Fragmented advertisements for co-located social groups

Abstract

Systems and methods are disclosed for delivering a fragmented advertisement to a group of users identified as a group of participants for the fragmented advertisement. As used herein, a fragmented advertisement is an advertisement that includes two or more advertisement fragments each to be delivered to a different participant in a group of participants identified for the fragmented advertisement, where the two or more advertisement fragments encourage interaction between participants to achieve a predefined goal of the fragmented advertisement in order to obtain a corresponding advertisement benefit. For example, the predefined goal of a fragmented advertisement may be correctly answering a question (e.g., a trivia question), solving a puzzle, or the like. The advertisement benefit is preferably a coupon for a business, product, or service being advertised by the fragmented advertisement.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A computer-implemented method comprising:
 identifying a group of participants for fragmented advertisement delivery;   determining a fragmented advertisement for the group of participants, the fragmented advertisement comprising a plurality of advertisement fragments that encourage interaction between participants for the fragmented advertisement to achieve a predefined goal of the fragmented advertisement; and   delivering the fragmented advertisement to the group of participants.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the group of participants is a group of co-located users. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the group of participants is a crowd of users being formed via a spatial crowd formation process. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1  wherein identifying the group of participants comprises:
 identifying an initial group of participants for fragmented advertisement delivery; 
 determining an initial fragmented advertisement for the initial group of participants; 
 delivering the initial fragmented advertisement to the initial group of participants; and 
 receiving a notification of a change in participants that defines at least one change to the initial group of participants to thereby identify the group of participants for fragmented advertisement delivery. 
 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4  wherein the notification of the change in participants comprises a notification that one or more of the participants in the initial group of participants are to be removed as participants. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 4  wherein the notification of the change in participants comprises a notification that one or more users are to be added as additional participants. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1  wherein selecting the fragmented advertisement for the group of participants comprises selecting the fragmented advertisement for the group of participants from a plurality of fragmented advertisements. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 7  wherein selecting the fragmented advertisement comprises selecting the fragmented advertisement for the group of participants from the plurality of fragmented advertisements based on an aggregate profile of the group of participants. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 7  wherein selecting the fragmented advertisement comprises selecting the fragmented advertisement for the group of participants from the plurality of fragmented advertisements based on user profiles of a plurality of users that form the group of participants. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 7  wherein selecting the fragmented advertisement comprises selecting the fragmented advertisement for the group of participants from the plurality of fragmented advertisements based on a location of the group of participants. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 7  wherein selecting the fragmented advertisement comprises selecting the fragmented advertisement for the group of participants from the plurality of fragmented advertisements based on historical information regarding one or more fragmented advertisements previously delivered to the group of participants. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 7  wherein selecting the fragmented advertisement comprises selecting the fragmented advertisement for the group of participants from the plurality of fragmented advertisements based on device capabilities of a plurality of user devices of the group of participants, wherein each participant in the group of participants has a corresponding user device of the plurality of user devices. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 1  wherein determining the fragmented advertisement for the group of participants comprises generating the fragmented advertisement based on one or more characteristics of the group of participants. 
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 13  wherein the one or more characteristics of the group of participants comprise a number of participants in the group of participants. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 14  wherein the one or more characteristics of the group of participants further comprise an aggregate profile of the group of participants. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 1  wherein delivering the fragmented advertisement to the group of participants comprises:
 selecting a user device of one of the group of participants as a master device; and 
 delivering the fragmented advertisement to the master device such that the master device distributes each of the plurality of advertisement fragments to a different participant in the group of participants. 
 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 16  wherein selecting the user device of the one of the group of participants as the master device comprises selecting the user device of the one of the group of participants as the master device based on historical information that indicates that the one of the group of participants was previously a participant for another fragmented advertisement. 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 16  wherein selecting the user device of the one of the group of participants as the master device comprises selecting the user device of the one of the group of participants as the master device based on historical information that indicates that the user device of the one of the group of participants was previously selected as a master device for delivery of another fragmented advertisement. 
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 16  wherein selecting the user device of the one of the group of participants as the master device comprises selecting the user device of the one of the group of participants as the master device based on device capabilities. 
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 16  wherein the group of participants is a crowd of users formed via a spatial crowd formation process, and selecting the user device of the one of the group of participants as the master device comprises selecting the user device of the one of the group of participants as the master device based on an amount of time that the one of the group of participants has been in the crowd of users. 
     
     
         21 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising:
 receiving a response from at least one of the group of participants that is indicative of whether the group of participants achieved the predefined goal of the fragmented advertisement; and 
 delivering an advertisement benefit to the group of participants if the group of participants achieved the predefined goal of the fragmented advertisement. 
 
     
     
         22 . The method of  claim 21  wherein the predefined goal of the fragmented advertisement is answering a question, and the plurality of advertisement fragments of the fragmented advertisement comprise a first advertisement fragment that includes the question and one or more additional advertisement fragments that each include a different hint to a correct answer to the question. 
     
     
         23 . The method of  claim 21  wherein the predefined goal of the fragmented advertisement is solving a puzzle, and the plurality of advertisement fragments of the fragmented advertisement comprise a first advertisement fragment that includes the puzzle and one or more additional advertisement fragments that each include a different hint to solving the puzzle. 
     
     
         24 . A server comprising:
 a communication interface adapted to communicatively couple the server to a network; and   a controller associated with the communication interface and adapted to:
 identify a group of participants for fragmented advertisement delivery; 
 determine a fragmented advertisement for the group of participants, the fragmented advertisement comprising a plurality of advertisement fragments that encourage interaction between participants for the fragmented advertisement to achieve a predefined goal of the fragmented advertisement; and 
 deliver the fragmented advertisement to the group of participants via the network. 
   
     
     
         25 . A computer readable medium storing software for instructing a controller of a computing device to:
 identify a group of participants for fragmented advertisement delivery;   determine a fragmented advertisement for the group of participants, the fragmented advertisement comprising a plurality of advertisement fragments that encourage interaction between participants for the fragmented advertisement to achieve a predefined goal of the fragmented advertisement; and   deliver the fragmented advertisement to the group of participants.