JP7526644B2 - Advertising information printing system - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to an advertising information printing system.

Creating printed material incurs costs such as ink, toner, and paper. There are services that cover these costs with advertising fees for printing advertisements on printed material. When using this service, a random advertisement that fits into the blank areas of the printed material is inserted, and the advertiser of that advertisement bears some or all of the costs.

For example, Patent Literature 1 discloses an information distribution system that identifies a printing device that matches an advertising request from among multiple printing devices and transmits the requested advertising content to the identified printing device. Patent Literature 2 discloses an image forming system that detects blank areas from image information and transmits an advertising image that matches the blank area to a printing device.

Patent Document 3 also discloses an image forming system that obtains conditions such as whether the entire printed matter is blank, only a portion of the printed matter is blank, or only a continuous area is blank, and prints advertisements that fit each condition.

Patent No. 3851079 Patent No. 3470444 JP 2014-174757 A

For example, consider the case of printing an advertisement in printed materials distributed by a school. There are various types of printed materials at a school, such as annual event schedules, class newsletters, and announcements. The validity periods of these printed materials vary depending on the type. When placing an advertisement in printed materials with different validity periods, it is necessary to take those validity periods into consideration.

However, the conventional advertising information printing system described above determined advertising fees based only on the size of the advertisement. In other words, if an advertisement of the same size is printed in both an annual event schedule, which is valid for one year, and a class newsletter, which is valid for one month, the advertising fee is the same.

The advertising period of an advertisement depends on the validity period until the printed matter is discarded. Therefore, the advertising effectiveness varies depending on the printed matter. However, advertisers feel that it is unfair to have to pay the same advertising fee for printed matter with different advertising periods. Thus, conventional advertising information printing systems have the problem of being unable to flexibly set fees (advertising fees) that correspond to the advertising effectiveness.

The present invention has been made in consideration of the above, and aims to provide an advertising information printing system that allows for flexible pricing that matches the advertising effectiveness.

In order to achieve the above object, the advertising information printing system of the present invention is an advertising information printing system having one or more printing devices and an advertising management device that distributes printing information including an advertising image to the printing device, the printing device includes an image information sending unit that sends image information representing an image to be printed on a print medium to the advertising management device, and a printing unit that receives printing information from the advertising management device in which advertising image information representing the advertising image is inserted into the image information and prints the printing information, and the advertising management device includes a validity period information acquisition unit that acquires validity period information representing the validity period of the image information, and a print image synthesis unit that receives the image information, the advertising image information, and the validity period information as inputs and synthesizes the printing information with the size of the advertising image reduced as the validity period is longer.

The present invention provides an advertising information printing system that allows flexible pricing according to advertising effectiveness.

1 is a block diagram showing an example of a configuration of an advertising information printing system according to an embodiment of the present invention. 4 is a flowchart showing an operation procedure of a printing device and an advertisement management device constituting the advertising information printing system shown in FIG. 1 . FIG. 13 is a schematic diagram showing an example of advertising image information in the case where an advertising image having a size corresponding to the length of the validity period of the image information is set at one time. 5 is a flowchart showing an operation procedure performed by a print image synthesis unit according to the first embodiment of the present invention. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating a blank area of a printed matter represented by blank area information 35a. FIG. FIG. 13 is a schematic diagram showing an example of a printed matter on which print information is printed in which medium-sized advertising image information is inserted into image information with a medium validity period. 10 is a flowchart showing an operation procedure performed by a print image synthesis unit according to a second embodiment of the present invention. 11 is a schematic diagram showing an example of a printed matter on which printing information is printed, in which advertising image information is inserted directly into image information without being reduced; FIG.

The following describes an embodiment of the present invention with reference to the drawings. Note that the same or equivalent parts and components are denoted with the same or equivalent reference numerals throughout the drawings, and their description will be omitted or simplified.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of the configuration of an advertising information printing system according to an embodiment of the present invention. The advertising information printing system 100 shown in FIG. 1 has one or more printing devices 10, a network 20, and an advertising management device 30 that distributes printing information including advertising image information to the printing devices 10.

