The Ford Motor Company has a crystal ball, and you’re in it, driving in one of its vehicles – maybe a Mustang Mach-E, a Ranger or a Custom Transit.

On the road you’re travelling are a number of electronics, tech and home entertainment outlets – let’s call them Joe’s Great Gadgets, Clean Scene Vacuums and AAA Aardvark Amplifiers.

Ford’s been keeping tabs on you, listening to your conversations, and it knows you like tech, and home entertainment. And robotic vacuums. And knick-knacks.

The next thing you know your in-vehicle advertisement presentation system springs to life. Yes, one of those. Did you know Clean Scene Vacuums has got a special deal for Ford customers – valid for the next 30 minutes.

While we’ve got you, Joe’s Great Gadgets is coming up on the left, and he’s got a new range of peelers and bottle openers. And we know how you love those. Oh, and AAA Aardvark Amplifiers is on the right in 2km, and the Aardvark’s got a deal tailored just to you. Valid for the next 14 minutes.

So, how do we know what Ford’s crystal ball is seeing?

Wading through the US patents register gives you insight into how companies across all industries are thinking. Patenting an idea doesn’t mean it’s going to be brought to life, but it shows a company is investing resources into developing a concept, and wants to protect it.

 

Ford patent applications.

 

Ford has plenty on to go in patent world. As do the likes of General Motors and Tesla.

Ford has current patent applications relating to airbags, sensors, dog harnesses, tech that can detect stolen parts, three-dimensional parking, rotors, robotic arms, lamps and electric chargers. That’s just a taste.

Most patent applications fly under the radar, but one from Ford has caught the eye of the mainstream media and many others.

It’s titled “In-Vehicle Advertisement Presentation Systems And Methods” and, essentially, it’s about generating revenue by tailoring advertising to match the person or people in the vehicle.

The patent application says Ford would ascertain vehicle information for a trip (e.g., current location, vehicle speed, drive mode, traffic information) and select “a number of the advertisements to present to the user during the trip … providing the advertisements to the user during the trip through a human-machine interface (HMI) of the vehicle”.

“Such systems and methods provide maximum opportunity for ad-based monetisation,” the patent states. 

“These systems and methods may use knowledge of vehicle destination prediction to provide more relevant advertisements, for example, if a user is going grocery shopping, merchandise purchasing, etc. 

 

Ford patent application for in-vehicle advertising.

 

“Such systems and methods further provide the opposite force to a user’s natural inclination to seek minimal or no ads.”

Ford says the ads “may intelligently schedule variable durations … with playing time seeking to maximise company revenue while minimising the impact on user experience. This is mainly a software implementation utilising existing information from the vehicle, with no additional hardware involved”.

The automotive company notes that “the systems and methods disclosed herein should be implemented in situations where such implementation can be done in a safe and reasonable manner”.

It gives an example: “If it is deemed undesirable or not allowed per local jurisdictional rules and/or regulations, the in-vehicle advertisement systems and methods disclosed herein should be disabled in the vehicle, manually or automatically. Also, a driver should not be looking at visual advertisements while the vehicle is moving.”

Ford says that if the vehicle is on a highway, a “primary load may include presenting one visual HMI-presented advertisement to the passengers every ten minutes”.

But user preferences “may indicate that the passenger responds positively to audio advertisements, so a secondary workload may be more frequent such as presenting audio advertisements every five minutes”.

“A level of passenger interaction may be assessed from acoustic data,” says Ford, suggesting it might like to listen in while you’re in transit. 

Data could help “understand the user’s tolerance for a particular advertisement’s count”.

 

Ford Mustang Mach-E.

“The system can also learn historic user data to understand how many advertisements they interact with via third-party apps or setup screen inputs with a store or item preference inputs,” Ford says. 

“This historic user data can be tied to the abovementioned personal predictions. Dependent in-vehicle variables can include providing an optimal count of advertisements based on road or environmental conditions, a current vehicle speed, a drive mode, a vehicle location (e.g., freeway or internal streets), frequent routes, a passenger presence, and/or a traffic level …”

It says that vehicle speeds can be used to determine the type and/or frequency of ads.

“For example, when the vehicle is being operated at high speeds, the frequency of ads may be reduced, especially when such ads are visual to not distract the driver. In another example, the type of ads selected for presentation by the controller may include audio ads when the vehicle speed exceeds a threshold speed, in certain situations, like at night, in certain locations, etc.”

Big Brother has been watching for a while, but now Ford would like to take it next-level.