Enter BAT. A decentralized, transparent digital ad exchange based on Ethereum Blockchain.

BAT solves a very real problem. Between ad-blockers; misguided marketers; wasted budgets; and the far-too-powerful Big Two (Russia anyone?) — everyone is losing.

With room to discuss — and the attention of the reader — BAT’s white paper does a great job of laying out it’s value in market. However, in an age where digital ads average a mighty 1.7 seconds and attention is in scare supply, the non-developer community cannot be expected to offer BAT much more than a passing glance.

And let’s be honest for a second here— the blockchain community is disproportionally patient in investing their attention to most all new offerings. In part through their interest in the space but also, to put it bluntly, to further their own financial interests through token investments.

Outside of this community the story has to be simple, succinct, and compelling to hold any sway with the mass market end user.

So how does BAT position itself in the market? Well, it’s complicated.

Per the chart above there are three main players: users, advertisers, and publishers.

To briefly summarize the top-line idea: BAT tokens are exchanged in return for attention. Attention is measured by a combination of views and time spent on site. This is where the Brave browser comes in to play.

The Brave browser positions itself as a safe, fast, privacy-first alternative. As a user myself, I really like it.

Immediately however the problem arises: if attention is derived from usage on Brave, then adoption of BAT is wholly dependent on the penetration of the browser — and this is important. Just take a look at browser market share (Sept 2017, US only):

Is Brave about to dislodge Chrome any time soon? Unlikely. Can it reach the 9% mark of Firefox — possibly. If the team were committed to that singular goal.

Herein lies the challenge with BAT — where is that singular focus? Brave or BAT? Both? Or something in between?

As attractive as the vision is for BAT, the story is complex. At it’s core it is a token to reward for attention. So what does that mean? Well, different things.

For users the vision is a simple, merit-based financial reward for great content. In reality however, without granular management from the end user the current attention model will skew rewards towards the de-facto most visited websites. The current top 5 most visited: Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitter, Wikipedia.

For publishers the idea seems brilliant. I can start receiving passive income simply by doing what I’m already doing. But again, the benefit to me as a publisher is wholly dependent on adoption of Brave (currently).

For advertisers the vision of a ‘decentralized, transparent digital ad exchange’ sounds great. Yet users are only served ads if they opt in. Meaning as an advertiser I’m now dependent on both Brave’s adoption (per the publisher challenge), and the advertising adoption. Considering one of the tentpole features of Brave is it’s built-in ad-blocking, I’m going to go out and say I’d expect adverting opt-in to be low.

I’m not the first to consider these issues and credit to the BAT team for factoring in some considerations. Users are paid in BAT to encourage opt-in to advertising for example. Yet overall the net result is a convoluted, and frankly confusing, story.

The above is the primary, lead asset on the BAT website. There’s nothing essentially wrong with it, but consider the hierarchy of messaging: the problem is posited as the high data cost and battery drain of advertising, the solution is presented as Brave. BAT is listed as a ‘stage 2’ component.

Consider this for a moment. With minimal marketing materials this video is the currently the best proxy for BATs current value proposition. It’s key message — it’s key takeaway — is presented as the following problem/solution:

Problem: advertising bloat ruins your web experience

Solution: Brave blocks all the ads

Now ask yourself — how accessible is this message? Who does it best resonate with? What appears to be the main call to action from this message?

In another article I listed some central tenets of marketing, namely: Who, What, How & Where. Let’s focus here solely on who BAT is targeting.

If the value proposition then is ad-blocking we can surmise the ‘who’ to be users concerned with the negative impact of digital advertising (from malvertising to lag). Currently ad blocker usage is up 30% and not slowing down, so there is undeniably a market here.

Yet that audience is fairly well catered for with AdBlock. What percentage of those are willing to ditch their browser and switch to Brave? Remember, the biggest competitor for most all blockchain efforts isn’t a single entity — it’s inertia. And right now Chrome/Edge/Safari+AdBlock is good enough.

The case becomes stronger when you factor in privacy. But here again, if privacy is the core benefit there are more focused alternatives (i.e. Tor).

Regardless, let’s play this out. Brave (and by extension, BAT) proposes built in ad blocking and robust privacy. It’s target then values what we can broadly deem as effortless privacy.

Take a step back: what is BATs purpose? In their own words:

It pays publishers for their content and users for their attention, while providing advertisers with more in return for their ads.

The effortless privacy message then runs counter to the primary value of BAT.

Think about it. Our subset-of-a-subset end users who buy into the ‘effortless privacy’ story are unlikely to be the same users keen to opt in to additional features — BAT payments; advertising opt-in.

Yes there is a cross-over between this group and those who buy in to BATs purpose, but it is not a perfect match.

The story does not match the purpose.

I propose a shift in focus for BAT. I believe the true value of the model is to shift the existing advertiser:user exchange.

The currency of choice in advertising is data. Your user data is packaged and sold to the highest bidder. Networks and services exist for ‘free’ with the sole purpose of gobbling up all the info they can on your demographics and behavior.

And it doesn’t work. Everyone knows it, few are doing anything about it.

What if BAT was presented as the replacement to this exchange. The currency is no longer data, it is attention. The attention economy.

Yes — this is exactly what BAT already does, but that’s the point! A story is not an effort to reinvent the wheel, it is — as I wrote above — the most pure distillation of a product or service down to it’s most valuable proposition.

What does this refocus do to our ‘who’. Well, it emphasizes the publisher first and foremost. The value of content becomes paramount. Our competitors now look more like Patreon — or a Medium Clap — than AdBlock.

Further, it redefines the intent of advertising. What is advertising anyway if not micro-content? When attention is the currency, the quality of advertising naturally must improve.

My outsider view of the story is that it needs to realign toward the value to publishers. I believe this is the most opportune message for BAT and the one most aligned with the long term vision.

Granted this doesn’t solve for Brave adoption issues, yet there is one powerful line in BAT’s white paper that deserves far greater attention:

Currently, we plan to utilize the Brave Browser for BAT, but other developers are free to utilize other browsers.

So here’s the proposition — Publishers, sign up to accept BAT, you’ll get paid and make the web a better place. Developers: build with BAT, create the applications that reward for attention not data.

BATs marketing efforts and outreach should be wholly focused on gaining the support of publisher partners. It should extol the benefits of an attention economy. It should build and support an active development community who’s sole purpose is to unbridle BAT from Brave.

Brave is an really good browser and I’ll continue to use it, but it is not BAT. To confuse the two is to deprive an incredible vision the chance to shine.