Mindshare-driven blockchain programmatic alliance ‘Project Proton’ has launched a test campaign with PepsiCo that has driven an increased 28% efficiency by using smart contracts.

The test ran in March 2019 in Asia Pacific and focused on viewable impressions, running one campaign through smart contracts and one without.

PepsiCo worked with Mindshare, which is driving the project alongside other members of Project Proton, including Zilliqa Research, Rubicon Project, MediaMath and Integral Ad Science. The group has been working together for almost a year and while it was optimistic from the start, this is the first test with a major brand to be published and is one of the first of its kind globally.

According to Mindshare, the smart contracts are deployed via Zilliqa’s blockchain and can reconcile impressions from different data sources alongside payments. This is done using a Native Alliance Token (NAT) in almost real-time, which it says is what’s driving the efficiency improvements as compared to the campaign run without smart contracts, as well as total transparency for the brand.

Farida Shakhshir, director of consumer engagement for PepsiCo, AMENA, said: “We are happy to be partnering with Mindshare to test the application and value add of blockchain in media. It is key that we stay abreast of new technologies, and continue to advance transparency, viewability, brand safety and buying efficiency. The results are encouraging, and we plan to run a few more campaigns under different conditions to verify more hypotheses and measure overall impact.”

Transparency is a key goal for Project Proton and, according to the coalition, it has been built to automate based on viewability verification methods. This means advertisers only pay for ads that are served in environments that it’s deemed viewable, brand safe and ad fraud-free.

Gowthaman Ragothaman, global lead for blockchain across GroupM, said: “The impact on marketing budgets and performance brings great value to the advertiser. We will expand the alliance and keep developing more features on the smart contracts to include more media performance metrics to make it even more effective.”

Both Erich Wasserman, co-founder and head of strategic business development at MediaMath and Max Kantelia, co-founder of Zilliqa Research commented as part of the announcement that they would be continuing to support the Project Proton test and would be looking to continue tests alongside Mindshare and the other group members.