Patent No. 6951305 Advertising compliance monitoring system

 

Patent No. 6951305

Advertising compliance monitoring system (Overhultz, et al., Oct 4, 2005)

Abstract

An advertising compliance monitoring system is provided that includes a backscatter tag affixed to a sign or marketing material or shopper ID card, the tag communicating with a backscatter reader on a periodic basis. The tag includes a memory for storing tag data, a transmitter and a receiver. The tag uses sleep modes to conserve power. The tag transmits tag data to a reader automatically on a periodic basis or upon an event. The tag data includes an identification number used to identify the tag associated with a particular sign, price, marketing material or shopper, status data (e.g., delivered, displayed), and time and date information. This data is processed by a central server to determine compliance with and/or exposure to a particular advertising program.

Notes:

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/332,149, filed on Nov. 21, 2001, and is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser. No. 10/158,416 filed May 30, 2002 now U.S. Pat. No. 6,837,427 and entitled "Advertising Compliance Monitoring System," both of which are assigned to the assignee of the present application. The applicants are claiming priority to both the provisional application and Ser. No. 10/158,146, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,837,427, issued Jan. 4, 2005, thus making the effective filing date of this application Nov. 21, 2001.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to an improved system and method of monitoring compliance with a Point of Purchase (POP) advertising program that displays one or more advertising signs or marketing materials, and more particularly to the monitoring of and exposure to advertising signs or marketing materials displayed at gas stations, convenience stores, grocery stores, mass merchandising outlets, drug stores, specialty retail outlets (e.g., pet stores, record stores, book stores), consumer electronics stores, etc.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

It is desirable to monitor retailer compliance with advertising programs. Advertising that is not displayed has no value to a company. However, non-compliance with an advertising program is difficult to detect in a timely manner.

In the past, the primary way to collect information about whether retail outlets were complying with an advertising program was to rely on site surveys. These surveys were typically performed by manufacturer sales representatives, store delivery personnel, or independent survey companies. However, site surveys are generally expensive, incomplete, and untimely.

The direct costs associated with site surveys are substantial. Independent survey companies charge significant fees for travel time, as well as for data collection/tabulation. Consequently, information is typically available for only a subset or sample of the thousands or tens-of-thousands of stores targeted for a particular advertising program.

To save money, some companies request that delivery personnel and/or sales representatives compile compliance information while they are at a retail store for other purposes. The diversion of these personnel from doing their ordinary tasks (such as restocking or selling) can be substantial. Moreover, these personnel have little compliance training or Quality Assurance skills to ensure reporting consistency or accuracy. In addition, such visits are not of sufficient frequency to ascertain exactly when compliance with a particular advertising program began or ended.

Furthermore, compliance survey reports (whether by professionals or company personnel) usually lag the survey date. This delay prevents a timely rectification for non-complying stores. In particular, if an advertising program is designed to run for two weeks, it is important to know within a day of when the program was supposed to start which retail sites are out of compliance so the sites can be made compliant in a timely manner. The size of the staff and expense required to visit all advertising sites within 48 hours is prohibitive. Therefore, surveys or visits to a subset of sites are the only practical way to monitor compliance. However, for the reasons stated above, surveys are only sufficient for general or strategic conclusions, and are incapable of improving tactical POP compliance in a timely manner. Visits to a subset of sites do not yield sufficient information for full-compliance advertising goals.

Companies, such as petroleum companies and consumer packaged goods companies, spend millions of dollars to run a given POP program. Retail performance varies greatly. However, it is common for more than 50% of retail sites, presumed to be participating, to be out of compliance. The present invention provides an efficient system for quickly identifying every non-complying site by using tags (e.g., wireless RFID tags) on each advertising sign or marketing material. The system also provides companies with information about when a POP program is running, what advertising is and is not being displayed, and when new signs will be produced and shipped to retail outlets. The system can monitor other merchandizing conditions besides signage, such as the presence or absence of display racks or containers, the presence of promotional hardware, or the presence of certain items to be sold under certain conditions. It can also monitor and report specific pricing associated with particular signs or marketing materials. The system can also monitor and report exposure of particular shoppers to marketing materials that are being monitored by the system. The system will therefore allow companies to monitor and remedy compliance problems during an advertising program, which will improve overall compliance and increase the effectiveness of the advertising program. It will also allow fee-based marketing programs that are conditional upon certain retail conditions being present at a particular time to be executed with more precision, reliability, and verifiability. Furthermore, it will allow the flow of specific shopper traffic within a store to be monitored and analyzed. In addition, the system will allow subsequent marketing programs, such as coupons or direct mail, to be tailored to or made conditional on shopper interests, shopping patterns, or prior exposure to marketing materials.

