). During a visit to a retail outlet, the consumer takes out his/her mobile terminal, initiates a coupon match sequence that compares the coupon files stored in the terminal with the promotions effective at the retail outlet. If a match is found, i.e., the consumer, carries an electronic coupon that justifies a discount, the point of sale (POS) terminal calculates a discount to the prices of the goods to be purchased, or grants other specified benefits to the coupon bearer. The mobile terminal and the POS terminal may exchange the electronic coupon information in the following ways: a wireless digital short-range radio link such as Bluetooth, via an infrared data link, or via bar code scanning by the POS terminal from the mobile terminal display.
The second identified patent describes a coupon database containing coupon information that is associated with a specific consumer. This coupon database is operated in conjunction with a system for recording information concerning products that are purchased by a consumer at a particular store. Using the new generation of bar code scanning registers, the information from the register system is reconciled with information from the coupon database, in order to give the particular consumer credit for coupons that are attributed to his or her account. The coupon database is subsequently updated to reflect the transactions and the discounts given to the consumer. The consumer information, including both the information relating to coupons and the information relating to products purchased, can be added to a database for marketing analysis. This consumer information would be associated with a particular consumer. The compilation of this information for various reward members at any store provides invaluable data that can be used to improve products or marketed independently. The information generated for each consumer at the register when the consumer makes his or her purchases and the coupon database reconciliation is then be forwarded electronically to the manufacturers for rebates to the vendor. In use, a particular consumer “clips” or acquires coupons and brings them in to a particular store for scanning or other means of entry into the coupon database. The coupon data entry can be performed by the consumer or by the store. See also: U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0307067 to Obermeyer for “Location Based Coupon Delivery System”.
Various methods and systems have been proposed for electronic coupon generation, management and redemption at a single e-commerce site. U.S. Pat. No. 5,894,520 to Nielsen for “Method and System for Regulating Discounts on Merchandise Distributed Through Networked Computer Systems” describes a method and a system for regulating discounts on merchandise, at a vendor location, through networked computer systems. The system includes a user computer and a vendor computer connected via a network when a user purchases merchandise, the vendor issues an encrypted discount coupon for repurchase of the merchandise. When user desires to repurchase the merchandise, user sends a request to the vendor along with the encrypted coupon. The vendor verifies the coupon and gives the discount. An earlier paper by the authors (M. Kumar, A. Rangachari, A. Jhingran, and R. Mohan, “Sales Promotions on the Internet”, Third USENIX Workshop on Electronic Commerce, Boston, 31 Aug. 3 Sep. 1998, pp. 167 176) describes a form of sales promotion for online merchants called e-coupons. A buyer need not print e-coupons as they can be captured electronically in an electronic coupon-wallet, and later redeemed electronically on the same on-line store. They solve the issue of targeted, limited online distribution and redemption of electronic coupons at a single online store, but it is not clear how they can handle coupons issued by a manufacturer which may get redeemed at any online store, nor does it disclose any redemption process which by-passes the traditional active involvement of the retailer or permits issuer based redemption in a matched offer context.
Consumer online activity may also be tracked to permit offers to be presented to the consumer. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0216579 to Zen for “Tracking On-Line Advertising Using Payment Services” discusses a system wherein using a payment service is used to identify completion of activities associated with offers extended to users through online advertising. Online activity of a user is tracked, and offers associated with advertisements presented to the user are identified. The offers generally include rebates, and/or incentives extended to the user in exchange for the user performing a desired activity, such as purchasing an advertiser's product or service. Information regarding the offer (and, in some cases, the online activity generally) is stored. Additionally, information regarding the offer is communicated to a payment service that facilitates payment using payment cards, such as credit cards and debit cards, for instance, or other payment mechanisms. Through transactions performed by the user using the user's payment card or other payment mechanism, the payment service identifies when the user has performed the activity associated with the offer. In some embodiments, information regarding completion of the activity is associated with the information regarding the offer and/or the user's online activities. Additionally, in some embodiments, the rebate and/or incentive for the offer is provided to the user based on completion of the desired activity. See also: U.S. Patent Application No. 2009/0287558 to Seth for “Electronic Coupon Tracking”.
