WO2007048191A1

WO2007048191A1 - Mobile advertising

Info

Publication number: WO2007048191A1
Application number: PCT/AU2006/001595
Authority: WO
Inventors: Terry W. Ainsworth; William James Nolan
Original assignee: Ainsworth Terry W; William James Nolan
Priority date: 2005-10-25
Filing date: 2006-10-25
Publication date: 2007-05-03

Abstract

Disclosed in this specification is a mobile advertising device, which can be mounted on vehicles. The device displays contents such as advertisements or emergency messages, or media programs, that are updated according to the spatial-temporal location of the vehicle bearing the device. The device may further be used in conjunction with digital cameras to provide a surveillance system.

Description

Mobile Advertising

Field of the Invention

The invention relates to advertising devices and more particularly to a device and methods for the display of advertisements, within a vehicle, where advertisements and other content are displayed in accordance with factors such as the location of the vehicle.

Background of the Invention Advertising within vehicles such as buses, taxis, trams and trains is well known. In a bus, advertisements are typically displayed along the interior walls of the bus, generally above passenger's heads, generally close to where the interior walls join the ceiling of the passenger compartment. Advertisements that are known to have been displayed in these types of vehicles are generally print advertisements of a static nature. Ads of this type are not able to be altered instantaneously, or in a way that optimises them in accordance with factors such as the location of the vehicle, the day of the week, or the time of day.

It would be desirable to be able to provide a dynamic advertising display that is adapted to determine, from a collection or database of advertisements and other content, the most appropriate advertisement according to any one or more of a number of factors such as location, time and date. To do so would allow the advertiser to optimise advertising to target specific demographics, times and locations for advertisements.

Objects and Summary of the Invention

It is an object of the invention to provide an advertising display device that utilises a GPS signal as an input and that uses the GPS input, along with other optional factors to determine which advertisement, from a collection of stored advertisements to display at a given location and point in time.

It is also an object of the invention to provide an advertising display device for vehicles such as buses, taxis, trains and trams. It is another object of the invention to provide an advertising display device having vehicle security features.

Brief Description of the Drawing Figures Figure l is a schematic diagram illustrating the components of the present invention; Figure 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating a second embodiment of the present invention; and

Figure 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating a third embodiment of the present invention.

Best Mode and Other Embodiments of the Invention

In accordance with the objects of the invention, a device is provided having one or more electronic displays io. In preferred embodiments, the displays are flat panel LCD, plasma or other convention forms of display which are suitable for both night and day use within a moving vehicle such as a bus, taxi, tram or train. The displays may be of the smaller variety and mounted behind passenger seats, providing individual passenger displays, if required. It will be appreciated that the displays may be configured to display the same information concurrently, or in the alternative, to each display different information, thus providing variety within a given vehicle. There may additionally be an array of stereos, for playing the audio information in multimedia contents. The content can preferably be uploaded or otherwise updated by the user. A vehicle mounted enclosure ii contains the components required to drive the displays as well as the types of hardware components normally associated with a PC. For example, the enclosure Ii may contain a power supply, cooling fan, motherboard, memory, hard drives, uploading mechanisms such as USB ports, and whatever interface components that are required to effectuate the teachings of the present invention.

In preferred embodiments, the enclosure Ii contains an input for a GPS antenna 12. The GPS antenna thus connects to a GPS receiver 13 that provides a series or stream of outputs 14 that are decoded, interpreted and stored to a GPS location database 15. The GPS location database works in conjunction with a number of other databases or other data content storage, serving essentially as inputs to an algorithm 16 that is able to select and tag a particular advertisement from an advertisement database 17. When a device of the above description is utilised, for example on a bus, the primary purpose of the algorithm 16 is to locate the bus in space and time, advantageously using spatial and temporal data (e.g. from various databases) to select, tag and cause to be played an appropriate advertisement from the advertisement database 17. This may be achieved via a look-up table which has the correlation between, for example, a location, to the bus route, and advertisements suitable for that point in the bus route. In one embodiment, the algorithm 16 is optionally capable of establishing a queue of advertisements that are played in sequence, the sequence being triggered (individually or collectively) by the arrival of the appropriate and anticipated GPS location data from the GPS location database 15.

While the operation of the algorithm 16 will be explained in further detail below, it will be appreciated that the utilisation of the above referenced hardware and methods allows the information shown on the displays 10 to be altered according to the time of day, the day of the week, the spatial location of the bus and thus, the direction that the bus is travelling in. It will be appreciated that a vehicle such as a bus having a particular spatial location may be headed in one of several different directions depending on which part of its route it is travelling on. The ability to alter the displays 10 according to this type of information allows advertisements of particular relevance to be displayed. For example, advertisement relevant to commuters may be displayed during peak commuting hours. Advertisements relevant to tourists may be more appropriate for off-peak and weekend display. The ability to tailor the displays according to location and direction allows the device to display advertisements relevant to a particular location. For example, an advertisement for a particular department store may be displayed just before, or at the point, when the bus is passing a particular place of business.

