Trade Show or Exhibition information card and similar) These mats are eenerally planer devices. generally made of pulp board or plastic laminate material containing printed pictures, logo's, graphics's and advertising messages. Their primary use is as a promotional advertising tool to keep company brand names in the consumer's view. Promotional goods such as the above described (hereinafter generally referred to as'advertising mats'), have a definite advantage in that they become a tangible part of the environment and become useful in a decorative or valued sense and as such are often put where they will be encountered again and again. therefore the frequency, reach and durability of promotional products over other advertising mediums is far greater.

Additionally, as has been known and observed, people constantly play with beer mats out of boredom.

People like to manipulate solid objects and thus it is not uncommon to see people constantly moving. tilting and generally manipulating such advertising mats. Frequently, these mats are the up close and concentrated focus of a peson's attention thus considerable advantage could accrue to advertisers if the advertising mats could be made even more attractive to the user. In other words. such that the consumer when faced with such an advertising mat. would wish to manipulate it even more than at present and receive even more specific information from the advertiser in a pleasant manner. this would be advantageous to the advertiser.

Similarily, gaming is one of the fastest growth area's in communications and entenainment. New generation mobile phone's are selling to the younger consumers on the strength of the variety of eames thev can provide (eg. Nokia's dedicated gaming web-site). The worldwide phenomenon of Nintendo's GameBoy or Sony's Playstation highlight the mass appeal of gaming today. The present invention combines this appeal to create a promotional and marketing tool that will appeal and be antes' boy the consumer audience as opposed to current promotional methods such as mailshot's. brochure's etc. which are often seen as just 'junk mail'. Thus the advertisers message when combined with gaming will be sought out and re-visited by the consumer over and again. The present invention can be used in a wide variety of applications and situations as it crosses all geographical and language barries Statements of Invention The present invention combines the traditional print media of card. laminate and paper with interactive messaging and gaming capabilities through an LCD screen which is recessed into the surface of the aforementioned advertising mats.

The LCD screen mav be used for:- -a visual display of a game -to allow a logo, picture, slogan or brand-name to appear -to send a programmed message Ideally the display screen presents messages sequentially Preferably the advertising mat includes reprogrammable memory to allow the provision of alternative messages In one embodiment of the invention. the mat incorporates control buttons which allow the user to manipulate the messages.

In another embodiment of the invention the advertising mat includes games, which can be played by manipulation of the control button.

Ideally advertising material is interspersed between the games In another embodiment of the invention various programmable messages can be incorporated into the device.

In one embodiment of the invention, data, locally generated and transmitted via infra red signal can be received and displayed by the advertising mat In it's broadest sense, the invention relates to the use of combined gaming and advertising to create a disposable but ideally'collectible', portable, promotional tool.

The invention will be more clearly understood from the following description given with reference to the accompanying drawings, Fig. I-is a schematic view of an advertising mat according to the invention Fig. 2-plan view of an advertising mat according to the invention Fig. 3-a schematic drawing of the Infra-Red optional component Fig 4-a plan view and elevation showing infra-red sensor Referring to the drawing Fig. 2, there is provided an advertising mat indicated generally by the reference numeral (1). comprising a flat planar body member having a border area (2) incorporating advertising material and a central display screen (3). Touch controls (4) are also provided.

Referring now to Fig. 1. the display screen (3) is an LCD screen and is connected to an EPROM (5) which in turn connects with a microprocessor (6) all powered by a battery (7). All of this is essential conventional. It will be appreciated that the battery could be replaced with a selenium cell. or any other means for providing the necessary power.

In use, any program of messages, advertisements, or indeed games is inputted via the EPROM (5) which is controlled by the microprocessor (6) or indeed may be inputted directly from the EPROM (5) itself. Again all of this is conventional.

In operation, the controls (4) are used, for example, to display the messages or advertisements, or indeed allow the games to be played if suh is programmed into the advertising mat (I).

It will be appreciated that sound as well as any animation is possible using conventional large scale integration techniques. Needless to say the display screen (3) is of conventional LCD technology and all of he various parts of the apparatus are of conventional construction.

Referring to Fig. 3 and Fig 4 This optional component is to include in the electronics an Infra Red (8) or Optical Receiver located on the face of each device, (Fig 4). This receiver could be a slightly raised encapsulated plastic sensor and become the means by which the data stream is sent to the internal EPROM located within the device.