Several centralized service provider based systems have also been proposed for giving merchandise discounts. These systems do not issue any coupons to the customer, but just offer various discounts when the customer visits the retailer store for shopping. U.S. Pat. No. 5,185,695 to Pruchnicki for “Method and System for Handling Discount Coupons by Using Centrally Stored Manufacturer Coupons in Place of Paper Coupons” describes a method and system for handling discount coupons by using centrally stored manufacturer coupons in place of paper coupons, to save costs of printing and distributing and clearing paper coupons. The method and apparatus includes a central processor that receives information of product type, validation period and coupon value from manufacturers and produces a central coupon list of available coupon discounts. The central list is transmitted to retailers who produces a local coupon list based on the central list containing only those manufacturers and product type which the retailer holds for sale. The customer buys a product and as the product is moved through the checkout station, coupon discount, if any applicable, is deducted from the retail price. The central processor directly bills the manufacturer or transfers funds.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,924,080 to Johnson for “Computerized Discount Redemption System” describes a similar method of giving merchandise discounts by using a membership system comprising of a centralized system provider, multiple manufacturers, multiple merchants and multiple customers. But none of these systems are doing any targeted discounts; they are just giving discounts on the customer purchases without issuing any coupons to the customer at all, hence they do not describe any coupon distribution, redemption or verification mechanisms.
Another mechanism of giving merchandise discounts is in the form of transaction points. U.S. Pat. No. 5,923,016 to Fredregill et al. for “In-Store Points Redemption System & Method” describes a computer implemented consumer transaction point accumulation system in which a consumer earns and accumulates points immediately for immediate use during transactions at participating retailer outlets, wherein at each transaction, a customer's identification number is transmitted to a central system which stores customer records including a customer balances of points accumulated to date. This does no targeting and is only limited to one form of coupons i.e. transaction points and is not a solution for a generic coupon that can be in the form of price-packs, cross-selling, gift certificates, and the like, nor does it do any redemption which reduces the retailer involvement in the redemption or verification process
An e-commerce site, www.planetu.com, provides targeted offers that the reward member 1 has the opportunity to select. After selecting their offers online, consumers receive them either by mail or redeem them at supermarkets with modem point-of-sale systems by swiping their frequent shopper card, the offers being automatically deducted at the point of sale. This system does targeted coupon distribution, but coupons can be redeemed only at physical retail shop, thus continuing to involve the retailer in the redemption, verification and crediting process. Besides, it requires the reward member 1s to have a frequent shopper membership and the central server to maintain all coupon and reward member 1 selection details.
Smart-card based coupon management and redemption systems have also been proposed such as U.S. Pat. No. 5,727,153 to Powell for “Retail Store Having a System of Receiving Electronic Coupon Information from a Portable Card and Sending the Received Coupon Information to Other Portable Cards” for single physical retail store, U.S. Pat. No. 5,905,246 to Fajkowski for “Method and Apparatus for Coupon Management and Redemption”, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,380,991 to Valencia et al. for “Paperless Coupon Redemption System and Method Thereof” for targeted merchandise price markdown. The limitation of these systems is that they only talk about physical stores and the user has to carry a smart card.
An electronic coupon issuing, redemption, verification and clearing system, was proposed in the U.S. Pat. No. 5,855,007 to Jovicic et al. for “Electronic Coupon Communication System”. This system comprises a first Internet node, an Internet coupon server and an Internet coupon notification center. The Internet coupon server generates a unique Internet coupon using a coupon generation process. The Internet coupon server accepts an on-line selection of one of the available unique Internet coupons from a user of the Internet node and transmits the coupon back to the user's printing device or e-mail storage. It then records the transaction in its coupon database and notifies the transaction to the Internet Coupon Notification Center. The Internet Coupon Notification Center subsequently records the transaction. Furthermore, a coupon redemption center can electronically verify coupon validity and record coupon redemption by communicating with the Internet Coupon Notification Center. It handles online targeting, generation, redemption and verification of electronic coupons between a manufacturer and a plurality of retailers, but it is not clear how it handles frauds such as a customer or a retailer colluding with the Notification Center or coupons from a plurality of manufacturers.