The printing device 10 and the advertising management device 30 are connected via a network 20. The network 20 may be the Internet or a LAN cable. If information can be exchanged between the printing device 10 and the advertising management device 30, the network 20 does not have to be present. In addition, as indicated by "..." in FIG. 1, the advertising management device 30 may be connected to multiple printing devices 10.

(Printing device)
The printing device 10 includes an image information acquiring section 11, an image information transmitting section 12, and a printing section 13. The printing device 10 may be any of an inkjet printing device, an electrophotographic printing device, a punch printing device, and the like.

The printing method may be any method that forms an image on a print medium such as paper or film. The functional configuration shown in FIG. 1 shows the minimum configuration required to explain this embodiment, and general configurations such as an operation unit and a control unit that are not necessary for the explanation are omitted. This also applies to the advertising management device 30 described later.

The image information acquisition unit 11 acquires image information 11a representing an image to be printed on a print medium. The image information acquisition unit 11 can be composed of, for example, a scanner. The scanner scans an original with a CCD line sensor to read the image information 11a. The scanned and read image information 11a in bitmap format is converted into, for example, a page description language (PDL). The page description language is a computer language used to convey the content to be printed to the printing unit 13, and can specify all aspects of a print job, such as print information, number of copies to be printed, single-sided/double-sided, and resolution. The page description language may be any of PS, PCL, Pages, LIPS, etc., as long as it matches the specifications of the printing unit 13.

The image information sending unit 12 sends the image information 11a acquired by the image information acquiring unit 11 to the advertisement management device 30. If the user does not permit the insertion of an advertisement image, the image information 11a is transmitted directly to the printing unit 13.

The printing unit 13 receives printing information 35b from the advertising management device 30, in which advertising image information 33a representing an advertising image is inserted into image information 11a, and prints the printing information 35b on a printing medium.

(Advertising management device)
The advertisement management device 30 includes a transmission/reception unit 31, a validity period information acquisition unit 32, an advertisement information acquisition unit 33, an advertisement information database 34 (hereinafter, advertisement information DB), and a print image synthesis unit 35. The advertisement management device 30 may be realized by a computer including, for example, a ROM, a RAM, a CPU, etc. When the advertisement management device 30 is realized by a computer, the processing contents of the functions that each functional component unit should have are described by a program.

The transmitting/receiving unit 31 receives image information 11a transmitted from the printing device 10. It also transmits printing information 35b to the printing device 10. The image information 11a is information representing an image that does not include advertising image information to be printed on a print medium. The printing information 35b is information in which advertising image information 33a has been inserted into the image information 11a to be printed on a print medium. The printing information 35b will be described in detail later.

The validity period information acquisition unit 32 acquires validity period information 32a that indicates the validity period of the image information 11a. The validity period information 32a may be read from the image information 11a by analyzing the page description language that represents the image information 11a. Alternatively, the validity period information 32a may be acquired from the printing device 10 as independent information that is different from the image information 11a.

The advertising information acquisition unit 33 acquires advertising information 33ab, which is a set of advertising image information 33a and advertising fee information 33b. The advertising image information 33a may be an advertising image read by a scanner (not shown), similar to the image information 11a, or may be information converted into a page description language in another device (computer).

Advertising fee information 33b indicates the advertising fee and is set through discussion between the administrator and the user. The administrator is an expert familiar with the advertising business. Advertising fee information 33b is expressed, for example, in yen/sheet, corresponding to the number of copies of the printed matter on which advertising image information 33a is to be printed. Note that advertising fee information 32c may be set to a uniform amount, for example 10 yen/sheet, and may be treated as information that does not need to be entered by the user.

