Blockchain (bitcoin) and digital marketing

As the hype around bitcoin is waning, the chatter around its underlying technology, blockchain, has only been increasing. Bitcoin was one application of blockchain but it also has multiple other applications. As blockchain is mostly a financial technology (fintech) concept, I was wondering if it could have any applications in digital marketing and came across this article: http://digitalmarketingmagazine.co.uk/articles/the-blockchain-transforming-the-relationship-between-brands-and-customers/2317#

A lot of this is still an idea/concept and still many years away from any practical usage. At its most basic level, blockchain is a technology that holds information/data in a distributed manner rather than with a central authority. For consumers, think about your personal information being held across properties/websites/apps in a distributed manner such that no specific property has all the data. So brands who want to reach you wont have to go to a FB, google or twitter to get your information but by using the blockchain technology, they would get specific data/information on you that would help them market and target certain products towards you. The article gives some cool examples on how this could work in practice (auto insurance, CPG firms etc.).

Again, important to note that this is nascent stages for this technology and we are still years away from practical usage. Most of the blockchain applications used today are in the fintech space and are challenging institutions that are central repositories of power and information. Bitcoin, which was probably the first application of blockchain is today challenging the power of central banks by helping people transact without using money (but by using bitcoin which has no central authority or regulator). Similarly, think about a world where digital marketers dont need to go to google, FB or twitter to get information on a consumer!

Paypal's foray into bitcoin

Paypal recently announced that it is working towards enabling some of its major clients to be able to accept bitcoin from customers via Paypal. The benefit goes both ways for merchants and customers: merchants are able to accept an additional form of payment at no incremental work or cost (since the functionality lives on the Paypal platform) and customers can put more value (and faith!) into bitcoin and potentially other cryptocurrencies. While this is another win for bitcoin after a string of exciting announcements in the past year(s) (bitcoin's acceptance on overstock.com and newegg for example), it is still a hard to accept form of digital payment for many. The topic of bitcoins and retailers accepting bitcoins has been buzzworthy and in my opinion, a marketing ploy to get innovators and early adopters to try the currency out with credible players. However, it has not caught on as expected, likely due to the many security issues bitcoin exchanges have experienced in the past, with about 1 in 10 bitcoins having been lost. Despite all this, everything is moving to be mobile-driven, including payments. And with that shift means more consumers opening up to the idea of an everyday behavior of digitally-transferring money. Bitcoin can offer lower transactions costs and more flexibility, so its time to shine may come in the not-so-far-distant future. Just not today.


Source: Techcrunch