Mindshare, the global media planning and buying agency that is part of WPP, together with Zilliqa, the blockchain platform, are building a programmatic alliance on blockchain designed to explore the application of the technology in the advertising ecosystem.
The aim of the alliance is to realistically assess the applicability of blockchain technology into the world of advertising where billions of impressions are viewed online, by testing two critical components of this technology – one on the throughput and the other to arrive at the right consensus protocol.
The alliance includes multiple businesses in the programmatic advertising supply chain including advertisers, advertising agencies, Demand Side Platforms (DSPs), Supply Side Platforms (SSPs), Data Management Platforms (DMPs), trading desks, independent verification companies and publishers. It also has the potential to include key opinion leaders or industry experts, if required.
Mindshare and Zilliqa have partnered with MediaMath, Rubicon Project and Integral Ad Science in developing the first prototype – “Project Proton” – which aims to transform the current programmatic advertising ecosystem by providing a way for all the stakeholders across the value chain to interact in a secure and verifiable manner through smart contracts on a high throughput blockchain. This makes it suitable for the enterprise level implementation of the project for all the partners involved in a transparent manner so that all the actors in the ecosystem can completely trust each other allowing the entire programmatic ad space to grow.
The Key members of the Project Proton Alliance Are:
Mindshare:​ Mindshare is a global media planning and buying agency that is part of WPP. It has 8,500 employees across 116 offices in 86 countries and global revenues of USD34.5bn annually. Clients include Unilever, PepsiCo, GSK, Yum Restaurants, Dyson, American Express amongst others.
Zilliqa: ​Zilliqa is a blockchain platform tailored towards enabling high-throughput data-driven decentralized applications. Zilliqa also provides a secure and efficient smart contract layer to enable secure-by-design smart contract programming and verification.
MediaMath​:​ MediaMath helps leading global marketers deliver personalized digital advertising across all connected touchpoints. Over 9,500 marketers in 42 countries use MediaMath’s enterprise software every day to launch, analyze, and optimize their digital advertising campaigns.
Rubicon Project: ​Founded in 2007, Rubicon Project is one of the world’s largest advertising exchanges. The company helps websites and apps thrive by giving them tools and expertise to sell ads easily and safely. In addition, the world’s leading agencies and brands rely on Rubicon Project’s technology to execute billions of advertising transactions each month. Rubicon Project​ ​is an independent, publicly traded company (NYSE:RUBI) headquartered in Los Angeles, California
Integral Ad Science (IAS)​:​ A global software company, headquartered in New York, that builds verification, optimization, and analytics solutions, acting as leaders in viewability, brand safety and ad fraud.
Underscore CLT:​ ​ Underscore CLT develops cryptographic ledger technologies to power real business solutions for marketers and their partners.
Mindshare announced a partnership with Zilliqa last year to build blockchain applications for the digital advertising industry. Project Proton is the first phase of this partnership that will evaluate how Zilliqa’s blockchain protocol can address some of the potential applications of this technology to the advertising industry. Findings should be ready before the end of the year.
“We are absolutely delighted and thankful to have MediaMath, IAS, Rubicon Project and Underscore CLT partner with us on this project with Zilliqa. There are many claims and speculations on the applicability of this technology to our business. Project Proton is designed to test this, particularly in the areas of building consensus and managing high throughput,” said Gowthaman Ragothaman, Chief Development Officer, Mindshare AMENA.
