TRUTH, a London-based agency launched late last year which uses “blockchain-enabled smart contracts” to power campaigns, announced today that it has run what it claims to be the world’s first blockchain-enabled ad campaign.
The agency claims that its use of blockchain to power smart contracts make its campaigns 100 percent transparent. Smart contracts automatically execute transactions once the terms of a contract are met, and the use of blockchain means all transactions can be seen and tracked by all parties involved.
This first campaign was bought by an undisclosed brand, spending out of a campaign test budget, and delivered on a UK-based publisher’s site. The ads were traded through Sonobi’s ad exchange, through demand-side platform (DSP) Avocet, and the campaign ran for ten days until March 19th.
TRUTH says all fees involved were fully disclosed to the client. One of the main problems the agency claims to solve is lack of clarity over how much money is paid to each ad tech vendor during a transaction. TRUTH says it avoids this by recording the flow of payments on the blockchain; the client can set what cut of the payment goes to each party involved, and these payments are automatically executed by the smart contract.
Mary Keane-Dawson, TRUTH’s CEO, says the campaign shows that blockchain can add genuine value to the advertising ecosystem. “There are so many myths around blockchain’s use in advertising that need to be exploded,” she said. “The success of this campaign proves that blockchain in advertising is not ten years away – it is here today; it is fast enough, it provides the view that advertisers are demanding and it will deliver a cleaner media supply chain with 100 percent transparency.”
In a statement executives from both Avocet and Sonobi agreed with TRUTH’s belief that blockchain can help clean up the murky supply chain. Avocet’s CEO Ezra Pierce said that the tech aligns with a “sustainable future for digital advertising”, while Sonobi’s director of Buyer Suite Nicholas Titmus believes TRUTH is “helping brands regain faith within the industry”.
TRUTH says they are now in discussions with multiple clients across multiple sectors to launch more campaigns of the same nature in the future.
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