PepsiCo & Mindshare’s Programmatic Blockchain Test Drives Increased 28% Efficiency

By Kapil Gauhar

A Mindshare-powered blockchain programmatic alliance ‘Project Proton’ has recently launched a test campaign for its blockchain with PepsiCo. The test was successful, and it drove 28% efficiency lift by using smart contracts.

The test, ran in March 2019 in the Asia Pacific, was focused on viewable impressions, while running two campaigns – one through smart contracts and the other without.

PepsiCo has worked with Mindshare, driving the project alongside other members of the Project Proton, such as Integral Ad Science, MediaMath, Rubicon Project and Zilliqa Research. The group has been working together for about a year, and while it was positive from its commencement, this is the first test with a big brand to be published and is one of the first of its kind worldwide.

As indicated by Mindshare, the smart contracts are deployed through Zilliqa’s blockchain and can reconcile impressions from other data sources alongside payments. It’s done by using a NAT (Native Alliance Token) in almost real-time, that it says is what is driving the efficiency improvements in comparison with the campaign run with no smart contracts, and total transparency for the brand.

Farida Shakhshir, the Director of consumer engagement for PepsiCo, AMENA, stated –

“We are happy to be partnering with Mindshare to test the application and value add of blockchain in media. It is key that we stay abreast of new technologies, and continue to advance transparency, viewability, brand safety and buying efficiency. The results are encouraging, and we plan to run a few more campaigns under different conditions to verify more hypotheses and measure overall impact.”

Transparency is the main priority for the Project Proton and, as per the coalition, it’s been built to automate based on viewability verification methods. This implies advertisers just pay for the ads that are served in environments that it’s deemed brand safe, viewable and ad fraud-free.

Gowthaman Ragothaman, the global lead for blockchain across GroupM, stated –

“The impact on marketing budgets and performance brings great value to the advertiser. We will expand the alliance and keep developing more features on the smart contracts to include more media performance metrics to make it even more effective.”

Erich Wasserman – the co-founder and head of strategic business development at MediaMath, and Max Kantelia – the co-founder of Zilliqa Research remarked that they would continue to support the Project Proton test and would look to continue tests alongside Mindshare and the other group members.