Targeted advertising and local ad insertion enables cable and telecom service providers to generate additional revenues by delivering targeted ad campaigns and promotions to IPTV-based interactive applications.  In a typical IPTV application, the content that flows from the service provider to the end user takes the form of a live broadcast video stream, an on-demand video stream or non-video interactive user elements (e.g. images, banners, EPG information, Asset Catalogs, System Messages, interactive games etc).

 

IPTV Architecture
In a typical IPTV deployment, live TV channels are encoded in real-time, into MPEG video streams and broadcasted over the network, which is accessed immediately by the user.  On the other side, on demand content like movies and music are aggregated from content providers, encoded into MPEG transport stream videos and stored in a cluster of on-demand video streaming servers at the service provider’s network available for the users to purchase and playback.  The subscriber management server or the middleware server provides the user interface elements, asset catalogs, electronic program guide and all the required client-side applications for a subscriber to access these contents.  The content is accessed by the end user using a media center PC or a TV with a digital set-top box.  The following figure shows various components of an IPTV and VOD architecture:

 

 

Traditional Advertising Model
In the traditional advertising model, the ad content and the program content are assembled, encoded and streamed to all the users, with everyone receiving the same advertisement.  Programs and ads are encoded using transport stream mixers and broadcasted live or stored in video streaming servers.  Banner ads and static contents are pushed to the users using tight integration techniques with the middleware applications.

The following figure shows the advertising components in a traditional advertising model:

 

 

Targeted Advertising Model
The interactive nature of IPTV enables targeted advertisements towards subscribers, thereby increasing revenues per viewer and enhancing the user experience with highly personalized content.  The advertisements that are pushed to a subscriber can be varied according to demographics, geography, viewing habits, content, context and subscriber based campaigning rules.  Because of the in-built addressability of IPTV, ads can be targeted towards large groups, small groups or even single television sets within a household.  The following figure shows the various components in a traditional advertising model:

 

 

The ad management server interacts with the subscriber management or middleware server to deliver targeted ad campaigns to the consumer.  Typical features of an ad management server include:

·      Campaign Management for managing session based rules and ad campaigns for targeting ad banners, ad videos and promotions.

·      Inventory Forecasting for summary of available inventory, projected campaign, delivery and progress.

·      Reporting Module for campaigning and delivery reports.

·      Pricing Module for supporting different pricing models

·      Billing and Sales Modules for integrating with existing billing and sales support systems.

·      Ad Content Management for managing associated ad banners, videos and promotions with related rules.

·      Purchasing Module for advertisers to buy ads and manage their ad slots.

 

The Ad content server is responsible for managing all the advertising media with optional caching feature for instant delivery of the advertisements in real time.  It is also responsible for a highly automated digital ad insertion into the streaming content at the scheduled point.

Typical features of an ad content/insertion server include:

·         Content Management

·         Content Caching

·         Transport Stream Insertion

·         High-Definition Insertion

 

Digital Ad Insertion
Inserting digital ads to the live streams involves two components – a splicer and an ad server.  A splicer is typically a switching device which can generate an output video stream from one or more inputs.  In addition, it can also look for the video splice points from the digital cue tones and insert the ad content at these points from the ad server.  The following picture shows a typical ad insertion process in a broadcast video stream:

 

 

Broadcast streams from the live encoders come in to the splicer and when the ad isn’t being shown these are just re-transmitted as separate but identical streams to the different target groups.  Embedded in the incoming streams are the digital cue tones that signal the location of the “ad avails” and these are detected by the splicer and passed as triggers to the ad server.  At the start of the ad avail the ad server starts playing out the separate ad streams.  These are then fed back into the splicer which inserts them into the outputs sent to the target groups. When the ad avail is completed, the splicer reverts back to the live content and so on; generally acting in a much more interactive manner.  The ad content server is also responsible for static campaigns like banner ads, images, coupons and promotions which are pushed to the end user based on the session parameters.

Targeted ad insertion provides huge opportunities and potential returns for IPTV service providers.  From a marketing perspective, it would become easier to target end users with customized campaigns and increase revenues per consumer.  From a service provider’s perspective, providing such an advertising solution could be a big challenge.  A combination of targeted ad campaign manager and ad insertion technology could provide the necessary advertising solution to meet the needs of advertisers for simplified ad buying.