The advertising information 33ab, which is the advertising image information 33a and the advertising fee information 33b acquired by the advertising information acquisition unit 33, is recorded in the advertising information DB 34. Note that if the image information 11a received from the printing device 10 and the advertising information 33ab are processed in one-to-one correspondence, the advertising information DB 34 may not be necessary.

When the advertising information 33ab is a single piece of fixed information, the advertising management device 30 may store the advertising information 33ab in advance. In this case, the advertising information acquisition unit 33 is not necessary, and one advertising image is inserted into different pieces of image information 11a.

The print image composition unit 35 inputs the image information 11a, the advertising image information 33a, and the validity period information 32a, and synthesizes the print information 35b in which the size of the advertising image represented by the advertising image information 33a is smaller the longer the validity period of the image information 11a represented by the validity period information 32a. The advertising image information 33a is inserted, for example, into a blank area of the image information 11a. The validity period of the image information 11a can be, for example, long-term, medium-term, or short-term. Details will be described later.

As explained above, the advertising information DB 34 is not necessary when processing image information 11a and advertising information in one-to-one correspondence. Also, if advertising information 33ab is treated as a single, fixed piece of information, the advertising information acquisition unit 33 is not necessary.

Therefore, the advertising management device 30 has two essential functional components, excluding the transmission/reception unit 31, which is a general functional component, namely, the validity period information acquisition unit 32 and the print image synthesis unit 35. In addition, the essential information includes four items: image information 11a representing the image to be printed on the print medium, validity period information 32a representing the validity period of the image information 11a, advertising image information 33a representing the advertising image, and print information 35b in which the advertising image information 33a is inserted into the image information 11a. Note that advertising fee information 33b is not necessary if advertising fees are treated uniformly.

(Action)
2 is a flowchart showing the operation procedure of the printing device 10 and the advertisement management device 30 which constitute the advertisement information printing system 100. The operations of the printing device 10 and the advertisement management device 30 will be described with reference to FIG.

As shown in FIG. 2, when the printing device 10 starts operating, the image information acquisition unit 11 first acquires image information 11a to be printed on the print medium (step S10). The image information 11a may be obtained by reading an original document with a scanner (not shown), or the image information 11a described in a page description language may be acquired from another device (not shown).

When the advertising management device 30 starts operating, the advertising information acquisition unit 33 acquires advertising image information 33a and advertising fee information 33b (step S30). The advertising image information 33a and advertising fee information 33b are set through discussion between the administrator and the user.

The printing device 10 then determines whether or not it is acceptable to insert the advertising image information 33a into the image information 11a (step S11). If the user does not permit the advertising image information 33a to be inserted into the image information 11a (NO in step S11), the printing unit 13 prints the image information 11a acquired by the image information acquisition unit 11 on the print medium (step S12) and ends the operation.

If insertion of an advertising image is permitted (YES in step S11), the image information transmission unit 12 of the printing device 10 transmits the image information 11a to the advertising management device 30 (step S13). The image information 11a is received by the transmission/reception unit 31 of the advertising management device 30 (step S31).

The validity period information acquisition unit 32 acquires validity period information 32a indicating the validity period of the image information 11a (step S32). The validity period information 32a can be acquired by analyzing, for example, a page description language that indicates the image information 11a. If it is assumed that the image information 11a is, for example, a printed matter printed at a school, the validity period differs depending on the type of the printed matter.

If image information 11a is "Class Open Day Notice," the validity period is, for example, less than one month. Similarly, the validity period of "Class Newsletter" is, for example, one month, and the validity period of "Annual Event Schedule" is one year. In this way, validity period information 32a can be obtained from image information 11a.

The print image synthesis unit 35 extracts blank area information 34a, which indicates the position and size of blank areas where no characters, figures, etc. are placed, from the image information 11a (step S33). The blank area information 34a can be easily extracted by analyzing the image information 11a, similar to the validity period information 32a.

The position and size of the blank area may be fixed. In that case, blank area information 34a and the processing of step S33 are not necessary.

