Please describe your proposed solution.
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Existing Catalyst funded projects - Profila has already received funding by the Cardano community for 4 project workstreams (privacy - data sharing via NFTs - digital ID - tokenization/gamification) - during fund 5, 6, 7 and 8 of Project Catalyst. We thank the Cardano community for their trust and support.
All our projects are aimed at giving people back control over their personal data, control over brand content they see, and provide people with compensation for their data and attention. The project workstreams we are developing are the following:
1. Privacy - titled: Control your data - privacy ledger (funds 5 and 8); and Company privacy ledger (GDPR & CCPA)
2. Data sharing via NFT: NFT for customer feedback/content (fund 6); and (d)app to control your data (fund 6)
3. DID - Control your data (vault) via PRISM (funds 6 and 8)
4. Tokenization/Gamification - anonymity and data control with ZKT (funds 7 and 8).
With this first proposal around our zero-knowledge advertising research with the University of Madrid (UC3M) and the Santander Big Data Institute, we are starting a fifth workstream around privacy preserving advertising.
Via this submission, we are requesting funding to develop the first phase of our "cookie-killer" privacy preserving advertising solution called "Zero Knowledge Advertising".
This ZKA workstream is build up in 4 phases (introduction - emergence - immersion - evolution) and will build further on many of the features that are under development under the first 4 workstreams (e.g. it can only work with a DID, requires a token (ZEKE) and has a lot of privacy features).
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We invite you to read our pitch deck and check out our product demo (both in PDF attached to this proposal), which will show you more details about our product, market, go to market, team, business model, traction, partnership, funds and grants received. Our product demo shows you the app that exists today and explains the most important features.
Detailed solution description
Profila has developed a new customer data, engagement and marketing platform that will be disrupting the trillion-dollar AdTech industry and capture an increasing percentages of global data and advertising revenues (USD 455 billion today and expected to reach USD 982.82 billion by 2025) as brands seek alternatives to tracking centric platforms (Facebook & Google).
Profila is now decentralizing this marketing platform feature by feature in the first ever DeMar or Decentralized Marketing platform (build on Cardano). With Profila's DeMar platform, consumers will have a greater control over their data and the ads they see, and most importantly, they will be able to directly connect with brands that matter to them, without passing by the numerous intermediaries in today's advertising ecosystem. Brands will have a clearer view on who sees their content.
By cutting out the intermediaries and creating a system for privacy-preserving data sharing and anonymous ad-delivery, called "Zero Knowledge Advertising", each profila user will be able to (i) decide when to see an ad (if any), (ii) which company can send such (paid) content, (iii) whether the company has any info about you (or whether its done in full anonymity). In addition, you get paid to see an ad and (even more) to interact with it as Profila shares 50% of the ad revenue it received directly with the individual who accepted to see the content. Imagine USD 982.82 billion ad revenue being shared with the people targeted by the ads (but instead of targeting, complete user control).
This ZKA workstream is build up in 4 phases (introduction - emergence - immersion - evolution) and will build further on many of the features that are under development under the first 4 workstreams (e.g. it can only work with a DID, requires a token (ZEKE) and has a lot of privacy features). We therefore had to wait for this fund before we could submit this proposal.
Under this first project "Zero Knowledge Ads by Profila (1/4)", we are building the first part of the zero knowledge advertising system called "introduction".
TRAFFICKING STRATEGY - Mid-to-high market contextually relevant open exchange inventory with reasonable balance between reach and quality.
AUDIENCE STRATEGY - Start with contextual targeting and then retarget those that have given permission with run-of-exchanges.
DEMAND ECONOMICS - Advertisers pay per CPM for fully-managed campaigns including creative, trafficking, audience building, and reporting.
SUPPLY ECONOMICS - Users earn (promise for) tokens for their data.
DATA ASSET - Retargeting data and contextual performance data.
For more information about Profila's zero knowledge advertising research that forms the basis of our DeMar strategy, see the scientific research paper attached to this proposal, which is also accessible here - https://profila.com/token/downloads/Zero%20Knowledge%20Advertising%20-%20yellowpaper.pdf
Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.
The challenge is as follows: ""What dapps, products and integrations can be implemented to bring impactful use cases to Cardano ecosystem that help drive more adoption?""?
Profila's DeMar platform will provide business (small to large) all over the world with a new privacy-preserving alternative to communicate with and advertise to their customers. Via the brand dashboard of this (De)Mar platform, brands can (i) get anonymous yet accurate, evergreen customer data directly from the customer connected to their brand; (ii) then send personalised offers/Ads to the customer with no data leakage, improving targeting, reducing Ad fraud and adhering to regulations as the customer remains fully anonymous.
With current data collection techniques (e.g., third party cookies) that are found illegal under GDPR (a.o) for lack of transparency & control for users, the current Ad-Tech model is unsustainable and under scrutiny. As brands will have to find alternatives to tracking-centric platforms (Facebook & Google), new AdTech solutions will provide brands with a safe heaver (from regulation) to still delight their customers with the best of their content.
This proposal addresses the challenge as it provides a (d)app for companies where ad delivery transactions are linked to to the blockchain for auditability reasons (e.g. combatting ad fraud).
The impact of our zero knowledge advertising solution can be enormous. The current adtech market is worth 450 billion dollars and will grow until 1 trillion USD by 2025. This market is largely unchallenged and in the hands of a couple adtech giants (GAFAs). They all use surveillance and unethical data sharing techniques to commercialize advertising. If our solution is adopted even by a fraction of the market, the number of transactions on Cardano will be enormous considering the amount of ads that are shown each day.
Explainer video (2 min) "Profila for consumers" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt4NUfuWQJ8
Explainer video (3 min) "Profila for brands" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8UczMYWx1U&t=66s
What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?
Challenges
- Scalability and speed of Cardano blockchain for high volume ad serving/audit trail
- Cost of high volume transaction ledger/record of all Ads served on Cardano
- Self governance and the privacy/security of peer-to-peer ad serving network incentivised by the community
Risks
- Cardano blockchain speed and cost might be prohibitive to project success/adoption
- Peer-to-peer ad serving model has privacy pros and cons (part visibility technically of final ad served to end person), which needs to be assessed in the project, i.e. true zero knowledge advertising or step in right direction. Resolving this risk in the project will help define Digital Identity and Zero Knowledge Proof requirements for true zero knowledge advertising in DeMar ecosystem.
- Integration into adtech/ad server ecosystems which require high-speed might limit scalability of the solution on Cardano, although the POC will prove viability of the approach
Our “grants and partnerships” slide shows some of the research, institutional and governmental relationships we have build up over the last years. We have the necessary funding and technical partners to successfully manage multiple projects on Cardano, together with our team of almost 20 people. Our development partnership with Mlabs (blockchain) and Steppechange (Adtech/Data) as well as our relationship with IOHK’s professional development team complement our own CTO/dev team in the technical deliverables. Our long term research partnerships with the University of Luzern (privacy - NLP/ML) and University of Madrid (adtech, digital identity, zero knowledge advertising) give us access to 2 teams of +5 experienced professors/researchers who are working on a monthly basis on our projects. Our funding slide in the deck also shows we have obtained sufficient funding – apart from the +1 million USD grants – to survive as a company during these uncertain times in the market. We will definitely be able to make good on our promise to the Cardano community to deliver.