David Garrity is the CEO of GVA Research.
For 2017, WPP subsidiary GroupM predicts $16 billion of ad fraud. Non-human activity, bots, and click farms are all sources of advertising fraud. By tracking advertising impressions on a blockchain, ClearCoin can identify which publishers are “high risk” and advertisers can adjust their budget accordingly.
There are a number of ad-tech security firms tracking bot and non-human activity, with which ClearCoin will partner to address and minimize ad fraud. In the advertising industry, it is common for top advertisers such as P&G to have advertising budgets well in excess of $1 billion. Their media spend goes through an agency, to an ad tech company, to another ad tech company, to another subcontractor, and so on and so forth.
With such a highly intermediated supply chain, it becomes difficult to determine which company is delivering which impressions. P&G has cut $140 million out of its $2 billion ad spend budget. However, instead of cutting $140 million of ad spend, with ClearCoin P&G will be able to consult a public ledger on which partners delivered bad impressions, thereby weeding out the bad actors and helping the good actors earn more.
To deliver on this opportunity, ClearCoin is building an omnichannel ad delivery product (covers all ad formats such as video, display, search, social, native, television, etc.) that allows advertisers to deliver their ads on good inventory while tracking it on a ledger system. The ledger system allows companies to know where their ad dollars are going. ClearCoin is a token that transacts on the platform.
Initial Coin Offering as the new funding vehicle for start-ups:
The application of Blockchain technology is seen as bringing about the updating of the world’s technology infrastructure with a concomitant improvement in transparency, authentication and process efficiency. Cryptocurrencies (e.g. bitcoin) are one blockchain use case, but critical as they serve as the unit of settlement for blockchain-enabled activities. Early investors such as Fortress Capital founder Michael Novogratz, who called the $10,000 bitcoin price, are predicting a cryptocurrency market capitalization of $5 trillion. For Blockchain start-up ventures, initial coin offerings (ICOs) are becoming common as they offer an efficient fundraising method that relies on a broader investor community funding base than the traditional reliance on a small group of venture capital funds.
David Garrity has over 25 years’ experience in the financial services industry, he has held senior roles including CFO and board of director positions for both publicly held and private companies, and has extensive experience in several disciplines including operating, advisory and research, and is CEO of GVA Research. David currently serves on the Board of Directors of BTCS Inc., a publicly-held U.S. company involved with Digital Assets and Blockchain technology development and application, and the Advisory Board of Venture.co.
