Charles H. Miller
At first glance, we wouldn’t consider Comcast — and any other telecommunications provider for that matter — a great fit for blockchain; but we would be wrong. Like many other big companies, Comcast is also looking how it can benefit from blockchain. And so far, we have managed to catch two potential applications the company aims to explore.
1. Storing operational data on a blockchain
This application was revealed to us by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which has published Comcast’s patent filing for a technology involving two decentralized databases which would hold its customers’ information.
One database, based on the blockchain technology, would hold customers’ private and identifying information, and only be accessible by certain entities. In an effort to boost transparency, the system would maintain a log of every time someone accesses this database.
The other database, on the other hand, would contain location information for the user data on the first database, acting as an index of sorts.
“The block identifies all relevant information relating to the particular data access including, for example, the particular data that was accessed, the entity that accessed the data, and the date and time of the access,” the patent filing explains. “After a block is generated, it is encrypted and added to the chain of existing blocks.”
In the application, Comcast is also noting the intent to collate customers’ viewing habits across different platforms, creating a repository for this information.
2. Blockchain-based platform for making premium video advertising
Comcast’s second use case for blockchain is a premium video advertising platform, called “Blockchain Insights Platform,” which development the company announced in June 2017.
For this endeavor, Comcast’s Advanced Advertising Group has teamed-up with other players from across the industry — including NBCUniversal, Disney, Altice USA, Channel 4, Cox Communications, Mediaset Italia and TF1 Group — to create a solution for better ad planning, targeting, execution and measurement across screens.
Under the deal, the companies will work together on a new and improved advertising approach which would facilitate the secure exchange of non-personal, audience insights for addressable advertising.
“Television advertising is an efficient and effective way for marketers and their agencies to reach a large audience, yet today the way advertisers use insights to plan, buy and deliver advertising is limited,” Marcien Jenckes, President of Advertising at Comcast Cable, said at the time of the announcement. “This new technological approach would make data-driven video advertising more efficient and consumer data more secure. We’ll work with the participants in this initiative to improve ad planning, addressable targeting, execution and measurement, to ultimately create even more value for the television advertising industry.”
One application of the Blockchain Insights Platform would be that advertisers and programmers could more effectively build and execute media plans based on custom audience segments across platforms. Concurrently, programmers would be able to offer improved targeting, thus increasing the value and quantity of monetized inventory. All participants would also benefit from the resulting reporting and attribution metrics, which could emerge as an additional source of revenue.
Furthermore, because the system is based on blockchain, it would let participating companies ask questions of each other’s data without having to access anyone else’s data to get their marketing questions answered. This technology provides a more efficient platform for the premium video marketplace, while keeping individual data sources safe, private and secure.
In addition to the initial partners, Comcast will also be pitching the platform to other programmers, distributors, device makers and marketers from the U.S. and Europe.
