WO2009031767A1

WO2009031767A1 - Online advertising method

Info

Publication number: WO2009031767A1
Application number: PCT/KR2008/004721
Authority: WO
Inventors: Jeong-Ho Lee
Original assignee: Jeong-Ho Lee
Priority date: 2007-09-03
Filing date: 2008-08-14
Publication date: 2009-03-12
Also published as: KR100816012B1

Abstract

An online word-of-mouth marketing method is provided. The method includes the steps of SlO) storing company information and personal information, S20) generating and storing a basic advertisement or a search advertisement, S30) paying a reward per comment for the advertisement and a fee for a request to provide the advertisement and providing advertisements in real time, S40) executing the basic advertisement or the search advertisement and entering a comment for the advertisement, S50) transferring the reward for the comment, S60) providing the advertisement as a recommended advertisement to a neighbor customer, and S70) executing the recommended advertisement and transferring a reward for a comment entered for the executed advertisement. An advertiser 10 rather than an advertising agency 20 can directly set advertisement costs to reduce the burden of the advertisement costs, most of the advertisement costs can be directly paid to users (i.e., potential customers) rather than to the advertising agency, and a product or service can be advertised to customers 30 who correspond to the product or service rather than to unspecified individuals.

Description

[DESCRIPTION] [Invention Tit Ie]

ONLINE ADVERTISING METHOD [Technical Field]

<i> The present invention relates to an online word-of-mouth marketing method, and more particularly to an online word-of-mouth marketing method in which offline word-of-mouth marketing is applied to online marketing to achieve word-of-mouth effects online.

[Background Art]

<2> In the past, present, and future, the most effective marketing method is word-of-mouth marketing. The word-of-mouth marketing method in which persons transfer information to those around them through word of mouth is widely used. Marketing using a price comparison site suggesting the lowest price through the Internet and marketing using newspapers or banner advertisements has been widely employed recently.

<3> However, marketing using a price comparison site suggesting the lowest price causes a problem of reducing the quality of products and services and thus reducing customer satisfaction. On the other hand, when marketing using newspapers or banner advertisements is employed, advertisers must accept advertisement costs set by advertising agencies. Thus, if advertisers cannot pay the costs, they cannot perform such marketing. Even when an advertiser has paid the costs for an advertisement to be issued, marketing effects may be reduced if users do not view or only briefly view the advertisement. This conventional marketing method cannot also achieve word-of-mouth effects. [Disclosure] [Technical Problem]

<4> Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and it is an object of the present invention to provide an online word-of-mouth marketing method wherein an advertiser rather than an advertising agency can directly set advertisement costs in order to reduce the burden of the advertisement costs, most of the advertisement costs can be directly paid to users (i.e., potential customers) rather than to the advertising agency, and a product or service can be advertised to customers who correspond to the product or service rather than to unspecified individuals.

<5> It is another object of the present invention to provide an online word-of-mouth marketing method wherein the advertiser can cause customers to view advertisements to increase marketing effects and can also provide a monetary reward once to a user who posted comments for an advertisement of the same product to cause the user to spread such word of mouth and, taking into consideration the fact that a person will not view an advertisement in the current advertisement-explosion era even when an intimate friend has recommended the advertisement to the person if the advertisement is not beneficial to the person, a predetermined amount of money can be paid to another person when the user who posted the comment has recommended the advertisement to the person so that users will voluntarily recommend an advertisement to many neighbor persons since a reward will be accumulated for the person to whom the user has recommended the advertisement, thereby naturally achieving word-of-mouth effects. [Technical Solution]

