Another Kind of Blockchain on Trial

In a few weeks, Blockgraph, a unit of Freewheel -- a Comcast company -- will begin offering its decentralized blockchain-based platform to other U.S. media companies -- with major consequences for how TV ad campaigns are formulated and carried out on a variety of video platforms from broadcast stations to smart TV sets and TV-connected devices.  Starting this summer, a group of program distributors, content publishers, advertisers and ad agencies will be equipped with blockchain-powered software, operating continuously through each company's secure systems. At any time, each company can tap into the software, known as an "identity layer," to monitor and crunch audience insights pertaining to the target audiences or viewer preferences of brand campaigns.

"Blockgraph is run in an environment each participant company controls and is responsible for operating," said Jason Manningham (pictured below), Blockgraph's General Manager.  "If you think about the consumers that advertisers are trying to reach, there are a number of different data points that need to be reconciled across different devices and distributors in order for advertisers to match a target audience segment, against a media company's audience, among multiple devices.  You need resolution that's secure and considers both company and audience preferences."

FreeWheel created Blockgraph two years ago, with the rationale that blockchain can be utilized for the advertising community's fast-growingreliance on big data.  What's more, Manningham adds, a process workable for advertisers can extend to any TV platform they buy time on. 

"The way TV and media are consumed has changed tremendously over the last 10 years," Manningham noted.  "There is more content available on more devices than ever before.  However, audiences are consuming that content across multiple different channels, whether its traditional linear TV, video-on-demand, mobile apps [or] direct-to-consumer [services].  As a result of all the choices, it's really difficult for marketers to reach them at scale."

In designing this identity layer -- then running a beta test that wrapped up last December -- Manningham and his colleagues kept two goals in mind. One was to have the software extend across the needs of multiple different types of media companies.  The other was giving the company start-to-finish control of the data they use without the need for outside resources.

For many advertisers and media organizations out to attract a specific viewer base with a specific campaign, "both would have to use a trusted third-party where both advertiser and media company would provide their audience data to that third-party, who would [match up] the data and all of the synthetic identification for that audience-targeted campaign to be enabled," Manningham explained.  "It's a slow process, increasingly expensive and has a centralized party in the middle maintaining all that data."

With each Blockgraph client using the same software format through their own system, "it identifies all the audience records, encrypts [them] and allows matching between multiple parties," Manningham continued.  "That reduces a lot of the operational overhead associated with third parties while maintaining control over each party's data in the ecosystem."

In the beta test, Comcast and parent NBCUniversal utilized Blockgraph's software layer, where each organization was able to crunch the audience data without exposing that information to the other.  Feedback was positive with no issues over data retrieval or fashioning an ideal audience for specific campaigns.

Look for several advertisers or agencies to join other program distributors and content creators in using Blockgraph over the summer.  Manningham hinted that, in time, the pilot will extend beyond U.S. borders.  "There's a strong appetite [in] Europe to use technology like Blockgraph as part of the addressable tech stack," he said.

If the pilot pans out, Blockgraph will launch sales of its software early next year.  Will NBCUniversal incorporate Blockgraph for its upcoming ad-supported programming venture, expected to roll out during the first half of 2020 via smart TV sets and devices?  Manningham's succinct answer: "Too early to tell but I'm optimistic."

Click here to read the Blockgraph whitepaper Building the Future of Data-Driven TV.

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