Systems are proposed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0265228 to Sterling for “Point of Sale Coupon System and Methods” which can enable merchants and issuers of credit cards or other payment devices to cooperate in offering incentives to consumers. For example, a consumer who uses a particular credit card at a particular merchant may be offered a coupon, discount, or other kind of incentive to be applied to a future purchase made with the same card at the same merchant. The issuer and merchant may participate in such a system in order to encourage reward consumers to repeatedly use the issuer's card and to repeatedly patronize the merchant. In accordance with embodiments of the invention, consumer is given the opportunity to accept or decline the offer. The merchant, issuer, or both, may track the acceptance rate of the offers for marketing purposes, for example to learn which kinds of offers are most often accepted and therefore may be most effective at generating repeat patronage. Also, offers that are declined need not be considered future obligations on the part of the offeror. Conveniently, the offer is presented to the consumer on a display screen of a content-capable point of sale device, and the consumer's indication of acceptance or decline of the offer is read using the point of sale device.
Similarly, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0254428 to Sterling for “Systems and Methods for Delivering Advertising Content to Point of Sale Devices” discusses a system for delivering content to a user is disclosed. The system may include a point of sale device, a wide area network, and a payment processing system. The point of sale device may be configured to receive information regarding a transaction, and communicate content to the user. The wide area network may be in communication with the point of sale device. The payment processing system may be in communication with the wide area network, and may be configured to receive the information regarding the transaction, determine advertising content based at least in part on the information, and transmit the determined advertising content to the point of sale device.
There are presently in excess of over one billion global mobile subscribers and over 100 million mobile data subscribers. Subscribers having multimedia messaging services (MMS) equipped mobile terminals such as smart phones, phone enabled PDA's, and phone enabled pocket PC's (mobile terminal) can access the Internet via various wireless protocols (e.g. wireless access protocol (WAP), i-Mode, etc.) to download data (“content”) from websites. Content includes text, audio and still and video images. MMS is an extension to short message service (SMS) protocol, and it defines a way to send and receive wireless content.
Many of these terminals are able to download and display streaming video over various “third generation” (3G) GSM (global system for mobile communications) based high speed data networks (e.g. “EDGE”—Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution, “EV-DO”—Evolution Data Optimized, “UMTS”/“W-CDMA”—Universal Mobile Telecommunications System/Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) Subscribers are charged for the quantity of content downloaded, the time spent downloading the content, or a flat monthly fee. Fourth generation devices are rapidly making inroads into the bandwidth and have increased the functionality of what can be accomplished with a mobile device.
Bluetooth is a standard Wireless (short range radio link) technology that operates in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz ISM band and which allows users to make connections between like enabled mobile terminals and computers. It is a global standard that is supported by leaders in telecommunications and reward member 1 electronics. According to Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) over 1 million enabled devices ship each week, and SIC estimates that as of 2007 nearly 50% of all mobile phones in the United States were Bluetooth enabled.
Competition between wireless service providers is fierce. Service providers compete on points of differentiation, including terminal variety, applications, “coverage” (the cellular geographic service area—CGSA) and price, both of the terminal itself and calling plans. To provide differentiation and to enhance the user experience, service providers enter into agreements with Internet service providers to enhance the subscriber's mobile Internet experience. Service providers and Internet service providers can earn money for advertising presented during a wireless Internet session, and advertisers may motivate someone to buy their product/service, build brand awareness, etc. However, consumers are not always on the Internet and often are in situations where an advertiser would wish to attract consumers to their product, build brand identity, and make sales. For example, persons in malls are often there to spend money, but may not be aware of a sale in a particular department store. Visual advertising, at eye level, promoting a sale at a store in the mall may catch the eye of a shopper while standing in line waiting to make a purchase. Sandwich board advertising was the location-based advertising of yesteryear. Today, service providers using various location-based technologies, handset centric (e.g. global positioning system (GPS), cell of origin (COO)) and network technologies (e.g. time of arrival (TOA)) to deliver information (i.e. advertising) to mobile terminal users that is relevant to the user's location (e.g. nearest ATM to subscriber). The newly informed person may go to the store advertised and make a purchase.