<6> In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, the above and other objects can be accomplished by the provision of an online word-of-mouth marketing method comprising the steps of: storing company information of an advertiser including a company name, a representative name, an address, an employer identification number, contact information, and a business type and personal information of a customer including a name, a social security number, an address, a frequently visited region, a hobby, an area of interest, occupation, contact information, and religion in a database built in a web server of an advertising agency through respective terminals and of the advertiser and the customer; accessing the web server of the advertising agency through the terminal of the advertiser and generating advertisement request data of one of a basic advertisement or a search advertisement for a product or service to be advertised and then storing the advertisement request data in the database of the web server; charging, by the advertising agency, the advertiser a fee for the advertisement request and a reward per comment for the basic advertisement or the search advertisement stored in the database of the advertising agency and providing, when an amount of money corresponding to the reward per comment and the fee has been paid into an integrated account of the advertising agency, the basic advertisement or the search advertisement in real time to an individual webpage of the customer that matches the search advertisement or to an advertisement field of the web server of the advertising agency; accessing the web server of the advertising agency through the terminal of the customer, selecting a basic advertisement provided in the advertisement field of the web server or a search advertisement provided to a corresponding individual webpage space, executing the selected basic advertisement or search advertisement on a display window of the web server, entering a comment for the executed advertisement through the terminal of the customer, and storing the entered comment in the database of the advertising agency; transferring, when a comment for an advertisement is stored in the database of the advertising agency through the terminal of the customer, the reward per comment paid to the integrated account of the advertising agency online to an individual account of the customer; entering information of a neighbor customer into the individual webpage of the customer to store the information of the neighbor customer and providing an advertisement displayed on the display window of the web server as a recommended advertisement to an individual webpage of the neighbor customer through the terminal of the customer; and accessing the web server of the advertising agency through the terminal of the neighbor customer, executing the recommended advertisement from the customer provided to a corresponding individual webpage space on the display window of the web server, entering a comment for the executed advertisement through the terminal of the neighbor customer, storing the entered comment in the database of the advertising agency, and transferring the reward per comment paid to the integrated account of the advertising agency online to an individual account of the neighbor customer.

[Advantageous Effects]

<7> As described above, an advertiser rather than an advertising agency can directly set advertisement costs in order to reduce the burden of the advertisement costs, most of the advertisement costs can be directly paid to users (i.e., potential customers) rather than to the advertising agency, and a product or service can be advertised to customers who correspond to the product or service rather than to unspecified individuals.

<8> In addition, the advertiser can cause customers to view advertisements to increase marketing effects and can also provide a monetary reward once to a user who posted comments for an advertisement of the same product to cause the user to spread such word of mouth and, taking into consideration the fact that a person will not view an advertisement in the current advert isement- explosion era even when an intimate friend has recommended the advertisement to the person if the advertisement is not beneficial to the person, a predetermined amount of money can be paid to another person when the user who posted the comment has recommended the advertisement to the person so that users will voluntarily recommend an advertisement to many neighbor persons since a reward will be accumulated for the person to whom the user has recommended the advertisement, thereby naturally achieving word-of-mouth effects.

[Description of Drawings]

<9> FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an online word-of-mouth marketing method according to the present invention;

<io> FIG. 2 is a flow chart of the online word-of-mouth marketing method according to the present invention;

<π> FIGS. 3A and 3B are reference diagrams illustrating the online word-of- mouth marketing method according to the present invention; and

<i2> FIGS. 4A and 4B are reference diagrams illustrating a procedure for viewing an advertisement in the online word-of-mouth marketing method according to the present invention.

<13> <Description of Reference Numerals of Main Parts of the Drawings>

<14> 10: advertiser 11: terminal

<i5> 20: advertising agency 21: web server

<16> 22: database 30: customer

<17> 31: terminal 40: neighbor customer

<18> 41: terminal

[Mode for Invention]

<19> An online word-of-mouth marketing method according to the present invention will now be described with reference to the drawings.

<20> FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an online word-of-mouth marketing method according to the present invention. As shown, an advertiser 10, an advertising agency 20, a customer 30, and a neighbor customer 40 are provided. The advertising agency 20 builds a web server 21 and a database 22. The advertiser 10, the customer 30, and the neighbor customer 40 are equipped respectively with terminals 11, 31, and 41 for access to the web server 21.

<2i> FIG. 2 is a flow chart of the online word-of-mouth marketing method according to the present invention. As shown in FIG. 2, the online word-of- mouth marketing method includes the steps of SlO) storing company information and personal information, S20) generating and storing a basic advertisement or a search advertisement, S30) paying a reward per comment for the advertisement and a fee for a request to provide the advertisement and providing advertisements in real time, S40) executing the basic advertisement or the search advertisement and entering a comment for the advertisement, S50) transferring the reward for the comment, S60) providing the advertisement as a recommended advertisement to a neighbor customer, and S70) executing the recommended advertisement and transferring a reward for a comment entered for the executed advertisement. The following is a more detailed description of the online word-of-mouth marketing method according to the present invention. <22> First, company information of the advertiser 10 including a company name, a representative name, an address, an employer identification number, contact information, and a business type and personal information of the customer 30 including a name, a social security number, an address, a frequently visited region, a hobby, an area of interest, occupation, contact information, and religion are stored in the database 22 built in the web server 21 of the advertising agency 20 through the respective terminals 11 and 31 of the advertiser 10 and the customer 30 (step SlO).

