Attention is today’s most precious resource. But for you and me, who spend a lot of time staring at smartphones screens and dealing with endless interruptions and distractions, it doesn’t seem that simple to stay focus on particular contents or tasks. Ever increasing social media platforms have created unrelenting competition for consumer attention. This means brands are in need of a better marketing medium that hopes to differentiate themselves in a saturating attention economy.
One under-utilized channel is the mobile phone lockscreen.
Can Lock Screen Advertising Capture Attention?
The average smartphone user unlocks their smartphone 80 times -100 times per day. Lockscreen is the first mobile impression that users engage before everything else, and hence capturing maximum users’ attention. Various research to date strongly suggests that the same ad performs differently based on the “form factor” the consumer views it on. Full-screen advertisement delivered to the lock screen has proven itself to be the most effective form-factor to capture user attention where we can expect approximately 10x higher click-through-rate (CTR) compared to industry typical mobile banner ads.
Introducing SwipeCrypto
SwipeCrypto (https://www.swipecrypto.com), an Ad-Tech startup based in Singapore, is a "mobile lockscreen advertising platform that rewards consumers with cryptocurrencies when they unlock their mobile phones and view targeted ads, content or offers”. It introduces transparency and accountability within the ecosystem through blockchain technology. Any 3rd-party app publisher can embed SwipeCrypto lockscreen SDK module to monetize its lockscreen and increase active usage.
SwipeCrypto Token (SWC) is the in-app cryptocurrency used to pay publishers and reward users for engaging with lockscreen advertisements. SwipeRich lockscreen — the backbone of SwipeCrypto ads delivery technology, is currently serving more than 10 million impressions per month in Philippines (www.agila.ph) and Indonesia (www.cepatswipe.com).
Why Blockchain Technology?
Ad Fraud is another major issue in the mobile & digital advertising space. Malicious click-bots and fake traffic have cost advertisers $6.5 billion globally in 2017, according to a report from Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and White Ops (a cybersecurity firm which exposed the “Methbot” operation).
The blockchain is the fundamental technology that enables cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. In a nutshell, it is a ledger that operates in a decentralized system, and the underlying technology works on a trust protocol. As data is stored in a decentralized manner across all the computing nodes, blockchain inherently allows immutability where you can’t change the blockchain — and for data purposes, not one person or entity can re-write or destroy it.
As advertisers struggle to counter digital ad-fraud, blockchain technology holds the potential to address this issue. Through individual user’s unique identity and digital signature, it could accurately record the user’s ad engagement behavior in a decentralized blockchain ledger. The industry can then gain the trust of advertisers by ensuring that quality traffic is delivered and metrics accurately reflect the target audience's behavior instead of worrying about fake/fraudulent traffic.
What does this mean to Advertisers?
Blockchain is here to stay, and every industry including mobile advertising will face blockchain disruption that will transform the way industry works. Ad-Tech blockchain developments today are initial steps towards a more transparent and effective mobile advertising industry. Advertisers need to focus on how blockchain technology’s transparency, decentralization and immutability can help address ad-fraud and accountability issues in the industry. Only through industry collaboration & continuous innovation can we create a solution that lives up to the vision of what mobile advertising could be.