Mindshare claims 28% efficiency gain in blockchain pilot

Mindshare has reported that a March 2019 controlled test of blockchain technology in a programmatic supply chain in APAC resulted in a 28% efficiency improvement for PepsiCo. 

Specifically, Mindshare said the the test of Project Proton—announced in September in partnership with Zilliqa Research, Rubicon Project, MediaMath and Integral Ad Science—resulted in a 28% efficiency improvement in terms of the cost of viewable impressions. The test compared two campaigns, one running using smart contracts and a control running without.

The agency said the smart contracts reconcile impressions that are delivered from multiple data sources with payments facilitated using an internal Native Alliance Token (NAT), all in "near real time", which results in not only an efficiency gain but also "complete transparency" for the brand.

Project Proton automates settlements based on viewability-verification methods, which means advertisers need only pay for impressions that have been deemed viewable, brand-safe and free from ad fraud, according to the company. The process provides transparency for the brand at each step, including the payments made to each party between the brand and the publishers, and everything is encrypted to ensure the various parties only see information relevant to their role, Mindshare added.

Gowthaman Ragothaman, global lead for blockchain at GroupM, said in a release that the alliance will expand and develop more features on the smart contracts to include more media-performance metrics.

"The results are encouraging, and we plan to run a few more campaigns under different conditions to verify more hypotheses and measure overall impact,” Farida Shakhshir, director of consumer engagement for PepsiCo AMENA, said in the release.