Dataism, Blockchain and Advertising: What will the Data Say?

Recently I had finished reading the best-seller Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow written by Yuval Noah Harari. As the sequel of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, this book does not only echo the evolvement of human behavior and formation of society, but also predicts what the world will be like when AI, IoT and big data dominate, which are perhaps more powerful than any existing religion. Mr.Harari uses the recently coined term “dataism” to describe what it is and what it will do to our society (and to individual life) if it becomes the reality -- viz., that everything can be viewed and analyzed based on the collection of data. When that happens, I will be asking: What is the real me? Should I follow the voice of my heart, or idolize a sophisticated report of the digitalized me?

I am not so ambitious as to attempt to summarize everything Mr.Harari discusses; but dataism does remind me of where advertising is heading, and how blockchain technology is going to be the newest gamechanger for the industry.

When we take a look at technological revolutions - the past and the ongoing ones alike - and ask what they have bestowed on us, the most important change I assume, is the greater control of what happens. Data, statistics, and codes are capable of explaining almost anything. In some respects, we are our own prophets.

Advertising applies the rule. The earliest commercial advertising was just painted walls and rocks. By the 19th century, newspaper advertisements and professional advertising agencies emerged. In the early and late 20th century, radio and television prevailed, which turned the static images and texts of printed media into vivid human voices and appealing videos. As industrialization marched onward, media channels increased, and the advertising industry grew rapidly. As more of the world became commercialized (and some became highly commercialized), another revolution took place: the Internet.

The Internet is the first gamechanger in advertising, by virtue of the digitalization of content. No matter how appealing traditional advertising has grown from ancient times to modern era, its fundamental nature remains the same: enhancing brand awareness that may convert to purchase behavior later. But digital advertising is different. It pursues “instant gratification” by luring people to click and purchase immediately after viewing the ads. In this scenario, advertisers pay the bills by consumers’ actions (i.e. clicking, installing, etc.). In this way, advertisers can have more control over the effectiveness of their advertisements, supported by data analysis. This is known as performance-based advertising.

However, despite the fact that digital advertising has offered measurability to their beloved advertisers, it also brought fraud, duopoly and data insecurity. These are not only problematic; they contaminate the ecosystem, leading to a costly, risky, and low-efficient industry.

“The seed of revolution is repression.” These are the words of Woodrow Wilson, and they can be used to describe the emergence of another gamechanger, the blockchain technology. As a decentralized, open-source, and encrypted system, it will ensure transparency and data security, reducing to nil the chance that any one party could take control over the game. As a result, advertisers, ad service operations, publishers, and end users will all benefit.

Among the current blockchain-based digital advertising projects, Adrealm stands out due to its innovative mechanism called “PoVT” (Proof of Valid Traffic), and its pragmatic R&D and business roadmap. Coming from a game publishing and ad monetization background, the Adrealm team has accumulated solid experience and deep understanding of digital advertising. Adrealm has already launched a commercially available DApp named Xhance, the world’s first decentralized ad attribution and data analytics platform, which will help advertisers improve the ROI of user acquisition while giving them a kind of data ownership.

As an adherent of dataism in digital advertising, Adrealm believes in the valid traffic, formed by real and valuable data. Big data will definitely do good to all players in the realm when its safely stored and properly distributed., and it will be bigger and better, when “Xhanced”.

References:

1. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, Harvill Secker, 2016, Yuval Noah Harari
2. “History of advertising”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_advertising
3. “Dataism”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dataism
4. Adrealm Whitepaper, https://adrealm.com/download/AdRealm-zh_whitepaper.pdf