ENGAGEMENT ANALYTICS ON MIXED DIGITAL/PHYSICAL PLATFORMS
20210150587 · 2021-05-20
Inventors
- Ali Rizvi (Toronto, CA)
- Syed Hammadullah Fasih (Scarborough, CA)
- Hammad Ahmed Naseem (Toronto, CA)
- Abdur Rahim Khanani (Toronto, CA)
Cpc classification
International classification
Abstract
Embodiments described herein relate generally to data analytics and asset distribution technologies on physical objects. In particular, physical marketing collateral may integrate wireless and/or wired communication, cloud-based portal, and data analytics to provide a mixed digital/physical information exchange platform. Digital assets may be hosted on a cloud. Physical objects may be configured to display these assets on an internet-enabled device. The physical objects may be distributed among a plurality of end-users who may engage with theaw assets. Engagement with the digital assets may be monitored, aggregated and subjected to a variety of calculations to evaluate various analytics which quantify performance of the digital assets. At any time, the digital assets may be changed on the cloud, remotely updating the digital assets accessed via the associated physical objects. The ‘look and feel’ of both the physical objects and the cloud-based portal may be customized to meet branding standards and requirements.
Claims
1. A method of integrating digital assets with physical objects, comprising: at least one physical object; and at least one communication module embedded in the physical object which can establish wired and/or wireless communication with an internet-enabled device; and a cloud-based data storage and management system where the digital assets are stored; and a user interface which allows end-users to access the digital assets; and a data analytics system which can measure end-user engagement with the digital assets.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein a database of engagement analytics functions is made available to the administrator to choose from for tracking engagement of users with the digital assets accessed via the physical object.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein engagement analytics functions from a third party service can be made available to the administrator for tracking user engagement with the digital assets, including a customer relationship manager (CRM), and/or a sales automation service.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein a dashboard is made available for reporting the selected engagement analytics functions to the administrator, and where the computed metrics can be exported for further analysis and processing.
5. The method of claim 1 wherein the administrator can assign and update permissions and privileges of different users for accessing the digital assets.
6. The method of claim 1 wherein the restricted digital assets may be purchased by end-users via a payment interface to gain access to the said assets.
7. The method of claim 1, wherein the physical object may be physical marketing collateral.
8. The method of claim 1, wherein the physical object may be customized.
9. The method of claim 1, where the file storage and management system allows updating of the digital assets so that the content accessed via the physical objects may be ‘remotely updated’ even after the physical objects have been distributed to end-users.
10. The method of claim 1, wherein the tracked metrics could be analyzed by a machine learning algorithm to recommend optimizations for improving digital asset performance.
11. The method of claim 1, where a tracking interceptor is present for identifying an end-user, which may be in the form of social network login, email-based login, or a user account hosted locally on the platform.
12. The method of claim 1, wherein the digital assets can be made available to end-users based on a predetermined schedule established by the administrator.
13. The method of claim 1, where the user interface can be visually personalized enabling it to meet the branding requirements and standards of the administrator.
14. The method of claim 13, where the personalized interface may be downloaded to an internet-enabled device belonging to an end-user in the form of an ‘app’ so that the physical object is no longer needed to access the digital assets.
15. The method of claim 14, where the thumbnail or icon ‘app’ can be customized so that it meets the branding expectations of the administrator.
Description
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0024] The subject matter regarded as the invention is particularly pointed out and distinctly claimed in the concluding portion of the specification. The invention, however, both as to organization and method of operation, together with objects, features, and advantages thereof, may best be understood by reference to the following detailed description when read with the accompanying drawings in which:
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[0035] It will be appreciated that for simplicity and clarity of illustration, elements shown in the figures have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements may be exaggerated relative to other elements for clarity. Further, where considered appropriate, reference numerals may be repeated among the figures to indicate corresponding or analogous elements.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0036] For the purposes of promoting an understanding of the principles of the invention, reference will now be made to the embodiments illustrated in the drawings and specific language will be used to describe the same. However, the illustrated embodiments are merely exemplary and many additional embodiments of this invention are possible. For example this invention is shown in use with a promotional USB drive; however this invention is not intended to be limited to USB drives. It is understood that no limitation of the scope of the invention is thereby intended. Any alterations and further modifications in the illustrated devices, and such further application of the principles of the invention as illustrated herein are contemplated as would normally occur to one skilled in the art to which the invention relates.
