The Idea:
We propose an infrastructure enabling pervasive and personalized advertisements, which leverages on users’ interests and contextual information, to send personalized, active, electronic advertisements (PervADS) to potential customers. These PervADS are tailored on users’ profiles and sent to the customer when he/she is near a business which may be of interest in his/her specific situation (context-awareness).

The scenario:
The reference scenario is that of commercial districts with small/medium businesses which want to advertise potential customers in their area without accessing mass-media networks which are, in general, too expensive for the majority of merchants. In particular, the idea is to reach the customers which are passing nearby a business which could be of interest for them in a certain moment of time; PervADS are thus a useful complement (or even substitute) for traditional, local, billboard-based techniques.

As an example, consider mobile users (e.g, agents, tourists, students, etc.) who for various reasons (study, work or pleasure) are moving into an area covered by PervADS. During lunchtime they will receive advertisements from dining places in their area, which match their preferences stored in the mobile phone and, depending of the duration of the lunch break, also possible alternatives like fast-foods and bars which offer appetizers. When the customer accesses a PervAD through a mobile phone, he/she can be connected to the restaurant online information service (possibly, the restaurant web-site) to obtain further personalized information about prices and offered services. Users who had previously indicated to the system an interest for sport facilities at lunch time could also be reached by PervADS about available swimming pools or gym halls in the area, where they could practice their customary sport activities.
Later on, at office closure time, the same users may get PervADS from shops selling their favorite music or clothes, but also, the sport center PervADS could be sent them if they have expressed a preference for evening sport practice. In the same way, happy hour bars might send their PervADS at that time.

Socio-economical impact:
PervADS enables small businesses to reach customers who need their services in a context-aware, low-cost and opportunistic fashion. By means of the PervADS infrastructure, different shops may federate in a community, thus sharing the common infrastructure and reducing implementation costs. The infrastructure may be kept independent of telecommunication providers, since it can be implemented using wireless-LAN (Local Area Network) technologies, for example by means of WI-FI and WI-MAX hot spots; this also implies that customers only need a WI-FI-enabled device and our mobile application (PervADS receiver) to receive the advertisements, without paying for network traffic. Also the merchants easily benefit from this very cheap solution: in principle, not even an internet connection is strictly needed to send their advertisements. The same very light infrastructure may be used also for conveying more information, not strictly business-related, like museums, cultural events, some mobility info and the like.
Another advantage consists of the possibility for business participants to “suggest” to their customers other related businesses belonging to the same community, in order to increase the community volume of trades.

Download the flyer (pdf)