SYSTEMS, METHODS AND ARTICLES TO FACILITATE BUYING AND SELLING OF ADVERTISING INVENTORY
Systems and methods for providing an advertisement marketplace where buyers and sellers can trade mediacast advertisement inventory programmatically at local, national, and/or worldwide levels. The marketplace system may include a seller-controlled marketplace system which connects sellers with buyers and offers revenue management tools for optimizing yields across direct and programmatic channels. The advertisement inventory is bought and sold as canonical inventory units which group similar but discrete advertisement slots together. The marketplace system may include a seller side platform (SSP) for sellers and an advertiser-facing interface or console for demand side platform (DSP) entities. Through the SSP, sellers can access demand and make advertisement inventory available and accept or reject a bid based on marketplace demand without revealing information relating to pricing or available inventory to buyers.
1 . A system to automate advertisement placement in linear mediacasts, the system comprising:
at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium that stores an inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to place advertisements in at least one of a number of linear mediacasts for each of a plurality of mediacast content providers that transmit the mediacasts to a plurality of media consumers, each of the advertisement placement opportunities represented in a canonical form that specifies at least a respective period of time of the advertisement placement opportunity during a mediacast day of the mediacast content provider; and
at least one processor communicatively coupled to the at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium and which implements an advertiser-facing interface that provides access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to advertisers, and that receives requests for advertisement placement opportunities from one or more advertisers without exposing information specific to the request for advertisement placement opportunities to other advertisers.
2 . The system of claim 1 wherein for at least one of the advertisement placement opportunities in the inventory, the canonical form specifies the respective period of time of the advertisement placement opportunity by at least two of: i) a start time of the respective advertisement placement opportunity, ii) an end time of the respective advertisement placement opportunity, and iii) a duration of the respective advertisement placement opportunity.
3 . The system of claim 1 wherein for at least one of the advertisement placement opportunities in the inventory, the canonical form further specifies a day of the week of the advertising placement opportunity.
4 . The system of claim 3 wherein for at least one of the advertisement placement opportunities in the inventory, the canonical form further specifies at least one of a network, a network affiliate, or a channel of the advertising placement opportunity.
5 . The system of claim 1 wherein for at least one of the advertisement placement opportunities in the inventory, the canonical form represents the advertising placement opportunity without specification of any asking price by the mediacast content provider for the respective advertising placement opportunity.
6 . The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one processor implements the advertiser-facing interface that provides access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to advertisers without specification of any asking price by the mediacast content provider for the respective advertising placement opportunity.
7 . The system of claim 6 wherein the at least one processor implements the advertiser-facing interface that provides access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to advertisers without revealing a total number of slots available in the respective advertising placement opportunity to any of the advertisers.
8 . The system of claim 1 wherein for at least one of the advertisement placement opportunities in the inventory, the canonical form represents the advertising placement opportunity without specification of either a specific start time or a specific end time for the advertising placement opportunity.
9 . The system of claim 1 wherein the advertiser-facing interface receives a plurality of requests for an advertisement placement opportunity from a corresponding plurality of advertisers, each of the plurality of requests specifying a respective bid price, wherein the advertiser-facing user interface receives the plurality of requests without exposing the bid price of each advertiser to any other of the plurality of advertisers.
10 . The system of claim 1 wherein the advertiser-facing interface further provides notification of an acceptance of a request for advertisement placement opportunities to a respective first one of the advertisers without exposing information that identifies a price offered for the respective advertisement placement opportunity to any other ones of the advertisers.
11 . The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one processor implements an advertiser-facing interface that receives requests for advertisement placement opportunities from one or more advertisers without exposing information that identifies a price offered for the respective advertisement placement opportunity to any other ones of the advertisers.
12 . The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one processor implements the advertiser-facing interface which receives a plurality of requests from an advertiser and receives an advertiser-specified budget which spans the received plurality of requests, each of the plurality of requests specifying a respective bid price and the sum of the bid prices of the plurality of requests exceeds the advertiser-specified budget, the at least one processor prevents acceptance of requests from the advertiser once the advertiser-specified budget for the plurality of requests is exceeded by acceptance by the mediacast content providers of other requests by the advertiser for the received plurality of requests.
13 . The system of claim 12 wherein the received plurality of requests comprises requests from an advertiser for all advertisement placement opportunities which meet one or more criteria specified by the advertiser.
14 . The system of claim 12 wherein the advertiser-specified budget spans at least two media types including television, radio, or digital placement of media.
