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US-12619945-B2 - Flexible assignment of media advertising orders to broadcast inventory

US12619945B2US 12619945 B2US12619945 B2US 12619945B2US-12619945-B2

Abstract

An automated planning system obtains media advertising order specifications associated with media placement orders, wherein the media advertising order specifications include flexibility attributes associated with media items referenced in the media placement orders. The planning system generates an orders table including order information associated with individual orders, an inventory table including inventory information associated with individual inventory items, and an association table including association scores indicating levels of association between the individual inventory items and the individual orders, wherein the association scores are based on the flexibility attributes. The media placement orders are booked into a plan lineup based, at least in part, on the association scores.

Inventors

  • Daniel N. MacTiernan
  • Amit Aggarwal
  • James Liao
  • Brian Kaminsky

Assignees

  • IHEARTMEDIA MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC.

Dates

Publication Date
20260505
Application Date
20211119

Claims (16)

  1. 1 . A method for use in a data storage and retrieval system for a computer memory, the method comprising: generating a first table according to a database schema employing weighted associations, the first table storing first information; generating a second table according to the database schema employing weighted associations, the second table storing second information; and generating a third table according to a database schema employing weighted associations, the third table storing a weighted association establishing a flexible link between the first information stored in the first table and the second information stored in the second table.
  2. 2 . A data storage and retrieval system for a computer memory, the data storage and retrieval system comprising: a memory; and a processor coupled to the memory, the processor configured to generate a database in accordance with a database schema employing weighted associations, and store the database in the memory, wherein generating the database in accordance with the database schema includes generating a first database table storing first information, generating a second database table storing second information, and generating a third database table storing a weighted association establishing a flexible link between the first information stored in the first database table and the second information stored in the second database table.
  3. 3 . An improved data storage and retrieval system for a computer memory, wherein the improvement comprises: configuring the computer memory according to a database schema employing weighted associations, each weighted association establishing a flexible link between information stored in a plurality of different tables.
  4. 4 . The improved data storage and retrieval system of claim 3 , wherein each weighted association indicates a degree of flexibility of the flexible link.
  5. 5 . The improved data storage and retrieval system of claim 3 , wherein the database schema specifies storing the weighted associations in association tables different from the plurality of different tables.
  6. 6 . The improved data storage and retrieval system of claim 5 , wherein the database schema specifies storing, in the association table, information identifying other tables to which the flexible link applies.
  7. 7 . The improved data storage and retrieval system of claim 6 , wherein the database schema specifies storing information restricting application of the flexible link in at least one of the other tables.
  8. 8 . The improved data storage and retrieval system of claim 7 , wherein the database schema specifies storing at least a portion of the information restricting application of the flexible link in a restriction-type field included in one of the other tables.
  9. 9 . The data storage and retrieval system of claim 2 , wherein the weighted association indicates a degree of flexibility of the flexible link.
  10. 10 . The data storage and retrieval system of claim 2 , wherein the processor generates the database in accordance with a database schema by storing, in the third database table, information identifying other tables to which the flexible link applies.
  11. 11 . The data storage and retrieval system of claim 10 , wherein the processor generates the database in accordance with a database schema by storing information restricting application of the flexible link in at least one of the first database table or the second database table.
  12. 12 . The data storage and retrieval system of claim 11 , wherein the processor generates the database in accordance with a database schema by storing at least a portion of the information restricting application of the flexible link in a restriction-type field included in the at least one of the first database table or the second database table.
  13. 13 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the weighted association indicates a degree of flexibility of the flexible link.
  14. 14 . The method of claim 1 , wherein generating the third table according to the database schema employing weighted associations includes storing, in the third table, information identifying other tables to which the flexible link applies.