The print image synthesis unit 35 then selects from the advertisement information DB 34 advertisement information 33ab that matches the blank area represented by the blank area information 34a and has a high advertising fee (step S33). Then, the print information 35b is synthesized so that the size of the advertisement image is reduced as the validity period represented by the validity period information 32a is longer (step S34). The print information 35b is sent to the printing device 10 (step S35).

The printing device 10 receives the printing information 35b (step S14). The received printing information 35b is converted by the printing unit 13 into a printable bitmap format (RIP: Raster Image Processor) and printed on the printing medium (step S12).

When the advertising image is printed, the printing device 10 transmits print result information 13a to the advertising management device 30 (step S15). The print result information 13a includes, for example, information indicating the number of sheets of printed media that have been printed.

The advertising management device 30 receives the print result information 13a (step S36). Then, it manages the number of prints (step S37). These processes are performed by the control unit (not shown).

The control unit of the advertising management device 30 charges the advertiser an amount, for example, 10 yen/sheet multiplied by the number of sheets printed. Alternatively, if the advertising fee has already been paid, for example, 10 yen/sheet x 100 sheets, the control unit subtracts the number of sheets printed from 100 sheets and manages the number of sheets printed of the advertising image information 33a.

As described above, the advertising information printing system 100 according to this embodiment is an advertising information printing system having one or more printing devices 10 and an advertising management device 30 that delivers printing information 35b including an advertising image to the printing device 10. The printing device 10 includes an image information sending unit 12 that sends image information representing an image to be printed on a print medium to the advertising management device 30, and a printing unit 13 that receives printing information 35b in which advertising image information 33a representing an advertising image is inserted into image information 11a from the advertising management device 30 and prints the printing information 35b. The advertising management device 30 includes a validity period information acquisition unit 32 that acquires validity period information 32a that represents the validity period of the image information 11a, and a print image synthesis unit 35 that receives the image information 11a, the advertising image information 33a, and the validity period information 32a as inputs and synthesizes printing information 35b in which the size of the advertising image is reduced as the validity period is longer. This makes it possible to provide an advertising information printing system that allows flexible pricing according to the advertising effect.

In addition, users can receive a service that reduces printing costs even if they do not have specialized knowledge about advertising. In other words, users can use the specialized knowledge about the advertising business that the administrator possesses, and do not need to have knowledge about advertising.

There are several possible methods for synthesizing the print information 35b in the print image synthesizing unit 35, depending on how the advertising information is set. We will explain this embodiment in more detail by showing specific examples of such synthesis methods.

First Embodiment
3 is a schematic diagram showing an example of advertising image information 33a in the case where an advertising image having a size corresponding to the length of the validity period of image information 11a is set at one time. Advertising image information 33a includes advertising image information 33a' and advertising image information 33a".

The largest advertising image information 33a surrounded by a solid line in FIG. 3 represents an advertising image corresponding to a short-term validity period. Advertising image information 33a' surrounded by a dashed line represents an advertising image corresponding to a medium-term validity period. Advertising image information 33a'' in the range surrounded by a dashed line represents an advertising image corresponding to a long-term validity period.

The smallest range of advertising image information 33a'' includes a two-dimensional code. Two-dimensional codes have a high information density per area and are therefore effective for advertising in small areas.

Figure 4 is a flowchart showing the operation procedure performed by the print image synthesis unit 35 according to the first embodiment. The operation procedure shown in Figure 4 is a detailed explanation of steps S33 and S34 shown in Figure 3.

The print image synthesis unit 35 obtains blank area information 35a from the image information 11a, which indicates the position and size of a blank area where no text, figures, etc. are placed. The print image synthesis unit 35 then obtains one or more pieces of advertising image information 33a from the advertising information DB 34 that match the blank area indicated by the blank area information 35a (step S330).

