Is the print advertising world ready for contextual ads in magazines and newspapers?
A new Yahoo! patent application explores a process which allows the matching of concepts in articles for print, and advertisements to show up beside them:
[0013] According to one embodiment of the invention, advertisements are automatically matched with to-be-published written materials, such as articles, based at least in part on the concepts to which the advertisements and the written materials pertain. As used herein, the word “concept” refers to topics, ideas, subjects, phrases, etc. The concepts to which the advertisements and the written materials pertain are automatically determined so that no human intervention is required.
The overview section of the patent application tells us that this determination happens without human intervention, but the more detailed description provides one version where the publisher is given a choice of advertisements to show that are contextually related to pages, and choses amongst them.
A publisher could also determine how much flexibility there might be in different parts of a publication for advertisements to match broadly or narrowly the concepts found upon articles in the publication.
An electronic interface, accessible through the Web would enable both advertisers and publishers to participate in this advertising process.
Enabling contextually placed ads in print media Invented by Reiner Kraft US Patent Application 20070083429 Published April 12, 2007 Filed October 11, 2005
Abstract
Techniques for matching advertisements to articles are provided.
According to one aspect, advertisements are automatically matched with to-be-published articles based at least in part on the concepts to which the advertisements and the articles pertain. The concepts to which the advertisements and the articles pertain are automatically determined so that no human intervention is required.
The matching advertisements and articles are placed proximately to each other in a printed publication. As a result, when the articles are published, advertisements that relate to at least some of the concepts to which the articles pertain are seen next to those articles.
This contextual advertisement positioning increases readers’ interest in the advertisements, and helps to promote revenues for both advertisers and publishers.