Blockchain marketing news in November 2019

It’s all eyes on China once again this month. After the news in October that China would be focusing resources on blockchain, this month has seen even more announcements about the technology’s development in the country.

However, it isn’t all good news. On the one hand, there were reports that the state would enshrine the significance of President Xi’s announcement in October as an annual ‘Blockchain Day’ there were also cautious voices suggesting this could lead to cryptocurrency speculation. Furthermore, there was a seamingly damning report from Chinese news programme Focus Report that suggested only 10% of Chinese companies claiming to use blockchain technology actually did.

After months of not a lot of blockchain activity in China, these stories show how interest has spiked recently. It’s also been a healthy news month in other areas of blockchain marketing too though.

We’ve seen two significant marketing hires announced, firstly at blockchain marketing technology provider Aqilliz and secondly at blockchain bank BABB, which has appointed David Taylor as interim CMO.

There’s also some great interviews and opinion pieces to get your teeth into. The first is an interview with R3’s CEO David Rutter, who describes the major Facebook Libra launch news of earlier this year as ‘ridiculously stupid’ and ‘really naive’. Then, to round off this month’s China focus, there’s a great opinion piece from Wired on why China is pushing towards global blockchain dominance.

Whatever takes your fancy, enjoy catching up on what’s going and hopefully it’ll help you push your project forward because, remember, we are the pioneers!

News and Reports

UNLSHD Advertising Agency Reveals Blockchain Creativity Platform

Unlshd.World, is a new player in the blockchain marketing business (founded in July 2019), but it is already setting new industry standards for creativity and transparency. They launched UNLSHD, a new blockchain platform and voucher system (KIBBL) which claims that will give their clients “access to the agency’s world-class talent pool via its online platform and apps”.

Marketing Blockchain Provider Aqilliz Taps Prateek Dayal As Chief Strategy Officer

Aqilliz, Singapore based marketing blockchain provider has appointed Prateek Dayal as Chief Strategy Officer (CSO). Prior to joining Aqilliz, Dayal has held senior positions at firms such as Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays Bank, and McKinsey & Company, but he couldn’t miss the opportunity to join forces with Aqilliz team and further “drive the adoption of blockchain and emerging technologies within the marketing sector”.

Blockchain bank appoints interim CMO

David Taylor, an experienced marketer who was a key figure in designing and launching a global partnership program for FinTech Marketplace and rebranding of the Currencycloud, has been appointed as Interim CMO at BABB (Bank Account Based Blockchain). His main objective will be to accelerate the growth that BABB is building in global banking network by leveraging blockchain, biometrics and machine learning.

Report: Majority Chinese companies falsely claim of using blockchain technology

Chinese news program Focus Report announced that there are around 32,000 companies in China that claim to be using blockchain technology in their business, but the truth seems to be very different. They even made the episode titled “Blockchain is not a Cashchain”, where they revealed that less than 10% of those firms are actually involved in the blockchain field.

China mulls "Blockchain Day"—but frets over crypto speculation

After Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered impassioned endorsement of blockchain technology on October 24, China Communications Industry Association proposed this date to be “immortalized as “Blockchain Day”. However, some analysts are worried that boosting blockchain will lead to crypto speculation. You can grasp what’s the story here based on the headline, but this article has some interesting pinpoints about China’s love/hate relationship with blockchain and crypto.

Features and Interviews

10 Crypto Marketing and PR Strategies that Will Work in 2020

This article is a useful brief of Marketing and PR strategies for Crypto market that have been working well in 2019. But one thing worth noting - there are actually 9, not 10 strategies presented on this list, unless the writer of this article thinks that answering phones and making connections is some revolutionary marketing tactic that none of us have heard about.

Facebook's Libra launch was 'ridiculously stupid,' blockchain boss says

Regular readers know that we cover Libra's story thoroughly, and last month has been tough for the social-media giant. Several key partners (Visa, Mastercard,Paypal) backed out from Libra project and US lawmakers have loudly criticized Facebook’s digital cryptocurrency plan. And now the R3’s CEO David Rutter joined the bashing of Libra coin calling it "ridiculously stupid" and "really naive".

Industry opinions

Blockchain and the digital advertising market

We are all aware that digital advertising is one of the priority areas for the development of blockchain technology, and this article highlights some of the most significant projects that are already utilising blockchain and changing the face of modern digital advertising market.

And finally...

Opinion: China is Pushing Toward Global Blockchain Dominance

Less than a month after Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered his famous speech of importance of blockchain technology, Chinese government, banks, private investors and most powerful companies are already stepping up enforcement actions in further blockchain development. On the other side, things seem to be slowing down in the US crypto world, and this opinion article gives us in-detailed analysis on why the US needs to step up their game unless they want China to become a blockchain dominant power.