Figure 5 is a schematic diagram illustrating blank areas on a printed matter represented by blank area information 35a. Figure 5(a) shows an example of a "Class Open Day Notice", Figure 5(b) shows an example of a "Class Newsletter", and Figure 5(c) shows an example of an "Annual Event Schedule". Figure 5 shows an example in which each piece of image information 11a has blank areas of the same size at the bottom, but the position and size of the blank areas may differ for each piece.

Next, the print image synthesis unit 35 acquires advertising fee information 33b corresponding to each of the acquired advertising image information 33a (step S311). Then, it selects the advertising image information 33a with the highest advertising fee represented by the acquired advertising fee information 33b (step S332).

The print image synthesis unit 35 synthesizes print information b with a smaller advertising image size the longer the validity period of the image information 11a. The validity period is represented by validity period information 32a acquired by the validity period information acquisition unit 32. For example, if the validity period represented by the validity period information 32a is less than one month, the validity period is short-term, similarly about one month is medium-term, and one year is long-term.

If the validity period of the image information 11a is short (YES in step S333), the print image synthesis unit 35 synthesizes the image information 11a with print information 35b by inserting the advertising image information 33a into the blank area of the image information 11a (step S334). The advertising image information 33a represents the largest advertising image.

If the validity period is mid-term (YES in step S335), print information 35b is synthesized by synthesizing advertising image information 33a' in the blank area of image information 11a (step S336). Advertising image information 33a' is an advertising image smaller than the advertising image represented by advertising image information 33a.

If the validity period is long (NO in step S335), the printing information 35b is synthesized by synthesizing the advertising image information 33a'' in the blank area of the image information 11a (step S336). The advertising image information 33a'' represents the smallest advertising image. In this way, the printing image synthesis unit 35 in this embodiment synthesizes printing information 35b with a smaller advertising image inserted the longer the validity period of the image information 11a, assuming that the advertising fee is the same.

Figure 6 is a schematic diagram showing an example of a printed matter in which medium-sized advertising image information 33a' is combined with image information 11a, such as "class newsletter," with a medium validity period, and printed information 35b.

As described above, the print image synthesis unit 35 divides the advertising image information 33a in accordance with the validity period of the image information 11a and synthesizes the printing information 35b. This allows the advertiser to set advertising information for image information with different validity periods at once, simplifying the advertiser's work.

Second Embodiment
The print information may be synthesized by reducing the advertisement image information 33a at a reduction ratio corresponding to the validity period.

Figure 7 is a flowchart showing the operation procedure performed by the print image synthesis unit 35 according to the second embodiment. The processes in steps S330 to S333 and step S335 shown in Figure 7 are the same as those in the first embodiment.

In the second embodiment, if the validity period is short (YES in step S333), the print image composition unit 35 composes print information 35b by inserting the advertising image information 33a directly into the blank area of the image information 11a (step S334). If the image information 11a has a short validity period, such as a "class visit notice," the largest advertising image is inserted into the printed matter.

If the validity period is medium (YES in step S335), the advertising image information 33a is reduced, for example, to 2/3 and inserted into the blank area of the image information 11a, and the printed information 35b is synthesized (step 338). If the validity period is long (NO in step S335), the advertising image information 33a is reduced, for example, to 1/3 and inserted into the blank area of the image information 11a, and the printed information 35b is synthesized (step 339).

Figure 8 is a schematic diagram showing an example of a printed matter on which printing information 35b is printed, in which advertising image information 33a is inserted into the blank area of image information 11a without being reduced in size. As shown in Figure 8, if the validity period of image information 11a is short, the advertising image is printed large on the print medium.

As described above, the print image synthesis unit 35 may reduce the advertising image information 33a at a reduction ratio corresponding to the validity period of the image information 11a and synthesize the printing information 35b. This allows the advertiser to set advertising information for image information with different validity periods at once, simplifying the advertiser's work.