Location based advertisement and promotion, along with the use of data both obtained and derived there from is suggested in U.S. Pat. No. 7,668,832 to Yeh, et al. for “Determining and/or Using Location Information in an Ad System”. The patent recites that the usefulness, and consequently the performance, of advertisements are improved by allowing businesses to better target their ads to a responsive audience. Location information is determined (or simply accepted) and used. For example, location information may be used in a relevancy determination of an ad. As another example, location information may be used in an attribute (e.g., position) arbitration. Such location information may be associated with price information, such as a maximum price bid. Such location information may be associated with ad performance information. Ad performance information may be tracked on the basis of location information. The content of an ad creative, and/or of a landing page may be selected and/or modified using location information. Finally, tools, such as user interfaces, may be provided to allow a business to enter and/or modify location information, such as location information used for targeting and location-dependent price information. The location information used to target and/or score ads may be, include, or define an area. The area may be defined by at least one geographic reference point (e.g., defined by latitude and longitude coordinates) and perhaps additional information.
Similarly, wireless and mobile technology is being suggested to enhance the customer experience and provide targeted advertising over wireless communication networks. U.S. Pat. No. 7,580,699 to Shaw for “Network Systems and Methods Utilizing Mobile Devices to Enhance Consumer Experience” discusses a method for providing and accessing membership accounts via a mobile device. The method includes sending a member identification request to a mobile device upon the mobile device being detected by a network. If a member identification is stored in a memory of the mobile device, the mobile device generates and sends a Member identification response including the member identification. Upon receipt of the member identification, the member identification is authenticated and the mobile device user is authorized to access a membership account associated with the member identification. If, however, no member identification is stored in the memory of the mobile device, the mobile device generates and sends a new member identification request requesting that a new member identification be issued for the requesting customer. Upon receipt of the new member identification request, a new member identification is generated and sent to the mobile device for storage in the mobile device memory. The mobile device user is then authorized to access a membership account associated with the new member identification.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,526,278 to Link for “System and Method for Providing Short Message Targeted Advertising over a Wireless Communication Network” suggests a method for transmitting a message over a wireless network to a wireless communications device. A plurality of messages are stored in a database, wherein each stored message is associated with one or more locations. Location information of a wireless communications device is detected, and a message in the database associated with the detected location is selected and transmitted to the wireless communications device. Local advertisers register to advertise on certain wireless communications devices that are in close proximity to the advertiser. As a enters a cell site that is near the location of the advertiser, the wireless network delivers a message to the wireless device that is specified by the local advertiser. An acknowledgement signal is then received by the network, and the local advertiser's account is charged for transmission of the advertisement.
However, privacy remains a concern, as many people do not like the idea of being “tracked”. Therefore, there remains a need to respect a subscriber's privacy while still providing advertising that is both easily viewed and location based. Many advertisers have coupons printed in newspapers to build brand awareness. Because it takes time to purchase a paper, find the coupon, cut the coupon, and transport the coupon to a store to redeem it. While consumers can save money-using coupons, many do not think the effort is worth it. A need remains for a better way to distribute and redeem coupons and to permit them to be used by others in the event that the particular individual to whom they are first directed decides that the coupon or incentive would be better used or more applicable to a member of his social network.
Many service providers already deliver free informational messages (i.e. advertising) to their customers at no charge. There is usually no immediate benefit to the receiver of this free information, and so there remains a need for the subscriber to get some benefit for having his terminal display it. Mobile service providers who present advertising on mobile terminals, generally present advertising to only one person at a time, the subscriber. This is true even if the subscriber is in a crowded public area or is part of a social network which, by definition, enjoys many similar attributes and would respond similarly to the advertisement or promotion. Therefore there remains a need to present advertising to a larger audience and concomitantly obtain that larger audience as part of the provider or advertiser database.
