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At the beginning of this year, the AdLedger research and development consortium worked with IBM and Salon Media Group to educate blockchain marketers. Examining 100 senior advertising executives for a new white paper, the group realized that it would do its job.
When asked if they could safely explain the difference between blockchain and cryptocurrency, 67.6% of respondents answered "yes". Interestingly, an equal number answered "no" and "maybe", which means that many operators are not even sure how well they understand blockchain.
"We want to get to a point where we do not spend the first 25 minutes of a 30-minute meeting explaining how the blockchain is different from Bitcoin," says Christiana Cacciapuoti, executive director of AdLedger. "It's a basic technology that the average consumer will not see or touch." The comparison I make is that you may not know it why Your credit card details are safe, but you know it's safe to see that green lock. "
"This is a big dot-com explosion"
AdLedger does not even have a year and this whitepaper is the first release of the group, which Cacciapuoti considers the first step of the educational initiative. It is interesting to note that the partners include IBM, in addition to Omnicom Media Group, Publicis Media Group, IPG Reprise Digital and GroupM: four competitors each representing one of the largest advertising holding companies in the world.
The involvement of these agencies establishes the first authorities. This can ultimately help them, as the blockchain becomes more prominent, as they have to face increasing competition from the consulting firms; the brands that take their advertising internally; technology giants like Google, Facebook and now, Amazon; and, of course, one another. Ford has been WPP's largest global customer for decades and has recently named BBDO its new leading creative agency.
With twenty years of technological relationships to his credit, Jay Kolbe, EVP of Emerging Technologies at Clarity PR and guest of a podcast called Blockchain Bridge, has seen countless "next big things". According to him, these competing agencies join the shows that blockchain is much more than a simple straw fire.
"This is a big dot-com explosion, the kind you see maybe once or twice in a generation," he says.
What is preventing investments
In August, Deloitte interviewed more than 1,000 executives from various sectors and countries about their blockchain investments. For 20% of them, the fact that technology is not proven is the biggest barrier to investment; 28% cited a lack of internal capacity and understanding.
While Kolbe firmly believes in the potential of the blockchain to transform the industry, he understands the reticence of many marketers to embrace technology. Compare current attitudes towards the blockchain with the initial boom in technology.
"How many people were out there to sell vaporware and create DSPs and run to say the same things?" He asks. "There are moments of exuberance and then it becomes hyperbolic.We are still at the front of the demonstrable end of the blockchain".
When the first ad appeared online in 1994, only the advertiser (AT & T) and the publisher (Wired.com) were involved. Today there are countless intermediaries that naturally lead to a reduction in transparency, which contributes to the impressive amount of fraud in the industry. According to Juniper Research, fraud will cost advertisers $ 19 billion this year. This is almost four times the collective cost of every single Super Bowl ad that has ever been broadcast.
One of the strengths of the blockchain is its ability to improve transparency. However, when AdLedger examined ad managers about the ability of technology to solve problems like fraud, less than half answered "yes" or "no" with confidence.
"The goal is to make everyone speak the same language", says Cacciapuoti. "Now that we understand what the blockchain is and what it empowers, what does the world look like? What do all publishers, agencies, brands need? That's why we founded AdLedger."
Bring the blockchain to the consumer
As Cacciapuoti stressed, the blockchain is underground and intangible. The average person may not even realize that it exists. However, Walmart could change it, as a brand that uses technology in a way that affects the daily lives of consumers.
Contaminated food kills 400,000 people each year. The source of contamination has traditionally been difficult to identify, due to the lack of traceability from the farm to the refrigerator. Using IBM's Blockchain Platform, Walmart can track products to their original source in less than three seconds, which would have required weeks before. Likewise, De Beers uses the blockchain to monitor the supply chain of the precious stone, assuring consumers that diamonds are pure and conflict-free.
"Come back to," How do I impact? "Says Kolbe." We are coming to the point where it is actually real and I think there will be a point where someone says, "I do not know what exactly is blockchain does, but it offers this experience and makes sure that my broccoli is fresh. When you start to see how blockchain affects the consumer, this will start to change people's understanding of it and what they want to invest in it. "