[0037] The disclosed system enables delivery of digital assets through physical marketing collateral. The digital assets may be provided by an administrator, which may be a representative of a business, or an owner of the assets, and may include a variety of media forms. These digital assets may be associated with physical marketing collateral. The physical marketing collateral and the user interface which may be used to access the digital assets may be customized to meet the branding standards, and printing expectations, of the administrator.
[0038] Once the physical marketing collateral has been distributed or shared, the associated digital asset may be accessed by the recipients of the physical marketing collateral, which may be a target audience. The recipients of the physical marketing collateral may be required to establish wired/wireless connectivity to a computer or a mobile device to access the digital assets. The recipients may be able to use the physical object to access the associated assets multiple times. In some embodiments, the recipients may be directed to install an app so that access to the assets may be granted without the need of the physical object. The recipients may also need to sign up, log in or continue as guest all of which may have different access privileges defined by the administrator.
[0039] In accordance with the systems and methods described herein, the assets are accessed via a user interface which may be customized to the branding standards of the business. Personalizations may be made so that continuity in ‘look and feel’ of a brand may be created across the mixed digital/physical platform. In addition, the interface may provide the ability to share the digital assets across various channels such as email, social networks, etc.
[0040] Whereas most physical objects may be deemed static, the digital assets are stored such that they can be manipulated over time by the administrator allowing ‘remote updating’ of the digital assets even after the physical objects have been deployed. Furthermore, other administrative features may be changed over time, such as but not limited to asset access permissions for different users, and the visual customizations of the interface. In some embodiments, the system may offer scheduling tools that could enable changes to the digital assets for implementation at a future predefined date.
[0041] The platform may provide a measurement of various metrics for tracking engagement with the digital assets accessed via the physical marketing collateral. The engagement analytics may be presented in the form of a dynamically updating dashboard to visualize various performance metrics. The platform may provide the ability to select a variety of engagement analytics metrics from a repository of predefined metric, or create custom user-defined metrics, including those that involve comparison across various projects or campaigns. In addition, this platform may implement rules that enable providing meaningful insights after analyzing the engagement results over time, and/or recommend optimizations for improving engagement performance. These insights may be made through recommendation notifications and may utilize machine learning and/or optimization methods, among other techniques.
[0042] This platform provides a scalable system that may have an ability to: (1) more accurately measure engagement analytics aggregated from a plurality of users, (2) more effectively update digital assets associated with physical marketing collateral even after the physical marketing collateral has been distributed, (3) more effectively adjust the “look and feel” of the physical marketing collateral and the user interface which hosts the digital assets so that a consistent, continuous, and uninterrupted brand image can be portrayed across the mixed digital and physical platform, (4) more effectively control and assign privileges to access restricted digital content for digital content monetization purposes.
[0043] Referring now to
[0044] In this implementation environment 100, there exists at least one administrator 101 who may be a business, an individual, sales staff, independent agent, franchisee, representative, marketing manager, account manager, researcher, ad agency, marketing firm, digital asset owner, solopreneur, and the like. The digital assets may be in a variety of formats which include without limitation, text, video, audio, images, virtual reality elements, augmented reality elements, vibrations, or a combination thereof.
[0045] The users 102 can be one person or a plurality of persons who may be considered prospective customers, target audience, digital asset consumers, recipients of physical marketing collateral, end-users, viewers of the marketing collateral, consumers, clients, customers or any combination thereof, and the like.
[0046] The physical marketing media 103 may include by way of example USB drives, flyers, brochures, cards, posters, business cards, billboards, signage, direct mail, newsletters, magazines, catalogs, notepads, calendars, stickers, invitation cards, booklets, books, banners, promotional merchandise, data storage media, packaging, video brochures, holograms, webkey-based products, custom-branded products, swag items, shirts, pens, mugs, bags, key-chains, fidget spinners, lanyards, bottle openers, stuffed toys, caps, clothing merchandise, and other physical marketing collateral, or a combination thereof. One physical marketing object 103 may serve one user 102 or it may serve multiple users 102. If desired, the physical marketing objects can be customized in shape, dimensions, form, material, printing method, printed text, printed images, printed logos, and the like. If a 2D or 3D display is made available in the marketing object itself such as in video brochures, then videos and projections may also be customized. Unique physical customizations to each unit of 103 may also be made. For instance, an alphanumeric set of characters which increase by +1 may be printed or stamped for a plurality of units of marketing collateral 103. In this way, the system may allow the physical objects to meet the branding requirements of businesses, and may provide additional opportunities for visual tracking of individual units.
