Kochava Launches OnXCHNG Partnership Program For First Blockchain-Based Digital Advertising Platform

Kochava, the leading digital advertising attribution and marketing analytics platform, today launched OnXCHNG, the partnership program for the industry's open source blockchain framework for the digital advertising ecosystem, XCHNG. To kick off the program, Kochava announced 10 co-founding OnXCHNG Partners who will be actively taking part in the project: AerServe, AppLift, Appodeal, Chartboost, DCMN, Digital Turbine, Kiip, PubNative, Parrable, and Priori Data.

OnXCHNG Partners will have early access to the XCHNG codebase and architecture. Partners will have the opportunity to be involved in the roadmap direction for XCHNG and be the first to bring their inventory to XCHNG or provide services to the XCHNG ecosystem. Announced in October, the XCHNG blockchain-based system of record offers a digitized and tokenized insertion order (IO, or a contract to buy advertisements) with the supporting immutable infrastructure to make the entire transaction process between buyers and sellers more efficient and transparent. Token incentives will be provided to all OnXCHNG Partners for participating in and contributing to this platform.

Kochava CEO, Charles Manning, said: "The digital advertising industry is ready for a better way forward, as evidenced by the strong response we've had to our invitation to involvement in this open blockchain project. Buyers and sellers of media including AppLift, Appodeal, Chartboost, DCMN, Kiip, and PubNative, are respected industry-leading companies who are the first of many to join forces with Kochava as early OnXCHNG Partners. We welcome their involvement and look forward to continuing to build this community of experts as we bring efficiency, security and standardization to the digital advertising ecosystem."

Building a Holistic Blockchain for the Ecosystem

As a founding member of the Interactive Advertising Bureau's (IAB)'s Blockchain Tech Lab, the XCHNG team has designed the framework to be an open industry standard, built with advertising in mind. It brings together demand, supply, measurement, ratings, payment and data enrichment into a unified blockchain framework with peer-to-peer and consensus support for the large transaction volumes represented in advertising.

Ad buyers (entities who buy advertising for their websites, apps, products or services) buy media to promote their brands and drive conversions to specified actions. Ad publishers, supply-side exchanges and ad networks (entities who have websites or apps for the display of advertisements to their audiences or aggregate the inventory of publishers) provide ad space to buyers. Unfortunately, today's complex, centralized digital advertising ecosystem is fraught with ad fraud, brand safety issues and a lack of transparency for both sides of the equation. Providing a common, open framework for all actors enables efficiency and maximizes the power of the ad spend. On XCHNG, publishers can make their inventory available to advertisers in a direct, decentralized way, where inventory can be third-party verified and its yield can be maximized. Publishers can then track the lifecycle of that inventory to better understand and serve their advertisers.

"DCMN has always prioritized providing the best ROI to digital brands using growth solutions based on technology and data. All aspects of our service offerings are measurable and completely transparent," said Andreas Dengler, CEO and Co-founder of global marketing solutions group DCMN. "

In addition to buyers and sellers of media, XCHNG has been architected to integrate four first-party actor types who support the lifecycle of the IO. These include measurement, ratings, payments and data enrichment providers. The OnXCHNG program will allow these advertising ecosystem vendors to build tools and capabilities that support seamless and transparent ad buying transactions.

Workflow Support Through Vendor Participation

While the value of end-to-end measurement is obvious, XCHNG is unique in having a means for third-party ratings providers to support global ratings of platform participants to help buyers and sellers understand their counterparty's risk and reputation. Having ratings providers on XCHNG will drive transparency and self-governance on top of an immutable ledger of participants.

Priori Data CEO Patrick Kane said: "We are very proud to be involved as a ratings provider and thus as a key component of XCHNG. Transparency has always been the core value of our business, and we truly believe in XCHNG's potential to bring much needed transparency to the industry at-large. Kochava has been a longtime partner of ours, and given their scale, vision, and proven execution, they are an ideal actor to effectuate such an important change. We are proud to be part of XCHNG and are excited about the opportunities this will create for our clients and partners."

The XCHNG system also delivers a built-in framework for payment via the XCHNG Token (XT). XCHNG Tokens will be used to buy and sell media or pay for services surrounding media transactions. Because cryptocurrencies like XT are relatively new and brands or agencies need to do business via fiat currency, XCHNG has been built to enable market-driven payment providers who can facilitate escrow, fiat conversion, or payment depending on the needs of the participants in an IO.

Building the XCHNG framework on blockchain improves and enhances the digital ad buying experience for all players in the ecosystem, offering greater access to inventory for buyers and greater yield for publishers, both large and small. XCHNG uses an open, global distributed ledger facilitating end-to-end workflow. Through the use of a crypto-verified distributed ledger, all parties will be able to participate in the workflow of the insertion order together—from discovery and negotiation to execution, verification, and payment. XCHNG will also benefit from access to the Kochava Collective, the largest global independent data marketplace. The digitization and tokenization of IOs will thereby treat digital ads as a true asset class. The XCHNG Token will be released in a SAFT (Simple Agreement for Future Tokens) event in early 2018.