Before the Internet and the rise of social media, marketing and advertising was done offline. Brands and advertisers leveraged the power of ads, banners, print content and TV to target their customers. The process may have been more transparent, but it had flaws because conventional research methods to profile customers were imprecise and lengthy. Surveys and questionnaires used to be the norm. When online advertising stormed in, an industry that was once worth billions became extinct.

With the advent of the Internet and social media, the traditional marketing and advertising industry changed. Paid campaigns on Facebook and Google have gone mainstream, leading to the materialization of a digital marketing realm where companies control customers’ data.

Companies track consumer published content with the purpose of extracting information. After being accused of storing user images without consent, social media giant Facebook was fined $1.4 mln by a regulator in Spain for its illicit data harvesting activities. To put things into perspective and expose how vulnerable sharing personal information online can be, Equifax - a well-known credit reporting agency, was hacked this past September. Cybercriminals released the personal information of 145.4 mln customers, emphasizing once again that companies cannot provide full security. Whether we like it or not, increasingly more consumers feel insecure. They fear that their personal data is not safe enough to be shared.

Things are not looking good in the world of marketing and advertising either. Agencies pay to get their hands on the data to boost their profits. The majority of average consumers are unaware they’re online browsing activity is being monitored. They don’t know that their privacy and data are subjective to potential nefarious activity.

As the next generation of marketing kicked off, things have gotten challenging for honest advertisers too. Many deals with huge amounts of fake data interfering with their online content and campaigns. Ad fraud, fake news and no control over IP and copyrights are putting consumers at risk.

Fighting online fraud and fake data with Blockchain

The advertising industry’s main challenge is fighting online fraud and fake data. Influencers and content creators worry that third parties are taking control of copyrights for their content, videos, images, and IP without their permission or knowledge. Facebook allegedly sold $100,000+ in ads to fake Russian accounts during the US presidential elections.

Credit bureaus, tech companies, government entities, advertisers and publishers are outpaced by profile “vendors,” advertisement exchanges, data management and audience segmentation platforms. With the help of Blockchain technology, the people can get back control of their data.

A new wave of social media on Blockchain

Robin8 is a new Blockchain-enabled platform that aims to disrupt social media and digital marketing advertising as we know it. The project is a social marketing and consumer profiling platform that leverages AI and Big Data to form a customer-centric advertising channel. Built on the Blockchain, Robin8 trains machines to match, profile and rank people with advertisers and brands for better ROI achievement. The automated system running on the platform provides transparency, safe tracking, third-party digital advertising verification, data management and social media e-commerce measurement to ensure the scalability and full automation functioning of the platform. Giving the data back to its rightful owners is one of Robin8’s main objectives.

PUT - the currency within then Robin8 ecosystem

Social media powered by Blockchain is secure, trusted and anonymous. PUT is at the core of the Robin8 ecosystem. PUT tokens can be used as compensation for users and influencers who choose to create, share and view content. On the Robin8 platform, buyers that want access to consumer data will have to buy PUT tokens to pay the owner (e.g., influencer, content creator, consumer) of the data.

Furthermore, advertisers that want people to view their content will also have to use PUT to pay the consumer. The same principles apply to consumers who want premium access to advertiser content. PUT is the digital currency of Robin8, which is fundamentally a project that looks to build a fundamental layer of a profile-based, large-scale economy that can go beyond marketing and advertising. By using PUT, the people - both advertisers and consumers - are in control of the data they share.

A proven business model

The Robin8 platform is anonymous and trusted. All information users share is encrypted within the Blockchain. Unlike Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media giants, Robin8 PUT owns and controls their privacy, as well as their data. They can either share social media engagement with advertisers or not. All users are rewarded PUT tokens for creating a profile, reading & sharing content, inviting friends and promoting products.

With an already proven business model in place, the Robin8 project believes that it’s in the right of the people to monetize the data their own. In a digital world where ad fraud, clickbait advertising and intrusive social media marketing is the norm, Robin8 is looking to make a difference with a platform built on the QTUM Blockchain that awards the people for using social media, and not the other way around.

Founder and CEO of Robin8, Miranda Tan, highlights: “We have an opportunity to be a game changer and disrupter by offering transparency and trust to advertisers while protecting the data, copyright and IP for influencers and consumers."

With over 5,000 marketing campaigns completed, 100,000 content creators and 150,000 micro influencers, Robin8 has a proven business model that is already generating revenue and growing fast. The team and advisory board behind the project are made up of skilled professionals. Some of the people that contributed to the creation of Robin8 PUT are Dr. Barry O’Sullivan (Chief, Artificial Intelligence), Tan Siok Siok (VP Operations), Dr. Janna Lipenkova (VP, Research & Development), Bessie Lee (former CEO for WPP China), Milo Chao (former Chief Strategy Officer for TBWA China), Alvin Foo (Head of Mobile and Innovation at OmnicomMedia Group), among others.

The Robin8 PUT crowdsale is planned to go live on Jan. 8, 2018.