Internet selling has traditionally been done by online retailers selling products directly to purchasing individuals or groups. Amazon.com.® is an example of an e-commerce website that specializes in selling a variety of products. U.S. Pat. No. 5,960,411 relates to a method and system for placing a purchase order via a communications network. Other e-commerce sites specialize in selling a particular type of product or service, such as the Apple® store or Dell.com.® which both sell different varieties of computers and computer products. More recently, businesses have emerged that offer customers comparison shopping, enabling the customer to browse a variety of e-commerce sites for the best price or customer service when they are looking to purchase. MySimon.com® is an example of this. Google's Froogle® service is an example of a search engine that aggregates products from a variety of e-commerce sites and offers them in a single view to the potential customer.
These approaches are very different in their respective business models. In the first case, the online service provides the listing and handles the transaction. In the second case, the online service merely provides information, and may receive referral fees from the e-commerce site that completes the transaction. However, both of these approaches aim to achieve the same goal: to provide a potential buyer with a purchasing path that begins with the buyer's, interest in a product or service. Along this purchasing path, the user may encounter product reviews or user feedback, which is, at best, the opinion of a stranger and, at worst, the contrived words of a biased party.
Also, an increasingly popular feature on online communities is the ability for a user to express his/herself using a variety of creative tools. For example, websites exist that allow users to create a virtual character, complete with clothes, accessories, and furniture. These sites are known collectively as avatar sites. A preferred embodiment of this invention would treat a user's previously purchased products and services and desired products and services as a means of self expression, and the web as just another place where we can express our individuality and conduct day-to-day social interaction.
One example of known system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,175,831, which relates to a networking database containing a plurality of records for different individuals in which individuals are connected to one another in the database by defined relationships. This system, however, does not enable the individuals to provide word of mouth sales referrals by including marketing brands as part of the individual's identity in the database.
Another example of a known system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,269,369 which relates to a network-computer-based personal contact manager system that enables users of networked clients to maintain and update user information that is stored in a relational database. The system allows each user to specify, on an individual basis, which contacts are permitted to access their user information. The system also allows users to find contacts based on common group affiliations and notifies users when there are coincidences in their data.
Additional descriptions of the background of one aspect of the present invention may be found in the following books: “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Difference” by Malcolm Gladwell, Back Bay Books (2002); and “Kellogg on Marketing” (Edited by Dawn Lacobucci), John Wiley & Sons (2000). Another reference related to the use of advertisements online and related pricing issues is described, for example, in connection with “GOOGLE® AdWords®.
However, each of the above systems, as well as traditional e-commerce suffer from the lack of relevant feedback from trusted sources.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005023471 seeks to ameliorate some of these shortcomings by describing a system of word of mouth selling that identifies brands with online identities and optionally tracks access and sales histories to provide rewards. It proposes an online word of mouth e-commerce system to permit individuals or groups to decide the products and services that they wish to be associated with as part of their identity within an online community. They select and approve these products and services from their purchasing histories at various e-commerce retailers and can enrich this information with the products and services that they wish to purchase. Optionally, in return for adding their purchasing history to their profiles, individuals and groups can receive rewards in the form of gift certificates when other users purchase the product or service that the individual or group advocated. Partner e-commerce retailers implement or expose a web service API for a user importing his or her purchasing history and for dynamically extracting referral links. However, this system does not provide advertisers with the immediate use of coupons or the dissemination of those coupons among social group members, nor does it provide redemption which minimizes or eliminates the retailer involvement, while permitting the use of existing data and communication streams and device without the need to obtain new hardware.
Wireless networks are now routinely in communication with the global computer network, providing network users with expanded services such as Internet access through their wireless handheld devices. Through this same link, wireless network providers can provide third parties with the identity and location information that the network provider is (or will be) required to monitor thus permitting the third parties to identify a network user and track that user's every movement. This information enables them to profile customers and to present more individualized products or services. Advertisers, if permitted by the user, may target users and send information from the advertiser or third party based upon a user's location. Targeting users with information from third parties, such as advertisers, is particularly useful when the user is active and the information is being sent to a mobile communication device.