In today's marketing and advertising glutted world, product placement is a constant. Whether it's through sponsor names on NBA jerseys, large billboard and building ads along your morning train commute or targeted online ads tied to recently searched items, marketing teams are always fighting for our attention.
In 2016, global marketing budgets totaled $195 billion. By 2021, thanks in large part to the rapidly expanding realm of digital advertising, that number is expected to reach $412.88 billion.
To make the most of their money, companies collect more consumer data than ever before. This data, in turn, directly affects major business decisions like the introduction of new products, price points and future ad campaigns. But this stockpile of customer data is also highly vulnerable to ad fraud and mismanagement, which contributes to inefficiency.
Blackline
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Location: Louisville, Colorado
How it's using blockchain: Rebel AI combats ad fraud with a blockchain-enabled, cryptographic verification system for advertisers and marketers. Marketing teams and publishers are assigned unique identities that help prevent what's called "domain spoofing" — unverified ad networks or fraudulent websites that obscure marketing traffic data.
By assigning immutable IDs on a DLT, Rebel AI can transparently display an ad's payer, how long the ad has run, all actors involved in the ad supply chain and how many humans interacted with the ad.
Industry Impact: Advertising contract marketplace NYIAX recently agreed to use Rebel AI’s blockchain as a way to ensure that media trading has a thorough supply chain registry and that all contracts are legitimate.
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Location: Marina Del Rey, California
How it's using blockchain: The Lucidity blockchain platform stores and verifies every marketing event to ensure transparent and accurate data. The company’s platform uses smart contracts to give marketing teams real-time insight into their current campaigns, track payments to ad publishers and prevent fraud by flagging fake bot views.
Industry Impact: Auto giant Toyota saw a 21% lift in ad campaign performance on Lucidity’s platform. By blacklisting sites and apps that were determined by Lucidity to have high levels of discrepancy, Toyota was able to shift its budget to higher performing sites and eliminate wasteful spending.
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Location: San Francisco, California
How it's using blockchain: Kiip is an in-app mobile advertising platform that uses blockchain to augment advertising supply chain transparency and provide real-time marketing data. The Kiip platform enables all parties involved in an ad campaign to directly view and audit data. It also streamlines some of the reporting and payment processing. Additionally, the Kiip Koin is a blockchain-based crypto that enables brands to buy media and orchestrate campaigns through smart contracts.
Industry Impact: Kiip and beer giant AB InBev launched the world’s first blockchain mobile ad campaign in July 2018. In the summer of 2018, AB InBev used the mobile platform to target customers and build data on their programmatic ad buying methods.
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Location: Armonk, New York
How it's using blockchain: Technology giant IBM uses its blockchain platform to verify the advertising supply chain. The company partnered with advertising and analytics platform Mediaocean to offer an end-to-end ledger that gives marketing teams better data insight. The goal is to help businesses eliminate wasteful spending on unnecessary third-parties, and to expose potentially fraudulent data.
Industry Impact: IBM’s digital consultancy arm, IBM iX, and Mediaocean's platform are piloting the network for media deals with Unilever, Pfizer and Kellogg, for which the ledger will ideally eliminate the “ad-tech tax.” It will expand to other larger companies in the near future.
FUSIONSEVEN
Location: San Francisco, California
How it's using blockchain: FusionSeven is a SaaS platform that uses blockchain to foster transparency in digital advertising processes. The company’s ledgers automate workflows to speed up the reconciliation of programmatic digital advertising supply chains.
Industry Impact: Instead of “disrupting” the advertising industry, FusionSeven employs its blockchain to bring about something they believe will provide immediate relief. After dipping a toe in the water with digital media reconciliations, the company will move on to ad payment processing.
