Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Plural display systems – Tiling or modular adjacent displays
Reexamination Certificate
1998-06-25
2001-09-11
Liang, Regina (Department: 3674)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Plural display systems
Tiling or modular adjacent displays
C187S396000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06288688
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to a system for the distribution of advertisements and other short messages to a number of remote sites where display units have been positioned within elevators for viewing by passengers riding therein. In more particular, the invention disclosed herein relates to a system for controlling the distribution, allocation, timing, and display of short messages to elevator passengers over a communications network, and to the automatic monitoring and verification of the delivery of messages sent through this system. It also pertains to the automatic monitoring of the hardware and software status of individual computers within a hierarchical network topology.
BACKGROUND
An ongoing concern among advertisers is that of securing the viewer's attention during the presentation of commercial messages on radio and television. In the case of conventional video and radio broadcast media, there is always a concern that the target audience does not receive the intended message, even if they are watching the program for which the advertising has been purchased. In fact, listeners and viewers have developed a variety of strategies for avoiding conventional commercial messages including using the commercial breaks as an opportunity to pursue short tasks away from the television or radio, “surfing” to other channels during commercials, and simply ignoring the message by “tuning it out.” It is well-known that these sorts of activities dilute the impact of an advertiser's message on the viewer/listener and reduce the effective viewership exposed to the message.
There is, however, one captive audience that cannot avail themselves of most of these traditional means of evading advertisements. Additionally, this is an audience that generally would welcome—and attend to—any sort of diversion that might be offered at that particular time and place. The audience that has been described is, of course, passengers within elevators, and especially elevator riders within high-rise buildings. Generally speaking, not only is this a trapped and attentive audience, but it is also an audience that is often nearly desperate for a diversion of any sort. (Consider for example the rapt attention that is often given to the changing elevator floor number display by riders who are attempting to cope with the social consequence of being placed in close physical proximity to a group of total strangers). Additionally, the demographics of the ridership in elevators in high-rise buildings are attractive to many advertisers, as the most frequent passengers in an elevator are likely employed individuals within the building. Thus, these individuals represent a unique audience that most advertisers would dearly love to reach.
In the past, elevator advertising has focused on the use of static displays such as posters. The limitations of posters as advertising media are well-known. Among those limitations are that posters are static displays that cannot be altered except by having an employee pay a visit to the elevator and physically replace it. Additionally, a print-based approach to elevator advertising cannot easily exploit certain well-known behavioral tendencies in large office buildings. In more particular, among many such tendencies are that customers will tend to be more receptive to advertisements related to “morning activities” (e.g., coffee, sweet rolls, restaurants offering breakfast, etc.) as they arrive at work in the morning; more receptive to advertisements for establishments that serve lunch as that time of day nears; more interested in entertainment and dinner dining alternatives as they leave the building for the day; and more receptive to ads related to travel and recreational opportunities near holidays and weekends. However, it is just not economically feasible to exploit these tendencies using a print-based medium, and this is especially true where the number of consumers reached by each ad is relatively small, as it may be within a single elevator car. Additionally, even particular elevators within an office building might have different demographics, which could be exploited by the creative advertiser. For example, a non-stop elevator to the penthouse would tend to carry different sorts of riders (demographics-wise) than a short haul elevator that serves the first 10 floors. Varying the content of print-based ads to reach these different markets would quickly become a logistics and cost nightmare if more than a few elevators were involved.
A natural alternative to a print-based advertising scheme is one that is video—and especially computer—based. This sort of advertising medium certainly would seem, at least on its face, to have the potential to address many of the concerns listed previously and allow an advertiser the flexibility of altering the presentation of ads to match the needs of the riders. However, presenting dynamically scheduled advertising messages to riders in an elevator involves certain unique logistic and technical challenges that might not be encountered in more traditional advertising channels. One obvious consideration from the standpoint of the advertiser with respect to displaying messages via this medium is that the messages must be kept relatively short to permit exposure of the entire message to the viewers between floors. Additionally, managing the ads to reflect and exploit the demographic tendencies discussed previously is a more involved process than it might seem at first. Transmitting the ads to the video display screen within the elevator poses an obvious problem because the elevator is in near constant motion. Additionally, many advertisers would only be interested in a marketing channel that can be used to reach large numbers of potential customers. Although many millions of consumers ride elevators each day, it would take a large network of video-based ad displays to reach any significant number of those riders and, thereby, interest an advertiser that might be looking for regional or national coverage.
Additionally, advertisers often want some sort of verification that a particular ad has been displayed. If, because of a system or power failure, a particular ad is not played as often as it was scheduled to play, the advertiser will be entitled to a partial refund of the ad price, or credit toward a future ad. Verifying for the advertiser that a particular transient graphic image appeared on a computer screen at a particular time is impossible after-the-fact, thus some provision must be made to log—at the time the images are displayed—each ad that is played.
Managing the distribution and monitoring of ad information on a large-scale over a computer network poses certain problems which other inventors have yet to fully appreciate. While there have been some proposed solutions for displaying computer generated information within individual elevators, no one has really addressed the issue of how to manage—on a large scale—a number of disparate displays, each within an elevator that might have its own ridership demographics; nor have the prior art solutions addressed the problem of how to systematically distribute and control the display of a very large number of adds appearing in multiple elevators and buildings, which buildings might potentially be located anywhere within the nation or elsewhere. Finally, no one has considered how the computer hardware—upon which a large-scale computer-based ad distribution network depends—might be monitored for failures and how those failures might be brought to the attention of the network operators.
What is needed, then, is a method and apparatus for controlling on a large scale the distribution and control of advertisements and other short messages in elevators, wherein the messages are preferably displayed on a computer monitor or similar display device within the elevators. The system should offer the ability to target specific elevators within a building or groups of elevators in the same or different buildings. It should also offer the capability of varying the
Fanning Gary N.
Hughes Bret A.
Elevating Communications, Inc.
Fellers Snider Blankenship Bailey & Tippens, P.C.
Liang Regina
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