After successful Blockchain technologies that prevented the double-spend problem in cryptocurrency, a new technology company is using this method to prevent the unbelievable growth in digital advertising cheating.
The rise and rise of forgery views
Digital advertising secured its dominance of the global marketing industry in 2017, overtaking worldwide TV sales for the first time. Reports from PwC and IPG Mediabrands’ Magna put digital ad sales at just about $70 bln, ahead of televised ad sales at $67 bln. With a lot of possibilities for gain, however, comes an abundance of opportunities for cheating with bots being used to falsify ad viewing records.
Much more conservative evaluations of $7.2 bln dollars wasted on digital marketing cheating from the Association of National Advertisers in 2016 pale in comparison to the $16.4 bln supposed for 2017 by international advertising company WPP. This is a multi-billion dollar issue that does not tolerate procrastination.
Enter ClearCoin, who are in their own words “a technology company that powers the real-time buying and selling of media on decentralized apps and the broader digital environment”. In accordance with their document, ClearCoin have found a “revolutionary” solution. ‘The proof-of-history Blockchain will use a ledger to record all digital advertising impressions that it has access to.
The ledger will serve to differentiate real advertising impressions from fake ones. The information will be a security layer against cheating in the ecosystem.’ This ledger will allow ClearCoin to advise companies on publishers which are more likely to supply fake results, saving them time and effort from being wasted on fake views.
Stellar lineup
With more than 10,000 registered users and an ICO in which token sales are reportedly upwards of $3 mln (with the token sale ending March 31, 2018), digital advertisers are clearly sensing a potentially game-changing fraud buster. And the fearsome lineup of ClearCoin’s personnel could be another factor pushing marketers towards their services; recent press releases have enthusiastically announced new advisor David Drake a ‘cryptocurrency veteran.’ That is not to
detract from the significant knowledge and expertise of the small but vastly experienced team which also boasts tech expert Jay Singh as its founder and CEO.
Looking ahead
ClearCoin desires their technology to become industry standard. Their aim for June 2018 is to be when ‘the user interface is available for all users to execute their media buys,’ and December 2018 the projected date for the proof-of-history ledger to be made available for the public to investigate. ClearCoin is sharp to point out that their team has already worked with ‘the largest advertisers and media agencies in the world,’ and hope to mostly grow through peer recommendations, by supplying a service that sincerely works and saves budget.
It may seem optimistic and idealized, but the billions of dollars percolating from digital marketing through cheating every year need to be recaptured quickly. Perhaps 2018 will be the year that ClearCoin can help supply the tools to fix this extremely expensive wastage.
