The Future of Advertising: How Web3 and Stablecoins are Transforming Marketing

While Web 3 is the next iteration of the internet, but it's still a ways away in terms of adoption.

At the same time, stablecoins are at the forefront of defied option, with banks and companies rushing to get it.

While Web 3 could use more regulatory clarity, the stablecoins market is on the precipice of exploding if Congress passes the Genius Act.

But the two fintech themes aren't at odds, Web 3 and stablecoins can.

Transform the digital ad and payment space when combined.

Well, joining us to weigh in this morning is Phil George, founder of ERNOS.

So good morning, Phil.

Thank you so much for joining me.

US consumers do get bored of ads at a young age, but they can also greatly impact a company's business.

So tell us about digital ad waste and what brands have to do in terms of dealing with that in digital marketing.

Yeah, well, thank you for having me.

I mean, digital ad waste is going up and up every year.

It's estimated that about $250 billion of the $1 trillion spent per year is wasted to fraud, bots, LLMs, these AI chatbots, uh, and one of the biggest growing areas of is the AI chatbots, which 3 years ago accounted for 0% of the clicks on ads and is now accounting for as much as 20% of the clicks on ads.

So when advertisers are trying to reach real people, they don't want bots clicking on their ads.

They want real people.

So it's all about finding the real people amongst all of the noise.

And Phil, we know that companies have been discerning how to navigate terrorists, so how are big brands pivoting when it comes to marketing due to economic uncertainty?

Well, I think the, the big pivot is a move away from just a shotgun approach of just trying everything and moving towards an actual outcomes-based approach where brands are paying when they know that they're reaching people and they know that they're actually getting new customers rather than just paying for a whole swath of different things that aren't necessarily working anymore.

So brands are now focused on outcomes rather than just trying everything and hoping that it works.

Yeah, and I do want to get your take on the verified web and what it has to do with digital advertising.

So can you break this down for the layperson?

Yeah, so basically in a world that's being taken over with more and more AI on the internet, it becomes more and more important for people to be able to know that they're dealing with real people online.

Brands need to know that.

Platforms need to know that, and other people need to know that.

So the verifiable web is what's being created that allows people to plug in different parts of their digital life, their identity, and the platforms that they use, and that helps prove that they're a real A person who performs real activities.

So when brands know that they're reaching real people, they're willing to pay more to reach those people, and they're willing to reward those people when they do reach them.

And that's what NOS does.

We effectively allow brands to reach real people, reward them for what they do and who they are, and then that helps them start their relationship with those brands in a positive way rather than spamming them on all of the advertising networks.

And staple coins as well as tokenized equities are the hottest defI trends, so why is Web 3 still so far off and what do you think is actually needed?

Well, I think that one of the focus areas with Web 3 has been trying to convince brands that they need Web 3, whereas the difference between that and companies like Erno Wes is that we don't even focus on web 3.

We just tell brands that we've made it possible for them to pay and reward anyone in the world for who they are and what they do.

And we don't discuss stablecoins, we don't discuss web 3.

What we discuss is the solution to their problem.

We don't discuss the technology.

The technology isn't interesting to these people.

What's interesting is how they make more money, get more customers and grow their business.

Our platform focuses them.

That the fact that we're using stablecoins, Web 3 wallets, and a whole bunch of other crypto technologies is our problem, it's not their problem.

And we think that that's why web 3 is lagged, because you've had to try to convince brands to care about technology rather than convince brands that we can solve their problems.

And finally, before I let you go, we have less than 60 seconds here, so I do want to get your take on what you think are the hottest trends moving forward in the space.

Yeah, I mean, I'm biased, but I think that stablecoins are interesting because of payments, but I think that payments go in two directions.

So it's not just about how people pay brands, it's also about how any company on Earth can now pay any person on Earth for any activity on Earth, and that could be what we're doing with advertising, but it could be for any market.

It could be for AI company.

Wanting to pay people to upload their data to train their new models.

It could be for the gigs-based marketplace expanding even, even more globally with instantaneous payments.

It could be for influencers and, and creators who want to get paid immediately by brands.

Payments to people is as interesting as payments from people to businesses.

That's what I think the big trend is.

OK, Phil, well, great to talk to you.

Thank you so much for joining us and thank you so much for sharing all of your perspective.

Thank you for having me, ciao.