<23> Then, in order to advertise a product or service, the web server 21 of the advertising agency 20 is accessed through the terminal 11 of the advertiser 10, advertisement request data of one of a basic advertisement or a search advertisement for the product or service to be advertised is generated, and the advertisement request data is stored in the database 22 of the web server 21 (step S20).

<24> Then, the advertising agency 20 charges the advertiser 10 a fee for the advertisement request and a reward per comment for the basic advertisement or the search advertisement stored in the database 22 of the advertising agency 20. When an amount of money corresponding to the reward per comment and the fee has been paid into an integrated account of the advertising agency 20, the basic advertisement or the search advertisement is provided in real time to an individual webpage of the customer 30 that matches the search advertisement or to an advertisement field of the web server 21 of the advertising agency 20 (step S30).

<25> Then, to check advertisements of the advertiser 10, the web server 21 of the advertising agency 20 is accessed through the terminal 31 of the customer 30, a basic advertisement provided in the advertisement field of the web server 21 or a search advertisement provided to the individual webpage space is selected, the selected basic advertisement or search advertisement is executed on a display window of the web server 21, a comment for the executed advertisement is entered through the terminal 31 of the customer 30, and the entered comment is stored in the database 22 of the advertising agency 20 (step S40).

<26> The step S40) further includes the step S41) of accessing the web server 21 of the advertising agency 20 through the terminal 31 of the customer 30, selecting a recommended advertisement for the neighbor customer 40 when the recommended advertisement for the neighbor customer 40 is provided on the individual webpage space, executing the selected advertisement on the display window of the web server 21, entering a comment for the executed advertisement through the terminal 31 of the customer 30, and storing the entered comment in the database 22 of the advertising agency 20.

<27> Here, when the comment for the advertisement is stored in the database 22 of the advertising agency 20 through the terminal 31 of the customer 30, the reward per comment paid to the integrated account of the advertising agency 20 is transferred online to an individual account of the customer 30 (step S50).

<28> As described above, the advertiser 10 performs advertisement of a product or service through the advertising agency 20. When the customer 30 writes a comment for the advertisement after viewing the product or service, a predetermined amount of money is paid as a reward to the customer 30 to increase advertisement and publicity effects. After the product or service is viewed, information of the neighbor customer 40 is entered into the individual webpage of the customer 30 and the entered information of the neighbor customer 40 is then stored. The advertisement displayed on the display window of the web server 21 at step S40 is provided as a recommended advertisement to an individual webpage of the neighbor customer 40 through the terminal 31 of the customer 30 (step S60).

<29> Then, the web server 21 of the advertising agency 20 is accessed through the terminal 41 of the neighbor customer 40, the recommended advertisement from the customer 30 provided to the individual webpage space is executed on the display window of the web server 21, a comment for the executed advertisement is entered through the terminal 41 of the neighbor O

customer 40, the entered comment is stored in the database 22 of the advertising agency 20, and the reward per comment paid to the integrated account of the advertising agency 20 is transferred online to an individual account of the neighbor customer 40 (step S70).

<30> Information of the neighbor customer 40 can be registered in the following manner. The customer 30 may previously enter information of the neighbor customer 40 such as an ID or name and personal information of the neighbor customer into a neighbor customer information registration field provided through the individual webpage after accessing the web server 21 of the advertising agency 20. Alternatively, the customer 30 may enter information of the neighbor customer 40 into a field provided by the web server 21 after viewing the basic advertisement or the search advertisement provided by the advertiser 10.

<3i> FIGS. 3A and 3B are reference diagrams illustrating the online word-of- mouth marketing method according to the present invention. Specifically, FIG. 3A illustrates a basic advertisement request procedure and FIG. 3B illustrates a search advertisement request procedure. The basic advertisement request procedure for the advertiser 10 is performed in the following manner. First, the advertiser 10 accesses the web server 21 of the advertising agency 20 and enters an amount of money per comment after making a basic advertisement request for a product or service to store the amount of money per comment in the database 22 of the advertising agency 20. When basic advertisement request data in the database is updated, advertisements are displayed in real time in the advertisement field of the web server 21 in descending order of the amount of money per comment . The search advertisement request procedure is performed in the following manner. The advertiser 10 accesses the web server 21 of the advertising agency 20 and selects a condition(s) for setting corresponding to each product or service from age, sex, address, region, hobby, field of interest, and religion and then determines a reward for a comment for the selected setting condition(s) . The determined reward is then stored in the database 22 of the advertising agency 20 and an advertisement for the product or service is provided to individual webpages of customers 30 that matches the corresponding search condition. Each time a setting condition of the advertiser 10 is added, a corresponding amount of money is added to the amount of money per comment.

