| VALASSIS COMMUNICATIONS, INC. Patent applications |
| Patent application number | Title | Published |
| 20110208577 | Online Offer Distribution System And Mehtod - An online offer distribution system may convey offer information relating to an offer selected from an offer supply database. The offer information may be conveyed in an electronic form, such as a web page, that may be accessed by a consumer on a client device. Upon receiving a request to print an offer document corresponding to the offer, the system may generate the offer document including at least a portion of the offer information and time indicating indicia associated with the request to print. The time indicating indicia may be a quasi-unique identifier corresponding to a time the request to print is received or the offer document is transmitted to the client device for printing. The time indicating indicia may be encrypted and incorporated into the offer document as an alphanumeric code, barcode, or both. | 08-25-2011 |
| 20110047023 | Offer Management Method And System - An offer management system may provide an open platform capable of aggregating offers from multiple offer providers. All offers may be uploaded to the offer management system and presented to consumers via a single portal so they can easily browse, select and review all available digital offers at one time, in one place. Upon visiting a hosted website, the offer management system may interact with the consumer by displaying references to digital offers on the home page or in the navigation bar. The offer management system can display personalized content that may feature any available offers targeted specifically to the consumer based upon personal information contained in a profile for the consumer that is associated with the consumer's online account, such as a loyalty card account. Moreover, the offer management system may receive requests from the consumer to print selected offers or download selected offers to the consumer's account. | 02-24-2011 |
| 20110047018 | Offer Management Method And System - An offer management system may provide an open platform capable of aggregating offers from multiple offer providers. All offers may be uploaded to the offer management system and presented to consumers via a single portal so they can easily browse, select and review all available digital offers at one time, in one place. Upon visiting a hosted website, the offer management system may interact with the consumer by displaying references to digital offers on the home page or in the navigation bar. The offer management system can display personalized content that may feature any available offers targeted specifically to the consumer based upon personal information contained in a profile for the consumer that is associated with the consumer's online account, such as a loyalty card account. Moreover, the offer management system may receive requests from the consumer to print selected offers or download selected offers to the consumer's account. | 02-24-2011 |
| 20110047017 | Offer Management Method And System - An offer management system may provide an open platform capable of aggregating offers from multiple offer providers. All offers may be uploaded to the offer management system and presented to consumers via a single portal so they can easily browse, select and review all available digital offers at one time, in one place. Upon visiting a hosted website, the offer management system may interact with the consumer by displaying references to digital offers on the home page or in the navigation bar. The offer management system can display personalized content that may feature any available offers targeted specifically to the consumer based upon personal information contained in a profile for the consumer that is associated with the consumer's online account, such as a loyalty card account. Moreover, the offer management system may receive requests from the consumer to print selected offers or download selected offers to the consumer's account. | 02-24-2011 |
| 20100114652 | COMPUTER-IMPLEMENTED, AUTOMATED MEDIA PLANNING METHOD AND SYSTEM - An automated computer system for generating a geographically-localized media plan including a number of selected media buyable units (MBUs) is provided. The system implements the following functions: receiving client-defined information and a number of business rules; receiving a number of MBUs each having a relative value and including a first and second MBU associated with a first media product option and a third and fourth MBU associated with a second media product option; applying an optimization algorithm to the client-defined information, the number of business rules and the number of MBU relative values to obtain a number of selected MBUs included in a geographically-localized media plan; and outputting the geographically-localized media plan for use by a client in media planning. The first MBU associated with a first geography. The second MBU is associated with a second geography and the first geography, with the first geography being larger than the second geography and the first geography substantially covering the second geography. | 05-06-2010 |
| 20100114651 | COMPUTER-IMPLEMENTED, AUTOMATED MEDIA PLANNING METHOD AND SYSTEM - An automated computer system for scoring the effectiveness of a number of number of media options for purposes of media planning is provided. The system implements the following functions: receiving a client objective for a media plan for advertising a number of products and/or services and a consumer purchasing frequency for the number of products and/or services; receiving a number of media product options; and scoring the effectiveness of each of the number of media product options based on the client objective and the consumer purchasing frequency to obtain a value for each of the number of media product options. The client objective may be selected from a number of discrete objectives and the consumer purchasing frequency may be selected from a number of consumer purchasing frequency options. | 05-06-2010 |
| 20100114650 | COMPUTER-IMPLEMENTED, AUTOMATED MEDIA PLANNING METHOD AND SYSTEM - An automated computer system for media planning is provided. The automated computer system includes functionality for determining geographically-localized estimated sales data for use in generating media plans. The automated computer system also includes functionality for determining the relative value of a localized geography to a media plan. The automated computer system further includes functionality for a media buyable unit (MBU) score for use in generating a geographically-localized media plan. | 05-06-2010 |