Media software company Mediaocean, collaboration with IBM iX, has announced the launch of a blockchain consortium for the digital media supply chain.

The consortium will bring together leading advertisers, agencies and publishers, including the likes of Kellogg, Kimberly-Clark, Pfizer, Unilever and IBM Watson Advertising. The objective is to enhance transparency and build trust and accountability in the advertising ecosystem.

Powered by the IBM Blockchain platform, the new Mediaocean and IBM blockchain solution is built on top of Mediaocean's end-to-end campaign management platform. It aims to provide visibility into the entire lifecycle of an advertiser's media dollar flow – from issuing of the purchase order, to the execution of media and payment. The program will launch in July.

"By partnering with IBM, we're able to launch the first advertising blockchain solution that will improve spend transparency - at scale. This will help us come together as an industry under a single source of truth and rebuild trust to push us into a new era of advertising transformation,” says Bill Wise, CEO, Mediaocean.

The solution leverages blockchain technology to record all media transactions in a secure, immutable, standardized and comprehensive manner. It will provide a comprehensive, timely and actionable view of the supply chain and tackle its opacity stemming from the rapid proliferation of intermediaries, which makes it difficult for advertisers and agencies to identify exactly how much spend is going towards "working media."

"Blockchain is creating new ways of doing business across industries, particularly where greater trust and transparency is required. As it relates to media, we expect blockchain to be able to provide a single source of truth to any given media buy, eliminating the doubt and uncertainty that is common today," said Babs Rangaiah, Executive Partner, Global Marketing, IBM iX. "