Blockchain in media: More than a one-hit wonder

Despite this interest and investment, media and platform companies are still in the very early stages of seizing blockchain’s potential to reinvent their core businesses. These companies have the opportunity to harness blockchain to optimize value chains, facilitate ecosystem-wide efficiencies and support innovative business models. All this while boosting competitiveness and making the most of three major industry trends.

Trend 1: Strategic co-opetition
It’s a small world after all

The first of these industry trends is strategic co-opetition, which is mutually-beneficial collaboration among competitors. Driven by consumers’ insatiable appetite for content, media and platform companies are increasingly collaborating and sharing tangible assets like content and software, and intangible assets like data and customer relationships.

Most industry players know how important strategic co-opetition has become—44 percent of executives see it as the market trend that will have the highest impact on their business in the next three to five years. Nevertheless, cumbersome processes, financial transaction opacity, piracy and trust gaps make collaboration difficult. But blockchain can change this. There are many ways it can apply in media and platform ecosystems—from the creation of blockchain consortia to applications in mergers and acquisitions.

Trend 2: Hyper-personalization
One-on-one with everyone

Creating new value for consumers is the second media and platform industry trend that blockchain can address. As the media and platform industry scrambles to meet evolving consumer demands, segment-of-one targeting has become critical for competitiveness. Only 44 percent of consumers believe that online entertainment is tailored to their needs, indicating that traditional targeting methods based solely on consumer demographics are no longer cutting it. Today’s consumers want hyper-personalized experiences that few companies can provide effectively.

However, the granular, validated data that can be captured with blockchain will help media and platform companies form another level of personalized engagement—understanding consumers at a psychographic versus just a demographic level. Companies can also improve insights for key business decisions, such as optimizing campaign investments and improving attribution models.

Trend 3: Data security
The best defense is a good offense

Finally, blockchain technology can help media and platform companies improve data security. The hard truth is that media and platform companies have nothing if they cannot protect data and grant access only to those who need it. The industry must improve in this area. Just 49 percent of consumers trust their online entertainment providers.

Blockchain technology is poised to be a game-changer here. It creates an auditable and tamper-evident history of an asset whether it is a device or content. No one owns this history, which creates a new level of visibility and transparency. Already today, 52 percent of the media and platform companies we surveyed think that security is the most important benefit of blockchain.

Change the rules of the game

Companies can use blockchain to drive both revenue growth and cost reduction— the holy grail for most C-suite executives. Here’s how to get started:

• Understand the current market players and identify which ones could be potential acquisitions or partner.
• Fill internal knowledge gaps with training and by hiring experts who understand blockchain.
• Develop proofs-of-concepts to trial ideas; adapt the best fast to fully-operationalized applications.