IBM (NYSE:IBM) iX, part of IBM, will collaborate with media software firm Mediaocean to trial blockchain for digital media deals and supply chain. The companies will lead a consortium that will also involve Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), Unilever (LON:ULVR), Kimberly-Clark Corp (NYSE:KMB), Kellogg, and IBM Watson, another unit of the US tech giant. The experiment aims to assess how the technology could increase transparency, combat fraud and streamline processes.
The pilot was officially announced on Tuesday at an event in Cannes, France. The experiment will expand IBM’s collaboration with Unilever launched a few months ago.
Mediaocean CEO Bill Wise said that the test might help the technology win some real use case amid the current hype that is mostly fueled by speculative conferences with little results. He expects that the pilot may continue with an extensive beta test in early 2019.
“I think by the end of next year we will have a fully functioning scalable solution that will be adopted by the majority of the industry,” Wise said.
The consortium will attract many media companies, publishes, demand-side platforms, and measurement firms like IAS and Oracle’s Moat.
Wise revealed that the distributed ledger technology (DLT), as blockchain is also called, would help cut about 60% in costs that go to intermediaries.
According to Babs Rangaiah, who is partner-global marketing at IBM iX and a former employee at Unilever, the initial members were chosen to avoid competitive crossings. In light of this, Unilever can veto any new member as it has the status of a participant in the first round of the pilot.
“We were doing design-thinking workshops, and having competitive brands in the room would make it less open and transparent,” Rangaiah said. However, in the longer term, competitors might be able to join the blockchain project, he added.
The pilot, which is to start in July 2018, will be built on top of Mediaocean’s campaign management platform, which currently handles over $140 billion in annual spending across multiple media firms. The blockchain system will track the whole circuit of an advertiser’s media dollar movement. The technology will record all media transactions, from purchase order issuance to payments.
IBM is one of the most active companies in terms of blockchain adoption. In March, the company announced that its blockchain solution had been used by about 400 companies.
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