As mentioned above, the algorithm 16 is able to utilise a variety of data for the purpose of determining which advertisement is the most appropriate one to display at a given point in time and space. In the example provided in Figure l, the algorithm 16 is provided with information from the GPS location database 15 and it correlates the GPS information with a day of the week provided from a day database 18 as well as the time of day provided from a time source or time database 19. Other forms of data such as temperature, humidity or other weather information may be used in the selection of advertisements.

In essence, the control program that the algorithm forms a part of is pre-programmed to play (or tag for play) particular advertisements from the advertisement database 17 when particular conditions are met. These conditions are based on spatial-temporal parameters, e.g. the GPS location, day and time contained in the relevant databases 15, 18, 19 etc. In addition, it will be appreciate that the control program may be programmed to display non-advertising material or general "content" in between the display of selected advertisements. In this way, the individual displays 10 may superficially resemble a television broadcast having non-commercial information interspersed with the selected or tagged advertisements as discussed above.

It will be appreciated that the content of the advertisements database 17 may be updated in any one of a number of different ways. A wireless network connection may be established between the device 11 and a remote source of information such as a server. The device may additionally automatically download new advertisement or other contents or messages when it is in range of the wireless network server. The updating or transfer of new materials or algorithms may also be accomplished through a hard-wired connection as is conventional in the art. In embodiments with wireless connections, the algorithm may directly correlate the bus location to the suitable advertisements, or may receive direct instruction from the wireless server to display a certain advertisements.

Preferably, the device is user programmable or otherwise adjustable to adapt to daylight saving times. It is further preferred that the device is configured to be in temporal synchronization with the triggering inputs. In embodiments incorporating GPS technologies, the device is programmed to obtain a GMT time from the satellite and adjust the device time to the satellite time, or another regional time. In embodiments where the device is in communication with media such as an area network, the network sends out a time synchronization pulse via the Network Time Protocol, and the device adjusts its own time to that of the server.

In preferred embodiments, the device may also incorporate one or more digital cameras 20 that feed images from the interior of the vehicle into a security database 21. These images are stored for later replay and may be accessed by the vehicle's driver, police or security personnel, as required. The images stored on the security database may be displayed on a separate electronic display 22 or on one or more of the displays 10 that are used for the display of advertising material. As another security or backup measure, the device may incorporate an optional non-volatile, waterproof, fireproof, and blast proof memory module. The module contains memory space or recordings which will be used if the resident memory in the device fails. The memory space and recordings will still be intact in the event that the device or the vehicle bearing the device is attacked.

It will be appreciated that the advertising materials and the general content may be in the form of still images, or moving images, animations, video or any of these in combination.

Thus, the invention provides a ways of displaying selected, appropriate advertisements in practically any electronic format. These advertisements may be displayed in a vehicle such as bus, taxi, train or tram and may be displayed in accordance with factors such as the day, date, location and direction in which the vehicle is travelling. The device provides unprecedented control and pinpoint accuracy in the delivery of advertising materials and thus has the potential to generate revenues in excess of conventional print advertising media.

As shown in Figure 2, a device of the type discussed with reference to Figure 1 is also capable of accepting triggering inputs from a variety of sources other than a GPS receiver. As shown, location information as well as other data may be communicated to the system via a passive RFID transmitter 101, or an active RF¹ID transmitter 102. The system may be equipped with a passive RFID receiver 103 or an active RFID receiver 104. In some embodiments of the invention, it may be provided with both passive and active RFID reception capabilities. It will be appreciated that RFID data may be used instead of or to augment GPS data. The system may also be equipped with a radio receiver 105 that can receive radio broadcasts from a transmitter 106.

Optionally, remote functions or controls can be added to the device using a General Packet Radio Service or Code-Division Multiple Access module. There may also be a wireless fidelity module for internal network connection. The device and hence the vehicle, in this case, can be traced via the wireless connection, and the device can receive the latest information from the server. In addition, the mobile advertising devices disclosed above may be utilised in conjunction with a central control station or remote activator 107. The remote activator 107 is intended to have supervisory control functionality over any or all of the individual systems 20 that may be in deployment in a given area. In one embodiment, the remote activator or control station 107 is adapted to transmit or broadcast an emergency message that can be received by each device 20 and displayed accordingly within a vehicle. Such an emergency broadcast is stored within an emergency message database 108 and may consist of messages and images relating to traffic conditions, hazards of a variety of types, weather information, or other information, as determined by the remote activator 107.

