Assignment

on
“Blockchain in Marketing”

Submitted to:
Dr. Abureza Mohammad Muzareba
Associate Professor,
Department of Marketing,
Faculty of Business Studies’
University of Dhaka

Submitted by:
Sanoy Saha
ID: 567
Sec: A
Department of Marketing,
University of Dhaka

Date of Submission: 17-Nov-19

 Blockchain in Marketing

Marketing has changed a lot in the past decade, but it’s about to go through another revolution,
thanks in large part to blockchain. Yes, while most of us associate digital marketing with things
like AI and analytics, blockchain may be the most disruptive technology yet to hit marketers in
every industry. Blockchain is changing digital marketing, and you may be surprised who will
benefit.
At its core, blockchain enables transactions between two parties without the need for third-party
verification. Most of the uses for blockchain have been around finance and crypto-currencies, but
the underlying technology could be huge for marketing.
While AI and analytics have arguably benefited businesses more than consumers, blockchain
may level the playing field by giving the power of data back to consumers themselves. The
following are a few ways blockchain is changing digital marketing for the better—and forever,
moving forward.

One of the most exciting things about blockchain is that it gives the value of data back to
consumers. Up until now, many companies have benefited from being able to pull data from
their customers. Everyone from PetSmart to Walmart wants our phone number, email address,
address, and the name of our firstborn even to make a simple purchase in store or online. Yes, in
some ways it helps the consumer, because it allows companies to market for personally to them.
But in other ways it’s invasive, and it means companies are making money by taking—and
sometimes even selling—the personal information they gather from anyone in their wake.
Blockchain is changing digital marketing by removing companies’ abilities to pull data from
customers without also offering to reimburse them for its value. For instance, the Brave
browser is changing how users interact with online advertising. Rather than simply being pelted
with online ads, Brave users opt-into viewing ads and receive Basic Attention Tokens (BATs)
for the ads with which they interact. It’s a completely new way of viewing advertising, by
trading the value of online attention, rather than simply the trading of space for potential ad sales.
Another new technology, Blockstack, uses blockchain to “protect your digital rights”—creating a
new type of network for decentralized apps. While in the past, consumers would provide their
data to use certain applications, and their data would remain on the application’s server—
completely out of the consumer’s hands. But with Blockstack, your data stays with you. It acts as
a key to unlock certain apps, but returns to the user as soon as they’re done using it. This is
simple but revolutionary in terms of digital marketing. The free-for-all data-grab is over.
Indeed, if you’re in the marketing business, you may not love this concept. In many ways, it’s
like going back to ground zero—relying on customers to give you the information you want and
need to serve them better. Maybe not the best news for digital marketing—but a necessary step
forward in terms of consumer protection.
In the past, people would shop everything from eBay to Craigslist to Whole Foods and hope—
fingers crossed—that they were buying what was being marketed to them. Was the item organic?
Authentic? Was it really grown or made in a fair-trade/fair-pay environment? Or was it
manufactured in a sweat shop powered by child workers? Thanks to blockchain, consumers can
finally know the answers to these questions, and many more. With the power of blockchain,
companies are able to verify exactly where an item was manufactured or grown, what kinds of
soil the items were grown in, or how much workers get paid to work there. This is huge,
especially in an era where consumers care more and more not just about the quality of what they
are buying, but of the integrity of company and processes creating them.
Unilever and IBM are on their way to clarifying the freakishly confusing arena of online ad
spend. As part of the project, blockchain creates a trusted and verified chain from the ad dollar to
the end user. In the past, some 85 cents per advertising dollar made its way to the publisher.
Today, that number has dropped to just 40 cents, largely due to the many intermediaries in the
process. The project has already resulted in tens of millions of savings for Unilever. On the flip
side, it could also put tons of companies that have built their worth on verifying ad metrics out of
business. Blockchain is changing digital marketing in a disruptive way—potentially wiping out a
whole new generation of companies built on its very existence.
Indeed, the real impact of blockchain in digital marketing is not just in the new use cases being
developed. It’s in how those use cases will impact entire systems that have popped up as a way
to manage the digital marketplace. In a time when digital marketing seems to be changing and
growing by the moment, blockchain is changing digital marketing in disruptive, perhaps even
irreversible ways.

The use of Blockchain in marketing are described below:

1.Blockchain Eliminates the Digital Marketing Middleman
Digital marketing now utilizes “middlemen” that control the territory between advertisers and
users. One of the reasons a website might choose to display Google banner ads on their site as
opposed to organically finding advertisers is because Google is a source of trust. If a company is
“vetted” by the Google Display Network, then it’s likely that it’s a credible business that won’t
damage the brand of the host website. Google also handles the processing of transactions so that
the website owner is paid fairly for clicks generated on the advertiser’s ad.
In this case, Google is essentially the middleman between the advertiser and the website owner.
For that reason, they take a cut of the profits.
Website owners wouldn’t have to go through the Google Display Network to find advertisers
because each “user” would already be validated and verified. The advertiser would know that
they’re paying for genuine clicks, and the site owner can trust that the amount they’re being paid
is fair.  There wouldn’t be any need for Google (or Facebook, or any other intermediary).
What it all comes down to is a decrease in extra costs and an increase in your profit margin.
2. Blockchain Builds Trust With Transparency
One of the problems that many companies, particularly large ones, face is consumer trust. People
are skeptical about everything from where their food comes from to the factory conditions in
which their clothes were made.
Companies gain trust through transparency, which blockchain marketing can provide in a way
that other tactics don’t.
Another value proposition of blockchain is the level to which everything is documented and
verified. For example, a customer could get a “behind-the-scenes” look of a retailer’s supply
chain – and find out exactly how the product was made. The transparency allows the consumer
to discover whether a company is trustworthy about their claims or not.
In one case study, Walmart teamed up with IBM on a project to make their supply chain process
more transparent. With blockchain digitally tracing where their pork products came from,
starting at the retailer’s base in China, consumers got the proof needed to trust what Walmart
was selling them.
3. Blockchain Drives Public Accountability
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is another murky term. The transparency and
documentation of blockchain can be used to create digitized contracts which the public can view,
and use to hold companies accountable.
4. Blockchain Gives the Consumer Control of Their Own Information
The way of the future is to balance advertising with consumer identity concerns. There are
already several services out there that offer the user full control of their identity and transaction
history, like uPort, MetaMask and Key base.

5. Blockchain Offers Benefits for Branding

There’s a certain cache in having a Bitcoin-friendly payment method and/or using blockchain to
formalize digital negotiations between companies: you’ll be seen as a forward-thinking
organization.
A company that embraces emerging technology is considered ‘edgy’ and ‘innovative’ and you
could even create a PR strategy around moving to the blockchain.