  15. 15 . The method of claim 14 , wherein generating the first table according to the database schema employing weighted associations includes storing information restricting application of the flexible link in the first table.
  16. 16 . The data storage and retrieval system of claim 15 , wherein generating the first table according to the database schema employing weighted associations includes storing at least a portion of the information restricting application of the flexible link in a restriction-type field included in the first table.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED PATENTS The present U.S. Utility Patent application claims priority pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 120 as a continuation of U.S. Utility application Ser. No. 16/714,998 entitled “DYNAMIC ASSIGNMENT OF MEDIA ADVERTISING ORDERS TO BROADCAST INVENTORY,” filed Dec. 16, 2019, scheduled to issue as U.S. Pat. No. 11,182,741 on Nov. 23, 2021, which is a continuation of U.S. Utility application Ser. No. 15/257,027 entitled “DYNAMIC ASSIGNMENT OF MEDIA ADVERTISING ORDERS TO BROADCAST INVENTORY,” filed Sep. 6, 2016, now U.S. Pat. No. 10,510,039 on Dec. 17, 2019, which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entirety and made part of the present U.S. Utility Patent Application for all purposes. STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT NOT APPLICABLE INCORPORATION-BY-REFERENCE OF MATERIAL SUBMITTED ON A COMPACT DISC NOT APPLICABLE BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Technical Field of the Invention This invention relates generally to media broadcasting, and more particularly to assigning media advertising orders to any combination of previously booked and currently un-booked broadcast inventory based on association scores indicating assignment flexibility. 2. Description of Related Art Media stations can broadcast media content to end-users via FM, AM, Television, Cable, Satellite, or the Internet. Some media stations are “commercial free,” but require end-users to pay a periodic fee to receive that station's broadcast or stream. Other media stations broadcast content without charge to the end-users, but receive revenue from the sale of broadcast time, commonly referred to as “inventory.” Various automated inventory management systems are available, and these systems typically map orders to available inventory using traditional factors such as demo/price efficiency, market and station balance, and fair and equal rotation. The mapping performed by current systems is generally a simple binary association, and once assigned to a unit of inventory, the mapping is fixed, and cannot change unless the automated system is bypassed, and manual intervention is taken. The mapping of orders to inventory is performed on a first-come, first-served basis, and is generally performed at the time a new order is placed. Thus, once an order is mapped to a particular unit of inventory, the system makes that unit of inventory unavailable for later-submitted orders. Additionally, conventional media advertising is based on finite and static data sets. The two primary buyer/seller processes, referred to as planning and campaign copy splitting, are generally third party audience ratings, which are estimates of a listening audience, an estimate of listening audience), and station attributes such as market, format, and time of day. The third party ratings generally change only twice a year, and in most cases, broadcasters must manually approve each proposed advertising plan. Furthermore, proper attribution of advertising can be difficult to demonstrate. For example, if a person hears an advertisement on the radio in his car, he may go home and search for the brand on the Internet, where an advertisement is displayed. In some such cases, the Internet advertisement is given credit for the exposure without taking into account that the radio advertisement should have received at least partial credit for the exposure. A broadcast network lineup, sometimes referred to as a plan or schedule is generally considered to be a contractual order that the seller and buyer have transacted. It is usually a list of stations, weeks, day parts, and number of spots that the seller will air on behalf of the buyer. Originally broadcasting network lineups were referred to as pre-defined “wired networks.” And to make buying advertising time easier, these wired networks always offered the same lineup, and by extension the same audience. Eventually, a new network product was created to accommodate variation-“unwired networks”. Unwired networks are a customized, unique network plan based on the buyer's specification, or “spec”. A spec or specification is the set of goals the buyer wants to achieve from the media plan, for example the total budget, desired number of impressions, the time period, any station format exclusions, etc. In conventional systems, however, the spec is defined against the same finite and static data sets-third party audience and station attributes. In both cases (wired and unwired), once the plan (station lineup) is booked or sold, it cannot change—the “spend” is guaranteed and will run as initially defined. This is a traditional limitation because with finite and static data, it is impracticable to change the plan's station lineup during an advertising campaign. Furthermore, in both cases (wired and unwired), the campaign copy rotation is limited to the station's contextual attributes-market, format, time. Besides being limited, it is operationally expensive to manage complicated copy rotation rules.