Experts and Industry leaders in digital advertising and blockchain support XCHNG’s mission.
Last week, Kochava Labs, a research and development subsidiary of Kochava Inc., announced its initial group of Board of Advisor members to XCHNG, the open source blockchain framework for the digital advertising ecosystem. This first group of advisors have a wealth of knowledge from the digital advertising industry (including supply and demand for brands and agencies) and crypto industries.
Some of the first to sign on include: Bob Walczak, Former EVP of Global Product at WPP’s programmatic ad-buying platform, Xaxis; David Wachsman, digital currency expert and Founder and CEO of blockchain communications firm, Wachsman; and Ernie Cormier, advisor to investors, strategics, and high-potential, tech-based growth companies, formerly Chief Product Officer at AOL Platforms and CEO at Nexage.
“As XCHNG moves toward its highly anticipated Token Generation Event, we are proud to strengthen our impressive team with industry heavyweights who understand the complexities of the digital advertising environment. We are dedicated to building a well-rounded platform that will anticipate the needs of all players in the digital advertising ecosystem, including the large transaction volumes represented in advertising. XCHNG is built and tested to handle millions of transactions per second through a combination of innovations in blockchain including the XCHNG daily rolling chain (DRC), making it one of the fastest blockchain protocols in existence,” said Charles Manning, Kochava CEO.
This initial group of members will be involved in product strategy and company direction. 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 transparent, efficient and secure. The XCHNG team has designed the framework to be an open industry standard, built with advertising in mind. The team is also a founding member of the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB)’s Blockchain Tech Lab.
Other select individuals who will be joining XCHNG’s board of advisors include:
- Andy Sippel, SVP of Advertiser Perceptions, previously SVP of USA Today Sports Media Group
- Jeremy Sigel, Global SVP of Partnerships & Emerging Media at Essence
- Lou Severine, CEO of NYIAX and previously SVP of AOL and Microsoft
- Terrence Coles, GM at AddApptr GmbH, previously GM at Smaato
- Jeff Coon, former VP of Global Alliances at InMobi and previously Head of BD at Quantcast
- Mark Beck, VP Strategy at Murka
- Paul Cheng, GM of Ericsson Emodo
- Krish Sailam, VP Programmatic Strategy at Cadreon
- Stéphane Panyasiri, CEO of Newagency
- Kevin Weatherman, VP of BD at OneSignal and previously VP of BD/Sales at MoPub and Director of Global Publisher Sales at Twitter
“Successful crypto projects require leaders and teams with deep expertise in their field and a thorough understanding of the capabilities and limitations of blockchain technology. Charles Manning and the Kochava Labs team built the revolutionary XCHNG platform to handle the diverse needs and challenges of the digital advertising industry. Through XCHNG, blockchain’s open and egalitarian nature will transform the way all players in the ecosystem interact, reestablishing trust while enhancing the ad-buying experience,” said CEO and Founder of Wachsman, David Wachsman.
Bob Walczak, former EVP of Global Product at Xaxis also commented: “The open and distributed nature of the XCHNG framework on blockchain will improve and enhance 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. Having worked closely with Charles and his team in the past, I believe XCHNG will be a major step forward for digital advertising and will provide the transparency that the industry is so desperately lacking.”
Former Nexage CEO and AOL Platforms CPO Ernie Cormier added: “There are several areas in next-gen ad platform architecture and capabilities that we as an industry have yet to address well, even with all the advances in programmatic over the last several years. Blockchain is among the most promising technologies that we have to build this next paradigm, and XCHNG can become a keystone standard delivering the benefits of well-deployed and evolved blockchain tech. Charles and his team have proven to be strong leaders and technologists for years, playing a strong and respected role in the ad tech ecosystem and story, with XCHNG representing the next chapter.”
The XCHNG framework will be supported by the XCHNG Token (XT), which will be released in a Simple Agreement for Future Tokens (SAFT) event in upcoming months. XCHNG Tokens will be used to buy and sell media or pay for services regarding media transactions. The blockchain technology 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 Insertion Order (IO). The digitization and tokenization of IOs will treat digital ads as a true asset class.
Since the company’s start in 2011, Kochava Inc. has focused on understanding the feedback loop between user acquisition, engagement, and lifetime value throughout the digital ecosystem. A number of the world’s top advertisers and Fortune 100 companies depend on Kochava to measure over $6 billion in ad spend annually. Through their industry-leading technology, Kochava enables their clients to measure the effectiveness of ad spend on all connected devices. For this reason, Kochava is uniquely positioned to deliver this blockchain solution to the industry.
For more information about XCHNG visit https://www.xchng.io/.
About XCHNG
XCHNG is an open and unified blockchain-based framework for the digital advertising ecosystem. Designed and deployed by Kochava Labs, a research and development subsidiary of Kochava Inc., the XCHNG framework is centered around a common Ricardian Smart Contract with an open blockchain implementation to persist transactional history and provide supporting utilities required for maximizing efficiency through the lifecycle of the IO. XCHNG enables the related targeting and activation of audiences, bolsters ad-spend efficiency and transparency, establishes a next-generation system of record for all participants, and provides the opportunity to tokenize the framework to treat digital as a true asset class, standardizing the valuation of ads.
Media Contact:
Gaby Hui
Wachsman
gaby@wachsman.com
(917) 602-1681
