IBM and Mediaocean launch blockchain consortium for the digital media supply chain

The software provider Mediaocean and IBM iX, one of the world's largest digital agencies and global business design partners, today announced the launch of a blockchain consortium for the digital media supply chain.

Bringing together some of the world's largest advertisers, agencies and publishers, including Kellogg, Kimberly-Clark, Pfizer, Unilever and IBM Watson Advertising, the solution aims to provide transparency and build trust and accountability in the advertising ecosystem.

The new Mediaocean and IBM blockchain solution, powered by the IBM Blockchain platform, the leader in enterprise blockchain, will provide a comprehensive, timely and actionable view of the supply chain.

It will tackle supply chain opacity from the rapid proliferation of intermediaries, which makes it difficult for advertisers and agencies to identify exactly how much spend is going towards "working media."

“We must innovate our approach to the market by looking for new technologies like blockchain to help solve complex business challenges,” said Mukund Kaushik, VP Digital Capabilities and Innovation for Kimberly-Clark.

“In this partnership with IBM and Mediaocean, as well as other leaders in the media industry, we are on an exciting journey to use blockchain to solve the challenges of media spend transparency and assurance."

Built on top of Mediaocean's end-to-end campaign management platform, which today processes over $140 billion in ad spend and is trusted by all agency holding companies, the Mediaocean and IBM blockchain solution aims to provide visibility into the entire lifecycle of an advertiser's media dollar flow.

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From issuing of the purchase order, to the execution of media and payment – a blockchain is used to record all media transactions in a secure, immutable, standardized and comprehensive manner. The program will launch in July.

“For over 50 years, Mediaocean has been the system of record for the advertising industry,” says Bill Wise, CEO, Mediaocean.

“We have done so by providing reliable, neutral, and integrated systems for brands, agencies and suppliers to execute media, globally. In recent years, however, the industry has been plagued with unsustainable economics and transparency issues that hinder progress – particularly around intermediary fees and non-working media.

“By partnering with IBM, we're able to launch the first advertising blockchain solution that will improve spend transparency - at scale. This will help us come together as an industry under a single source of truth and rebuild trust to push us into a new era of advertising transformation.”

During the initial build phase, Mediaocean utilised the IBM Blockchain Platform Starter Plan, designed to help organisations quickly and cost effectively build blockchain proof of concepts and test networks using blockchain.