[0047] The physical marketing objects 103 may embed some means of communicating with various devices using wireless/wired communication modules 104 including one or more of the following: QR code, linear code, two-dimensional code, NFC (104a), Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), RFID, three-dimensional code, barcode, machine readable code, data over voice, near sound data transfer (NSDT), USB (104b), USB-type C, SD card, micro SD card, micro USB, mini USB, and the like.
[0048] The devices 105 may include any device connected to a network including a desktop computer, personal computer, workstation, server, portable computer, mobile device, personal digital assistant, laptop, tablet device, smart phone, WAP phone, smart glasses, holographic displays, virtual reality hardware, augmented reality hardware, smart television, video display terminals, smart watches, gaming consoles, electronic reading device, portable electronic devices or a combination of these, or other computing device with network connectivity. The device 105 may also be a third party computer network service such as a social networking platform that utilizes the engagement analytics, remote updating feature and/or the digital environment customization resources. The devices 105 may include at least one processor, may include any type of computer memory located either internally or externally, include one or more input devices, such as a keyboard, mouse, camera, touch screen and a microphone, and may also include one or more output devices such as a display screen and a speaker.
[0049] The devices 105 are coupled with a network 106 (or multiple networks) capable of carrying data including the internet, Ethernet, plain old telephone service (POTS) line, public switch telephone network (PSTN), integrated services digital network (ISDN), digital subscriber line (DSL), coaxial cable, fiber optics, satellite, mobile, wireless (e.g. Wi-Fi, WiMAX), SS7 signaling network, fixed line, local area network, wide area network, and others, including any combination of these.
[0050] The network 106 is communicatively coupled with any number of web servers 107, application servers 108, database servers 109, and other servers 110 (such as file management servers, analytics servers etc.). Alternatively, the system may employ a server through a cloud computing web service or a server farm communicatively coupled with one or more servers and/or data storage devices distributed over a wide geographical region and connected via the network. The servers may reside in any number of networked mobile devices or computers such as hardware server, mobile phones, gaming consoles, personal computers, laptops, workstations, tablets, smart televisions, and any combination thereof. The server may also be made of one or multiple social networking platforms. A variety of other configurations are possible. The server may comprise of any type of general-purpose microprocessor or microcontroller, a digital signal processing (DSP) processor, an integrated circuit, a field programmable gate array (FPGA), a reconfigurable processor, a programmable read-only memory (PROM), or any combination thereof. The server may include any type of computer memory that is located either internally or externally such as random-access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), electro-optical memory, magneto-optical memory, erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), and electrically-erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), Ferroelectric RAM (FRAM) or the like. The servers 107, 108, 109, 110 can utilize operating systems, such as Linux, and Linux variants.
[0051] The process depicted in
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[0054] Furthermore, the user interface may be customized to replicate the look and feel of the brand of the administrator 310. This customization determines how the user interface hosting the digital assets will appear to the users 102. These customizations include icon and thumbnail images, company logo(s), banners, titles, headlines, descriptions, preview images, colors, themes, sorting, view type (large icons, small icons, list etc.), and the like. These customizations may be made from built-in options of the platform or completely user-defined. Once intended changes have been implemented, options are made available 311 to visualize the personalized user interface 312 as viewed from the perspective of a user, or user-category, or log out 313. The administrator 101 has the ability to update: 1) the digital assets, 2) permissions and privileges for accessing digital assets, and 3) visual customizations of the interface for each project as many times as needed over time 314. By doing so, the user interface and the digital assets accessed using the physical products 103 may also be remotely updated.
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[0056] Each physical object integrates at least one wired or wireless communication module. The physical objects 103a-e included in
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[0062] The mixed physical/digital platform for distributing digital assets with integrated tracking and customization may be applied across multiple verticals. As an example the platform may have application in administration where the utilization of the digital assets by user groups such as employees, agents, etc. may be monitored using the engagement analytics dashboard.
[0063] Another example application may be in the education industry, where teachers may be able to monitor the engagement of students with course-related digital assets, and use this information for grading students, and/or developing a more optimized course curriculum.
[0064] Although the disclosure has been described and illustrated in exemplary forms with a certain degree of particularity, it is noted that the description and illustrations have been made by way of example only. Numerous changes in the details of construction and combination and arrangement of parts and steps may be made. Accordingly, such changes are intended to be included in the invention, the scope of which is defined by the claims.
[0065] Except to the extent explicitly stated or inherent within the processes described, including any optional steps or components thereof, no required order, sequence, or combination is intended or implied. As will be understood by those skilled in the relevant arts, a wide range of variations is possible, and even advantageous, in various circumstances, without departing from the scope of the invention, which is to be limited only by the claims.