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Introducing the Blockchain Marketing Technology Landscape

By Adam Fraser

Long-term readers of the EchoJunction blog and listeners to the EchoJunction podcast will know all about the marketing technology landscape produced by Scott Brinker at chiefmartec.com.

Yep, that one – the one you see at every marketing conference – packed with tiny logos of marketing technology vendors, which has grown from approximately 2,000 vendors in 2015, to 3,500 in 2016 and over 5,000 in 2017. The marketing technology landscape is broad, deep and complex, and simply refuses to consolidate.

With EchoJunction’s business operating at the intersection of marketing and IT, it’s clearly a world I live and breathe, and accordingly, it was appropriate that my very first guest on the EchoJunction podcast (almost 130 episodes ago), was the landscape author Scott Brinker. Scott has since been on the podcast two further times, latterly talking about the 2017 landscape, and a world of 5,000+ marketing technology vendors (the “Martech5000”).

Given my interest in this area, it was fascinating to see a further evolution of this thinking from Jeremy Epstein, one of the world’s leading experts in what Blockchain means for marketers, with his recent release of the Blockchain Marketing Technology Landscape.

Blockchain technology is in its relative infancy, but many see this as an uber trend (alongside Virtual Reality, AI and the Internet of Things) which will have a profound impact on not just marketing but society more broadly. Bitcoin was just the start.

Whilst the Blockchain marketing technology landscape is relatively sparse compared to its crowded martech landscape cousin, clearly, Jeremy is expecting to see profound growth in blockchain marketing technology platform offerings over the coming years. In 5 years time will the Blockchain version also contain thousands of tiny logos?

Interesting to see the display and programmatic as the most crowded area to date for Blockchain marketing tech, a segment with obvious operating inefficiencies and middlemen who can potentially be disintermediated.

In terms of technology trends, there is a lot for marketers to absorb at present, but Blockchain is a topic worthy of developing at least a basic understanding given its relative potential importance. For an intro – Jeremy’s high-quality ebook (and accompanying EchoJunction podcast discussion) represent a good starting point.

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Where next for AI and machine learning?

By Adam Fraser

There are many uber trends hitting the world of the marketer today. Think the Internet of Things, VR and Blockchain to name just three.

An overarching thematic is the world of big data, something I have explored on my podcast a few times. Dive into the subject of big data and you quickly end up thinking about algorithms, artificial intelligence and machine learning.

These are not light topics; no 140 character tweet will give you any answers here. There are massive implications for marketers across the board — from ad effectiveness to programmatic, targeting to CRM, as well as the entire function of the analytics team.

We are in relatively early days in understanding this whole area — it is not even clear what the questions are which we should be asking, let alone comprehend the true implications of advancements in this space. Some difficult ethical issues exist – who are these people designing the algorithms that will impact society so broadly? Who has knowledge of the “12 secret herbs and spices”? When machines truly learn independently of humans, what does this mean for business and, more broadly, society?

No easy answers and so much to think about. Hence my recommendation of a podcast I listened to last weekend. Two of the smartest marketing analyst brains on the planet Mitch Joel (Mirrum Agency) and Avinash Kaushik (digital marketing evangelist, Google) discussing this topic for over an hour. When you truly start to get your head around machine learning (versus the efficient interrogation and analysis of “large databases”) it can be somewhat mind blowing. This is the essence of machine learning and true AI — it performs analysis of a depth, scale and complexity which humans cannot fathom let alone perform.

Mitch and Avinash don’t have all the answers; no-one does. But they help dissect the current state of play and where this may all be going.

Block off an hour to really think about this topic. Highly recommended listening.

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