<32> FIGS. 4A and 4B are reference diagrams illustrating a procedure for viewing an advertisement in the online word-of-mouth marketing method according to the present invention. FIG. 4A illustrates a procedure for viewing an advertisement in a basic advertisement field of the web server 21 of the advertising agency 20 and FIG. 4B illustrates a procedure for viewing a search advertisement provided to an individual webpage of the customer 30 that matches the setting of the advertiser 10.

<33> The procedure for viewing an advertisement in the basic advertisement field is performed in the following manner. The customer 30 accesses the web server 21 of the advertising agency 20 to check the advertisement field of the web server 21. The customer 30 then selects a basic advertisement for a product or service of a specific advertiser 10 and views the selected basic advertisement on the display window of the web server 21. The customer 30 then writes a comment for the basic advertisement through the terminal 31 and receives a reward for the comment for the basic advertisement. The customer 30 then provides the basic advertisement as a recommended advertisement to a neighbor customer 40 and stores the basic advertisement in the database 22. The procedure for viewing a search advertisement is performed in the following manner. The customer 30 accesses the web server 21 of the advertising agency 20. When a search advertisement for a product or service is provided to the individual webpage, the customer 30 selects the search advertisement of the product or service and views the search advertisement through the display window of the web server 21. The customer 30 then writes a comment for the search advertisement through the terminal 31 and receives a reward for the comment for the search advertisement. The customer 30 then provides the search advertisement as a recommended advertisement to a neighbor customer 40 and stores the search advertisement in the database 22. <34> Here, the recommended advertisement is provided only to neighbor customers 40 who have the same search setting values as those of the advertisement of the product or service provided to the customer 30 who matches the search setting of the advertiser 10.

<35> The basic advertisement setting is performed in such a manner that a reward for a comment is paid to all customers 30 who access the web server 21 of the advertising agency 20. However, the search advertisement setting is performed in such a manner that categories such as age, sex, address, region, hobby, field of interest, and religion are set to provide advertisements only to customers 30 who match products or services of the advertiser 10 while preventing a reward for comments from being paid to a customer 30 who does not match products or services of the advertiser 10 when the customer 30 views a search advertisement of the advertiser 10. Here, the advertising agency 20 can add or change various category items at the request of the advertiser 10.

<36> The web server 21 of the advertising agency 20 provides a large-reward- for-comment advance notice webpage which provides advance notice of a significant amount of money per comment to arouse curiosity of the customer 30 and which defines an advance notice period such that the advertiser 10 can advertise during the advance notice period without incurring additional costs. Since advertisements registered in the large-reward-for-comment advance notice webpage provide a great reward per comment, most users will register the advertiser 10 as a favorite company and may spread such word of mouth to neighbors.

<37> In addition, the web server 21 of the advertising agency 20 provides a today's recommended advertisement webpage which provides an advertisement registered in the large-reward-for-comment advance notice webpage as a today's recommended advertisement on the date when the registered advertisement is initiated after the advance notice period is passed or which provides, when an advertisement for which a high reward is assigned per comment is created, the created advertisement as a today's recommended advertisement .

<38> As described above, according to the present invention, the advertiser 10 rather than the advertising agency 20 can directly set advertisement costs by paying only a predetermined fee to the advertising agency 20 so that most of the advertisement costs can be directly paid to users (i.e., potential customers). In addition, the advertiser 10 can cause customers 30 to view advertisements to increase marketing effects and can also provide a monetary reward once to a user who posted comments for an advertisement of the same product to cause the user to provide the advertisement as a recommended advertisement to neighbor customers 40 to achieve word-of-mouth effects, so that the advertisement is naturally provided to many individuals.

<39> Further, in the present invention, to prevent a reward for comments for a basic advertisement or a search advertisement of the advertiser 10 from being excessively paid to the same customer 30, the reward is paid for only one comment that has been entered for the same product through the terminal 31 of the customer 30 or the terminal 41 of the neighbor customer 40.

<40> Although the present invention has been described and illustrated with reference to the specific embodiments, those skilled in the art will appreciate that various modifications and changes are possible, without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention as disclosed in the accompanying claims.