This data emanating from the same"in house"personal computer (7) which was to be used to drive the programmer is in this embodiment now fed via a serial digital data stream to a series of Infra Red Transmitters (9), strategically located and most likely placed in the ceiling of the premises where the device will be used. The Infra Red energy will be bounced around the building and as it's a continuous updated data stream it will constantly poll and update each receiver via the sensor located on the face of the devices. The actual Infra Red Sensor could in another embodiment be contained in a very small plastic encapsulated ball slightly raised so as to receive energy from many directions.

This addition will have the following marketing advantages for the device ; It will allow simple and immediate changes to be made to the data stream for all the devices simultaneouslv or each device could be individually addressable.

The device can now give continuous information such as up date information to an audience or crowd 'live'in real time, give immediate information to guests arriving in a premises or at an event, be part of a promotional game (eg. In house general knowledge quiz, act as an electronic ticket to a game and many more'live'interactive uses. This form of use would be envisaged at large scale events. large clubs and bars. Exhibitions, Sporting and Entertainment occasions and similar.

The cost of this addition is only minutely greater than the original electronics as Infra Red technology is cheap and exists generally, as in remote controls for Television and Stereos, Hi-Fi Systems.

There is no disadvantage to the device assuming it is removed as the original programming blown into the EPROM such as its generic message will not be affected by the addition of the Infra Red electronics.

It will be appreciated that there is no need to discuss in any detail the construction of the advertising mat since conventional technology allows basically anything to be programmed. For example, various advertisements could be programmed, which advertisements could be changed after a certain date. deleted or indeed changed as required. For example, messages containing advertisements for forthcoming events would obviously need to be deleted after the event has come to pass. The deletion of one message could trigger the display of another.

Further, while the beer mat could have a once off programmed message. logo, game or advertisement, it could also have variable program and messaging ability via the EPROM (5) such that the advertising mats could be collected from time to time and re-programmed It will be appreciated that the advertising mat may be used to provide a means for displaying games to allow advertising or to allow program messages. One of the great advantages of the present invention would be that the advertising mat could be customised for that particular advertiser's needs. Thus, for example, an airline might have messages in relation to frequent flyer programmes. flight schedules etc.

It will also be appreciated that for example the major drinks companies would be particularly advantaged if they could display different products and promotions on a continuous, rotating basis on one unit rather than on many different units, in places where these are being consumed.

A further advantage of the present invention is that if games and the like are programmed onto the advertising mat they can be interspersed with advertising, which advertising has to be viewed bv the user during the play.

It is also envisaged that the advertising mats, according to the present invention could be purchased by customers or given away free with products. One of the problems envisaged is that because the advertising mat could become a collectable item and indeed a desirable item, they may in fact tend to be removed by the consumer, therefore, what the advertiser requires is that there be sufficient advertising on the mat to make it possible to allow it to be taken with the advantage of'extended advertising value'to the advertiser.

It is also envisaged that if such advertising mats were to become popular they would become a collectable item and thus generate further promotional value to the advertiser when traded or swopped by collectors.

Limited editions for Christmas, special new product launches and similar could become sought after and valuable in their own right.

Another advantage of the present invention particularly pertains to airlines, trains and travel companies where the advertising mat could be utilised to alleviate boredom of travellers on route or given as a keepsake or souvenir of their journey with that particular company, again giving extended advertising value long cafter the consumers have reached their destination.

It will be appreciated that any and all messages can be provided. For example, instead of the provision of printed menus. restaurants and hotels could provide their menu's on their table mats. such that for example, one table mat might be a wine list. another table mat. the food list and so on. The great advantage of this is when they are reprogrammable, any changes in the premises menu. offers, specials. drinks. etc. may be easily reprogrammed without the necessity of the staff to continually update printed menus.

It will be appreciated that the technical aspects of the invention are relatively simple and will be easily appreciated by those skilled in the art and the principal advantage of the present invention is the innovative and attractive way in which advertisers can get their message over to the consumer. Effectively, in many instances the advertiser has a captive audience, which captive audience will be very attracted to such mats.

In the specification, the terms,"comprise, comprises, comprised and comprising"or any variation thereof and the terms."include, includes, included and including"or any variation thereof are considered to be totally interchangeable and they should all be afforded the widest possible interpretation and vice versa.

The invention is not limited to the embodiment hereinbefore described, but may be varied in both construction and detail.