15 . The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one processor implements the advertiser-facing interface which receives a plurality of requests from an advertiser and receives an advertiser-specified maximum concentration which spans the received plurality of requests, the at least one processor prevents acceptance of requests from the advertiser once the advertiser-specified maximum concentration for the received plurality of requests is exceeded by acceptance by the mediacast content providers of other requests by the advertiser for the received plurality of requests.
16 . The system of claim 15 wherein the maximum concentration comprises a maximum number of acceptances with respect to at least one of a market, an affiliate, a period of time, a media outlet, a geographical area, or a group of consumers.
17 . The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one processor implements a daily close of all requests for advertisement placement opportunities pertaining to a given mediacast day.
18 . The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one processor updates the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities from time-to-time to reflect advertisement placement opportunities no longer available and new advertisement placement opportunities that are available.
19 . The system of claim 1 wherein the specified period of time for at least some of the advertisement placement opportunities comprises thirty minutes.
20 . The system of claim 1 wherein each of the advertisement placement opportunities includes a plurality of slots in the respective period of time of the advertisement placement opportunity, at least some of the plurality of slots have a duration shorter than the specified period of time of the respective advertising placement opportunity.
21 . The system of claim 1 wherein the advertiser-facing interface accepts requests for respective advertisement placement opportunities within 15 minutes of the respective publishing time of the advertisement placement opportunities.
22 . The system of claim 1 wherein the advertiser-facing interface accepts requests for respective advertisement placement opportunities within 1 minute of the respective publishing time of the advertisement placement opportunities.
23 - 42 . (canceled)
43 . A system to automate advertisement placement in linear mediacasts, the system comprising:
at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium that stores an inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to place advertisements in at least one of a number of linear mediacasts for each of a plurality of mediacast content providers that transmit the mediacasts to a plurality of media consumers, for each of the mediacast content providers, each of the advertisement placement opportunities specifies one of a plurality of periods of time which in aggregate span an entire mediacast period of time of the mediacast content provider, and each of the advertisement placement opportunities includes at least one slot in the respective period of time of the advertisement placement opportunity; and
at least one processor communicatively coupled to the at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium and which implements an advertiser-facing interface that provides access to the inventory of advertisement placement opportunities to advertisers, and that receives requests for advertisement placement opportunities from one or more advertisers without exposing information specific to the request for advertisement placement opportunities to other advertisers.
44 . The system of claim 43 wherein the mediacast period of time comprises at least one of a mediacast day or a mediacast week.
45 . (canceled)
46 . A method to automate advertisement placement in linear mediacasts transmitted by a plurality of mediacast content providers through respective mediacast channels, the method comprising:
for each mediacast channel of each mediacast content provider, partitioning, by at least one processor, a mediacast period of time into a number of advertisement inventory units, each of the number of advertisement inventory units comprising a respective inventory unit period of time of the mediacast period of time and comprising at least one advertisement slot;
storing, in at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium communicatively coupled to the at least one processor, the advertisement inventory units for each of the mediacast channels of the plurality of mediacast content providers;
providing, by the at least one processor, access to the advertisement inventory units to advertisers via an advertiser-facing interface; and
receiving, by the at least one processor via the advertiser-facing interface, requests for advertisement inventory units from one or more advertisers without exposing information specific to the request to other advertisers, each request comprising a request for at least one slot in one of the advertisement inventory units.
47 . A method to automate advertisement placement in printed media published by a plurality of printed media content providers through respective printed media channels, the method comprising:
for each printed media channel of each printed media content provider,
partitioning, by at least one processor, the printed media channel into a number of advertisement inventory units, each of the number of advertisement inventory units comprising a respective portion of the printed media channel and comprising at least one advertisement slot;
storing, in at least one nontransitory processor-readable storage medium communicatively coupled to the at least one processor, the advertisement inventory units for each of the printed media channels of the plurality of printed media content providers;
providing, by the at least one processor, access to the advertisement inventory units to advertisers via an advertiser-facing interface; and
receiving, by the at least one processor via the advertiser-facing interface, requests for advertisement inventory units from one or more advertisers without exposing information specific to the request to other advertisers, each request comprising a request for at least one slot in one of the advertisement inventory units.
48 . The method of claim 47 wherein partitioning the printed media channel into a number of advertisement inventory units comprises partitioning at least one of a newspaper, book, magazine or sign into a number of advertisement inventory units.
49 . The method of claim 47 wherein partitioning the printed media channel into a number of advertisement inventory units comprises partitioning the printed media channel into a number of advertisement inventory units which each correspond to a particular section of the printed media channel.
50 . The method of claim 47 wherein partitioning the printed media channel into a number of advertisement inventory units comprises partitioning the printed media channel into a number of advertisement inventory units based at least in part on publication date of the printed media channel.