Worldwide, companies jostle for the attention of the public to sell their products. Everyday, enticing advertisements are strategically placed on television, newspapers and magazines, billboards and other media to catch the attention of targeted audience.
With the growth of the Internet, online advertisement has become even a bigger force to reckon with. Understandably so. As at the end of 2017, a good 54.4% of the entire world population is reportedly connected to the Internet, and with the structure of the WorldWideWeb, any average marketer has the potential of reaching every single one of the 4,156,932,140 people [1] through a myriad of devices - at any time. Transactions are conducted with spontaneity via mobile phones, to the satisfaction of both advertiser and user. Reportedly, 80% of all internet users own a mobile phone while 57% of all online traffic comes from mobile and tablet devices. [2]
Thus, while traditional media ads revenue has dropped, online advertising is increasingly growing and is expected to reach $239.87 billion in 2019.[3] Indeed, the sector has come a long way from the email spamming of the late 70s and 80s. With banner ads - popularised in the 90s and 2000s, search advertising, pop-up ads, social media advertising and native advertising amongst others now becoming prominent online advertisement forms. [4]
The advertisement sphere is today dominated by ad networks, mostly large companies like Google Facebook and Yahoo! who position themselves as middlemen between the advertisers and publishers. Ad networks are the indisputable king in the currently thriving online advertisement industry. They are in direct control of the advertising chain being the bridge that links the advertiser to the publishing platform. They have an aggregation of publisher ad space supply sought by the advertiser which they allocate to publishers on revenue-share basis (often times commission) when they sign up. They decide the price to be paid by the advertiser, the platform where the advertisements would be hosted and the publishers' share of the revenue.
Other elements in the chain are not as fortunate. Advertisers often pay dearly for the services of ad networks, albeit ignorantly. It is not uncommon for networks to hike the costs of advertising campaigns and present a false claim to advertisers who go on to pay. The Publisher earns a pittance for his service leaving the network with excessive gain.
Also, most ad networks do not disclose impressions per site. Specifically, When dealing with blind networks, advertisers have little information about the platforms where the network will run their ads. At the end of the day, some of the adverts run are inappropriately placed or non-targeted.
Publishers while hosting the advertisements on their websites, lack direct access to the advertiser. As in all cases where there are middlemen, the presence of the ad networks in the chain means less revenue for the seller. The service fee of the ad network is deducted from the payment made by the advertiser, invariably costing the publisher about 30% revenue which he would have earned had he dealt directly with the advertiser. Publishers who could have been approved by advertisers also sometimes fail to meet the signing up requirements of the ad networks.
Consumers complain of being inundated with irrelevant adverts while browsing as adverts placed on websites are largely non-targeted, time-wasting and in-effective; offending spams, pop-ups and other commercials intrude into people's space sporadically largely due to unethical publishers exchanging subscriber entrusted data for gains, in direct violation of the privacy agreement.
The beginning of a new era
The current situation where a few powerful organisations monopolise the industry is grossly unhealthy for its development. This has led to the development of a new form of advertisement that will enable advertisers have direct access to publishers.
Based on the blockchain, the Kind Ads Protocol will eliminate ad networks and the fees associated with them, making advertisers to pay less for adverts and publishers to earn more for advert placements on their site. Publishers will also get instant payment for their services unlike when they received payment from the ad networks.
The project which was launched early this year by the Leadchain foundation has been under development since 2017 and is expected to be well underway by 2019. According to its website, Kind Ads will be kind to users - by focusing on less intrusive adverts, expressly subscribed to by users. Users will be able to choose which adverts they want to view, opt out of adds anonymously and even opt out of the service. However, they will be encouraged to stay on the platform as it would reward the audience based on their level of interaction.
Users can also receive targeted ads and bids from advertisers based on their profile info and listing of what they would like to buy, and browse the Internet without the constantly intrusive advert. Ultimately, advertising companies will be able to reach their target audience.
**SUCCESS INDICATORS **
Technology
In its first stage, Kind Ads will leverage on technologies like push notifications, and similar technologies that are user-friendly and can be used with less intrusion. These technologies that are less popular with the big networks will help ensure the development of the programme in its early stage. Eventually, the platform will introduce native ads.
Platform
The Kinds ads protocol is built on the Ethereum blockchain, a rich and adaptable platform which DAPPS developers find most attractive.
The project will leverage on platforms like the popularly used WordPress and Kajabi which literarily gives access to millions of bloggers who will translate to publishers on the platform. As of December 2016, 75 million websites run on WordPress [5]. 83.6 million posts are published on WordPress each month, and more than 409 million people view 21.5 billion blog pages each.[6]
Team
Even more is the fact that the founding team and advisors are veteran advertisers with very impressive records and over 31 years of experience at management level in advertising. They are bringing all their wealth of experience to bear along with established relationships with publishers and advertisers.
TOKEN OF TRANSACTION
KIND will be the token of transaction on the platform.. Advertisers will purchase the tokens to pay for services rendered while publishers and users will earn them.
Overall, Kind Ads promises a more cost-effective advertising that is catered to the end-users who are genuinely interested in the product. According to the Roadmap the program will be well underway by 2019.
For more information about this exciting project please consult the Kind Ads Website or whitepaper
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