Kentucky Fried Chicken has rolled out a blockchain pilot program across the Middle East aimed at improving digital advertising and media buying.

KFC Middle East expects the blockchain-powered platform to ensure greater transparency in the advertising supply chain, news publication AMEinfo reported on April 29. By deploying the platform, the company also looks to address issues like security and privacy of advertisers, publishers and consumers.

Making ads data transparent on a shared database

The pilot aims to show how blockchain can help improve data processing, increase the brand’s visibility and penetration, and optimize advertising revenue. Additionally, KFC hopes to resolve any fraud issues by using a shared blockchain-based database, where information about all ads delivery and placement is seen, shared and updated on a real-time basis.

Ozge Zoralioglu, chief marketing officer at KFC, Yum! Brands, said:

“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.”

Fast food restaurants experiment with cryptocurrencies

KFC has previously experimented with emerging technologies like cryptocurrencies. Back in 2018, KFC Canada introduced a new menu item, the Bitcoin Bucket, that customers could buy exclusively with Bitcoin (BTC).

Following KFC’s example, American fast-food chain Church’s Chicken started accepting payments in cryptocurrency Dash (DASH) at its all 10 restaurant locations in Venezuela, at the time.

Burger King is also known as one of the first international fast-food chains to accept Bitcoin as a means of payment. Visitors were reportedly able to buy burgers with crypto back in 2016 at the Netherlands branch of Burger King. Later, the German branch of Burger King began accepting Bitcoin on its website and mobile app.

However, Burger King eventually restaurants stopped accepting Bitcoin and announced that the digital currency payment initiative was just a temporary promotional campaign.