Claims

[CLAIMS] [Claim 1]

An online word-of-mouth marketing method comprising the steps of:

SlO) storing company information of an advertiser 10 including a company name, a representative name, an address, an employer identification number, contact information, and a business type and personal information of a customer 30 including a name, a social security number, an address, a frequently visited region, a hobby, an area of interest, occupation, contact information, and religion in a database 22 built in a web server 21 of an advertising agency 20 through respective terminals 11 and 31 of the advertiser 10 and the customer 30;

S20) accessing the web server 21 of the advertising agency 20 through the terminal 11 of the advertiser 10 and generating advertisement request data of one of a basic advertisement or a search advertisement for a product or service to be advertised and then storing the advertisement request data in the database 22 of the web server 21;

S30) charging, by the advertising agency 20, the advertiser 10 a fee for the advertisement request and a reward per comment for the basic advertisement or the search advertisement stored in the database 22 of the advertising agency 20 and providing, when an amount of money corresponding to the reward per comment and the fee has been paid into an integrated account of the advertising agency 20, the basic advertisement or the search advertisement in real time to an individual webpage of the customer 30 that matches the search advertisement or to an advertisement field of the web server 21 of the advertising agency 20;

S40) accessing the web server 21 of the advertising agency 20 through the terminal 31 of the customer 30, selecting a basic advertisement provided in the advertisement field of the web server 21 or a search advertisement provided to a corresponding individual webpage space, executing the selected basic advertisement or search advertisement on a display window of the web server 21, entering a comment for the executed advertisement through the

1.0

terminal 31 of the customer 30, and storing the entered comment in the database 22 of the advertising agency 20 (S40);

S50) transferring, when a comment for an advertisement is stored in the database 22 of the advertising agency 20 through the terminal 31 of the customer 30, the reward per comment paid to the integrated account of the advertising agency 20 online to an individual account of the customer 30;

S60) entering information of a neighbor customer 40 into the individual webpage of the customer 30 to store the information of the neighbor customer 40 and providing an advertisement displayed on the display window of the web server 21 as a recommended advertisement to an individual webpage of the neighbor customer 40 through the terminal 31 of the customer 30; and

S70) accessing the web server 21 of the advertising agency 20 through the terminal 41 of the neighbor customer 40, executing the recommended advertisement from the customer 30 provided to a corresponding individual webpage space on the display window of the web server 21, entering a comment for the executed advertisement through the terminal 41 of the neighbor customer 40, storing the entered comment in the database 22 of the advertising agency 20, and transferring the reward per comment paid to the integrated account of the advertising agency 20 online to an individual account of the neighbor customer 40.

[Claim 2]

The online word-of-mouth marketing method according to claim 1, wherein a request for the basic advertisement is made by writing an amount of money per comment for a product or service, storing the amount of money per comment in the database 22 of the advertising agency 20, displaying, when basic advertisement request data in the database 22 is updated, advertisements in real time in an advertisement field of the web server 21 in descending order of the amount of money per comment .

[Claim 3]

The online word-of-mouth marketing method according to claim 1, wherein a request for the search advertisement is made by selecting a condition for setting corresponding to each product or service from age, sex, address, region, hobby, field of interest, and religion, storing the determined reward in the database 22 of the advertising agency 20, and adding, each time a setting condition of the advertiser 10 is added, a corresponding amount of money to the amount of money per comment .

[Claim 4]

The online word-of-mouth marketing method according to claim 1, wherein the web server 21 of the advertising agency 20 provides a large-reward-for- comment advance notice webpage which provides advance notice of a significant amount of money per comment to arouse curiosity of the customer 30 and which defines an advance notice period such that the advertiser 10 can advertise during the advance notice period without incurring additional costs and a today's recommended advertisement webpage.

[Claim 5]

The online word-of-mouth marketing method according to claim 1, wherein the step S40) further includes the step S41) of accessing the web server 21 of the advertising agency 20 through the terminal 31 of the customer 30, selecting a recommended advertisement for the neighbor customer 40 when the recommended advertisement for the neighbor customer 40 is provided on a corresponding individual webpage space, executing the selected advertisement on the display window of the web server 21, entering a comment for the executed advertisement through the terminal 31 of the customer 30, and storing the entered comment in the database 22 of the advertising agency 20.

[Claim 6]

The online word-of-mouth marketing method according to claim 1, wherein a reward for comments for a basic advertisement or a search advertisement of the advertiser 10 is paid for only one comment that has been entered through the terminal 31 of the customer 30 or the terminal 41 of the neighbor customer 40.