Background:

The message/advertisement industry is nearly $75 billion. Advertising agencies estimate nearly half of this amount to be wasted since many users do not prefer to view message/advertisements due to a variety of reasons. There are many drawbacks and shortcomings to known advertising delivery. One drawback is that advertisements often interrupt regular programming. It is well known that viewers often skip commercials by leaving the room during the interruption of their televised program and return at the end of the commercial, thereby missing the commercial completely. More recently with the use of digital video recorders, many viewers simply fast forward through the commercials to avoid being interrupted during regular broadcast and cable programming. This causes many commercials to be missed. Further, currently there is no mechanism to time-shift the advertisements and other messages after the regular programming. Stated differently, viewers are not given a choice of when to view a particular commercial relative to the regular programming. Another drawback from an individual user's perspective is that a specific message/advertisement may be irrelevant or not interesting. Advertisement and messages can be targeted by a geographic viewing region, but currently there is no mechanism to target a specific individual viewer within a geographic viewing region. Another drawback is typical television-based advertisement does not take advantage of alternate delivery methods such as printing, displaying a second audio/video presentation, e-mail, fax, wired and wireless handsets and more. According what is needed is a method and system to overcome the aforementioned drawbacks encountered in the prior art and to provide an unobtrusive, low cost, user-initiated method that provides multiple delivery channels for advertisements and messages.

Summary:

This invention uses data hiding techniques such as Steganography, to embed a message/advertisement in a primary program based on the context. A link is placed in the primary program to a message/advertisement. The server-side message/advertisement embedding or linking and client side selecting and optional decoding can be done in software, hardware or a combination. The receiver can decode the embedded advertisement on demand. The advertisement can be transmitted to a secondary device such as a printer, fax, computer, and other types of devices without interrupting the primary program or displayed in the primary device using time-shifting.

The present invention presents over two client devices, the method includes: receiving, on a first client device, a primary multimedia presentation with a plurality of Steganographic Codes embedded therein; whereby the Steganographic code is not perceivable during a rendering of the multimedia presentation and the code is associated with at least one secondary multimedia presentation. Next, the primary multimedia presentation is rendered on the first client device. The first client device receives a user selection to select at least one of the codes. In response to the user selection, a secondary multimedia presentation is presented to the user in response to receiving the user selection, wherein the second multimedia presentation is presented over a second client device which is distinct from the first client device. The secondary multimedia presentation is presented over the second client device including at least one of the following: a facsimile machine, a radio, a telephone, a cellular telephone, a pager, an instant messenger client, and an e-mail client. The secondary multimedia presentation includes at least one an advertisement, a message, a link to additional information, a webpage, and a coupon.

The Steganographic code is decoded on the first device prior to presenting the secondary multimedia presentation to the user on the second client device. A bi-directional network connection with the second device in another alternative embodiment has been shown to be used advantageously with the present invention. One such bi-direction network connection is an internet connection which is separate and distinct from a channel by which the primary presentation is presented; and wherein the presenting of the secondary multimedia presentation to the user is performed by an information processing server receiving the user selection of at least one of the Steganographic codes. An indication may be used to alert the user during the primary presentation, the presence of at least one of the codes which is associated with the secondary multimedia presentation.

In an embodiment where the present invention presents over one client device, the method includes receiving, on a client device, a primary multimedia presentation with a plurality of Steganographic codes embedded therein; whereby the steganographic code is not perceivable during a rendering of the multimedia presentation and the Steganographic code is associated with at least one secondary multimedia presentation. Next the primary multimedia presentation is presented. In response to receiving a user selection to select at least one of the Steganographic codes, the secondary multimedia presentation to the user in response to receiving the user selection, wherein the second multimedia presentation is presented after a time period when the primary multimedia presentation is completed.

Benefits:

- More effective in keeping the user involved during the commercial

- User-centric advertisement

Applications:

- Opens up new avenues for innovative marketing

- Major source of revenue generation for broadcast partners

Full Patent: Data Hiding Based Messages And Advertisements