Therefore, it is desirable to provide an advertising or marketing material compliance monitoring system that provides compliance monitoring in a timely and cost effective manner.

It is also desirable to provide an advertising compliance monitoring system that makes determining compliance easy.

It is desirable to provide a wireless compliance monitoring system that uses active tags that conserve battery power.

It is also desirable to provide a wireless compliance monitoring system that uses either active or passive tags to determine the specific location (within a defited range) of selected marketing materials and/or version of selected marketing materials.

It is also desirable to provide a wireless compliance monitoring system that uses contact technology (such as EEPROM, optical, notch, or magnetic ink) to determine the specific location (within a defined range) and/or version of selected marketing materials and wherein the wireless system includes Backscatter Reader System including Contact Backscatter Tags and Backscatter Reader Transponders.

It is desirable to provide a compliance monitoring system that uses passive tags that are small and light, making it easier to secure to advertising signs.

It is also desirable to transmit data from sign locations to a central collection point at individual retail sites using wireless technology for ease of installation at retail sites.

It is also desirable to provide a switch on the reader for switching a tag between different power conservation modes, such as OFF, sleep mode, or continuous monitoring mode.

It is desirable to transmit data from each retail site to a central storage/processing location to report individual and aggregate retailer execution of and consumer exposure to specific and aggregated marketing programs.

Thus, a need exists for an advertising compliance monitoring system that provides versatility and flexibility by providing a tag, associated with a specific sign, that communicates tag data to an external reader. The present invention provides a way to quickly and positively identify each tag, determine the status of each sign (e.g., delivered, displayed), monitor compliance with a marketing program, monitor customer exposure to a marketing program, and analyze tag data relating to the display of and exposure to advertising signs, marketing materials, pricing information, marketing program merchandise, and supporting hardware.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art by providing an improved system for monitoring compliance with an advertising program. In one embodiment, the system includes a tag, associated with a sign or shopper identification card, for communicating with a reader on a periodic basis. In one embodiment, the tag comprises an active tag, a passive tag or a contact tag that is a Contact Backscatter Tag (CBT) sing backscatter modulations for transmitting data. Backscatter modulation, as used rein, is defined as a method of modulating a continuous wave (CW) from a transmitter by changing the impedance across an antenna on a tag or device. The rate of switching the impedance creates a subcarrier that is modulated by data and reflected back to the receiver for demodulation. Such backscatter technology is well known in the art, but to applicants' knowledge has ever been employed in the present context.

The novel arrangement of the backscatter system disclosed and claimed herein differs from most backscatter systems (the passive or active), which rely on a reader to initiate communications. In the case of passive types, the tag requires power derived from the reader's transmitter before it can waken and backscatter a signal. In the case of most active backscatter tags, they await a command from the reader before replying. As part of the present invention, the active backscatter tags (BTs) and contact backscatter tags (CBTs) have no receivers nor do they require power from the reader transmitter in order to backscatter a signal. The active BTs and CBTs run autonomously, periodically waking and then backscattering a signal, whether or not a BRT is present. There are three advantages to this approach:

1) simplicity--less to go wrong in the RF domain;

2) lower cost--no receiver components; and

3) predictable battery consumption--a very accurate battery model can be used because of periodic and predictable use.

Active and passive tags each include a memory for storing tag data, a transmitter and a receiver. In the active tag embodiment, the tag uses sleep modes to conserve power. The tag transmits tag data to a reader in response to an interrogation signal, or automatically on a periodic basis. The tag data includes any or all of the following: an identification number used to identify the tag associated with a particular sign and/or the marketing material, site location data (e.g., which retail site and/or location within a retail site where the marketing material should be displayed), and time and date information. This data is processed by a central server to determine compliance with a particular advertising program.

In one embodiment, the reader associated with a given location at the retail site communicates with one or more tags to detect their presence and obtain their tag data. A hub communicates with each reader and stores the tag data for all reader locations at a given retail site. The hub communicates with a central server to convey information such as displayed signage, featured price, marketing materials, and/or shopper exposure to marketing materials at that site. A central server stores and analyzes tag data from all sites to determine whether each retail outlet is in compliance with a specific advertising program (e.g., to determine if each sign is being displayed at the time and location specified by the program). The central server can also report which shopper identification cards have been proximate to a given reader.