Figure 3 depicts another embodiment of the present technology. This embodiment is similar to that depicted in Figure 2. In this embodiment, there is further a sensor array 109 for security breaches such as gas, smoke, or explosives, The data from this array is stored in a sensor analysis database 110. The database 110, along with the remote control centre ill, are in communication with an eternal electro-magnetic medium 112, such as a wireless network, where the content of the database 110 is monitored. This embodiment also includes a vehicle sensory array 113 and a vehicle sensor analysis database 114, to monitor different operational information of the vehicle, such as braking, ignition, inertia, speed, or indicators. The digital cameras may, for instance, turn on when the vehicle ignition is switched on. Clips from the cameras may be sent to a video analysis database 115 with a certified mobile hard drive, before being set to the security image storage. Preferably, new clips continuously overwrite old clips when the drive is full. It is further preferred that the cameras are turned on based on a schedule, to allow adaptation to different security needs. The security database may further be remotely monitored by the external medium 112. In this embodiment, there is further a database for service alerts or passenger information 116. This service alert database may receive information from the location database 117 about information such as road conditions, closures, weather conditions, or other general information. It may also be used to store passenger information such as travel routes and times for individuals or groups. As described earlier, the content displayed by the device may be automatically updated. It may also be manually updated with, for example, a Compact Flash card. It is further preferred that the device contains drives which provide high speed backup for all recording clips.

While the invention has been provided with reference to specific examples and details of construction, these should be understood as having been provided by way of example and not as limitations to the scope or spirit of the invention.

Claims

What is Claimed is:

1. A mobile advertising device, comprising:

one or more electronic displays; the displays being driven by components within a vehicle mounted enclosure; the components comprising a receiver for producing an output that identifies a location, storage for content data that can be uploaded by a user, an input mechanism for uploading data, and a control program which determines content data to be displayed, based on the output.

2. The mobile advertising device of claim i, wherein,

the output from the receiver is stored into a database.

3. The mobile advertising device of claims 1 or 2, wherein,

the receiver is a GPS receiver, and the device further comprises a GPS antenna.

4. The mobile advertising device of claim 3, wherein,

the device is in temporal synchronization with a GPS satellite.

5. The mobile advertising device of claim 1, wherein,

the receiver is a RFID receiver

6. The mobile advertising device of any of claims 1 to 5, wherein,

the electronic displays are configured to play different content at a same time.

7- The mobile advertising device of any of claims l to 6, wherein,

the control program includes an algorithm which uses a set of parameters to select and cause an appropriate content from the stored data source to be displayed.

8. The mobile advertising device of claim 7, wherein,

the set of parameters comprises temporal parameters.

9. The mobile advertising device of claim 8, wherein,

the temporal parameters are the time of day, day of week, and time of year.

10. The mobile advertising device of any of claims 7 to 9, wherein,

the set of parameters comprises spatial parameters associated with the device.

11. The mobile advertising device of claim 10, wherein,

the device is installed on a vehicle, and the spatial parameters include a travelling direction of the vehicle, a location of the vehicle, and a travelling route of the vehicle.

12. The mobile advertising device of any of claims l to 11, wherein,

the control program establishes a queue of contents to be displayed.

13. The mobile advertising device of any of claims l to 12, wherein,

the device further comprises a wireless network connection to a remote server, and a updating of a content of the stored data source is achieved via this connection.

14- The mobile advertising device of claim 13, wherein,

the device automatically downloads new content when it is in range of the remote server.

15. The mobile advertising device of claims 13 or 14, wherein,

the remote server is par of a local or wide area network, and the device adjusts its own time to a time of the remote server using the Network Time Protocol.

16. The mobile advertising device of any of claims 1 to 15, wherein,

one of the stored data content sources is an advertisement database.

17. The mobile advertising device of nay of claims 1 to 16, wherein,

a remote activator has supervisory controls over a number of mobile advertising devices.

18. The mobile advertising device of claim 17, wherein,

a stored data content source is an emergency message database, from which an appropriate content determined by the remote activator is played.

19. The mobile advertising device of any of claims 1 to 18, wherein,

one of the stored data content sources is a security database, and the device further comprises one or more digital cameras which feed an image, from an interior of a vehicle on which the device is installed, into the security database.

20. The mobile advertising device of any of claims 1 to 19, wherein,

the device further comprises a fireproof, waterproof, and blast proof memory module.