Fast-food chain KFC recently announced it is adopting blockchain for digital advertising and media buying in the Middle East. Colonel Sanders aims to improve advertising data transparency and reduce the risk of fraud and will be working with Omnicom marketing agency Hearts & Science MENA to roll out the solution.
U.S.-based KFC, a unit of Yum! Brands is famous for its fried chicken and has about 24,000 restaurants worldwide. BIA Advisory Services estimates that quick-service restaurants will spend $4.5 billion on local advertising in 2020. Meanwhile, Statista forecasts that global digital advertising spend will hit $465 billion by 2024.
A common problem is the low conversion rate. But a significant issue is that only a small percent (52%) of advertising clicks can be verified. That’s partly because there are so many intermediaries between the advertiser and the publisher. This lack of clarity about whether a particular campaign is working results in a waste of money. Meanwhile the challenges of tracking advertisements increase the risk of fraud.
Leveraging blockchain, KFC aims to access real-time data from its ad campaigns. This improved transparency would enable the firm to increase brand visibility and monitor ad distribution. On the other hand, a shared database of advertising placement and delivery would reduce the risk of fraud in the digital ad supply chain.
“Historically, marketers have collected data from various different sources and run a campaign pegged on these mismatched insights. Today, marketers must get to the original source of the data: the consumer,” said Ozge Zoralioglu, Chief Marketing Officer, KFC, Yum! Brands.
“By innovating a sophisticated blockchain solution, KFC can now benefit from enhanced visibility of real-time data and the most updated insights — all with full confidence that information is authenticated, tamper-proof and hence credible.”
“With greater access to log-level data, we will be able to make faster changes to fuel data driven business performance and gain more access into the region’s media supply chain,” added Fadi Maktabi, Managing Director, Hearts & Science MENA
Previously, KFC Canada had introduced the Bitcoin Bucket, which could only be bought by paying in Bitcoin.
Last year, McDonald’s, along with Nestle and Virgin Media, joined a blockchain pilot for digital advertising run by the UK’s JICWEBS.
Industry consortium AdLedger has researched the issues and solutions.
