Episodic Advertisement Sequence Integrity via Media Guidance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Users often experience episodic advertisements out of order due to channel surfing or missing parts of the story, leading to reduced effectiveness in promoting the advertised product or service.
Innovation Solution
An interactive media guidance application determines when a user is at risk of experiencing an episodic advertisement out of order and selects a replacement advertisement to maintain the correct sequence, using user viewing data and advertisement metadata to ensure seamless storytelling, even when the original advertisement is unavailable.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If users freely change channels or surf through content, then user autonomy and viewing flexibility are improved, but episodic advertisements may be viewed out of order reducing their effectiveness
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-loads all episodes of an episodic advertisement sequence into memory before the user begins viewing. This preliminary action ensures that when the user changes channels or surfs through content, the advertisement episodes are already available in the correct sequence and can be played back in order without interruption, thus maintaining sequence integrity while allowing viewing flexibility
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary component (advertisement management system) that sits between the user's viewing actions and the advertisement delivery. This intermediary tracks which episodes have been viewed, manages the episode sequence, and automatically plays back missed episodes in the correct order, thereby mediating between user flexibility and sequence integrity
2Reliability
If the system tracks and manages advertisement viewing to prevent out-of-order experience, then advertisement effectiveness is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements self-service mechanisms where the advertisement management system automatically tracks viewing status, determines which episodes need to be played back, and executes the playback without requiring manual user input or complex external coordination. The system serves itself by managing its own advertisement delivery state
Solution Approach 2:
The patent combines multiple functions into a unified advertisement management system: tracking which episodes have been viewed, determining the correct playback sequence, storing episode data in memory, and executing playback. By merging these functions into a single integrated system, the complexity is consolidated and managed more efficiently rather than distributed across multiple separate components
3Duration of action of stationary object
If advertisement episodes are pre-loaded into memory, then seamless playback is improved, but memory resource consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the episodic advertisement into discrete episodes that can be independently managed in memory. Each episode is treated as a separate unit that can be loaded, tracked, and played back individually. This segmentation allows the system to load only the necessary episodes into memory rather than requiring all possible advertisement content to be simultaneously available
Solution Approach 2:
The system loads episodes into memory based on what is needed for the current viewing context rather than loading all possible episodes. It performs partial action by loading only the episodes that are likely to be needed (those in the current sequence), rather than excessively loading all episodes regardless of need, thus optimizing memory usage while maintaining playback continuity
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and systems for an interactive media guidance application to prevent a user from experiencing an episodic advertisement out of order. Each episodic advertisement includes a plurality of advertisements intended to be viewed in an ordered sequence, and each advertisement of the sequence is part of a story that the episodic advertisement tells. The interactive media guidance application determines whether the user's viewing activity may cause the user to experience a particular advertisement of an episodic advertisement out of order, identifies an alternative advertisement of the episodic advertisement to present in place of the particular advertisement, and presents the alternative advertisement so as to prevent the user from experiencing the particular advertisement out of the ordered sequence of advertisements.