The advertising information printing system 100 according to this embodiment is an advertising information printing system having one or more printing devices 10 and an advertising management device 30 that delivers printing information 35b including an advertising image to the printing device 10. The printing device 10 includes an image information sending unit 12 that sends image information 11a representing an image to be printed on a print medium to the advertising management device 30, and a printing unit 13 that receives printing information 35b in which advertising image information 33a representing an advertising image is inserted into image information 11a from the advertising management device 30 and prints the printing information 35b. The advertising management device 30 includes a validity period information acquisition unit 32 that acquires validity period information 32a representing the validity period of the image information 11a, and a print image synthesis unit 35 that receives the image information 11a, advertising image information 33a, and validity period information 32a as inputs and synthesizes printing information 35b in which the size of the advertising image is reduced as the validity period is longer. This makes it possible to provide an advertising information printing system that allows flexible pricing according to the advertising effect. Additionally, users can receive services that reduce printing costs even if they do not have specialized knowledge of advertising.

Although the validity period information 32a has been described as being short-term, medium-term, and long-term, the present invention is not limited to this example. The validity period information 32a may be set in days or hours. Although the embodiment has been described as having an advertising information DB 34 that stores multiple pieces of advertising information 33ab, the advertising information DB 34 may be omitted if the advertising information 33ab is fixed to one piece. Furthermore, if the advertising management device 30 stores the fixed advertising information 33ab in advance, the advertising information acquisition unit 33 is not necessary. Furthermore, although an example has been shown in which the reduction rate is changed in accordance with the validity period, the enlargement rate may also be changed.

As such, the present invention naturally includes various embodiments not described here. Therefore, the technical scope of the present invention is determined only by the invention-specific matters related to the scope of the claims that are appropriate from the above explanation.

[Note]
This application discloses the following inventions.
(Appendix 1)
An advertising information printing system having one or more printing devices and an advertising management device that distributes printing information including an advertising image to the printing devices,
The printing device includes:
an image information transmission unit that transmits image information representing an image to be printed on a print medium to the advertisement management device;
a printing unit that receives, from the advertisement management device, print information in which advertisement image information representing the advertisement image is inserted into the image information, and prints the print information,
The advertisement management device includes:
a validity period information acquisition unit that acquires validity period information indicating a validity period of the image information;
a print image synthesis unit that receives the image information, the advertising image information, and the validity period information as inputs, and synthesizes the printing information in such a way that the size of the advertising image is reduced as the validity period is longer.
(Appendix 2)
The print image synthesis unit includes:
2. The advertising information printing system according to claim 1, wherein the advertising image information is divided in correspondence with the validity period and the printing information is synthesized.
(Appendix 3)
The print image synthesis unit includes:
2. The advertising information printing system according to claim 1, wherein the advertising image information is reduced at a reduction ratio corresponding to the validity period and then combined with the printing information.

10 Printing device 11 Image information acquisition unit 11a Image information 12 Image information transmission unit 13 Printing unit 13a Print result information 20 Network 30 Advertising management device 31 Transmission/reception unit 32 Validity period information acquisition unit 32a Validity period information 33 Advertising information acquisition unit 33a Advertising image information 33b Advertising fee information 33ab Advertising information 34 Advertising information database 35 Print image synthesis unit 35a Blank area information 35b Print information

Claims (1)

An advertising information printing system having one or more printing devices and an advertising management device that distributes printing information including an advertising image to the printing devices,
The printing device includes:
an image information transmission unit that transmits image information representing an image to be printed on a print medium to the advertisement management device;
a printing unit that receives, from the advertisement management device, print information in which advertisement image information representing the advertisement image is inserted into the image information, and prints the print information,
The advertisement management device includes:
a validity period information acquisition unit that acquires validity period information indicating a validity period of the image information;
a print image synthesis unit that receives the image information, the advertising image information, and the validity period information as inputs, and synthesizes the printing information in such a way that the size of the advertising image is reduced as the validity period is longer.

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