CES 2024—decentralized ‘doughnuts’ and other post-cookie visions take shape

Advertisers anticipating the deprecation of third-party cookies may need to only look further down the dessert aisle to find their next tracking alternative. The “doughnut,” a so-called decentralized version of the cookie, was a point of discussion among advertisers and tech players at CES on Monday. “It’s where I can tell you, the brand, that I’m willing to give information to you and you will give something back,” said Shara Senderoff, co-founder of metaverse company Futureverse, at a panel discussing brands and immersive technology at the Aria Hotel. Also read: Ad tech players prepare for post-cookie world A doughnut—named as such for its centerless (or, decentralized) structure—would operate as a mechanism that consumers can use to control the permissions they give to brands over access to their data. Futureverse has filed a patent for the technology and is planning to illustrate its use cases to brands over the next six months, Senderoff told Ad Age. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs Whether or not the doughnut will catch on as a viable tracking solution is far from being determined, but the idea reflects a commonly held belief among Web3 enthusiasts that blockchain technology can serve as a bridge for advertisers to connect with consumers and their data. These experts see the deprecation of the old guard—a process that Google began last week—as even more reason for advertisers to turn to Web3. On the panel with Senderoff, Keith Soljacich, executive VP and head of innovation for Publicis Media, said that brands should be looking into combining Web3, augmented reality (AR) and AI to create the kind of brand experience that will allow for opt-in data collection. These moments, he told Ad Age, can accompany live events, such as music festivals, as well as immersive gaming. The idea is to create a sufficiently compelling experience that consumers will be willing to give up some first-party data, such as an email address, in order to participate. Intuit, for example, designed such a campaign around generative AI in the fall to court Gen Z consumers and their data. The logical extension of these moments is a full-blown, Web3-based loyalty program, which has seen early adoption from big brands like Nike and Starbucks. Soljacich said such programs are still seeing high demand from clients and will be a core part of client conversations at CES. The question of Web3’s visibility within these experiments is still being hammered out by advertisers. Visa last week launched a loyalty platform for brands with salient Web3 branding, but others, such as Reddit, have opted for an approach that downplays the polarizing technology. Uber’s rideshare-retail media network Another post-cookie alternative receiving attention at CES is the retail media network, through which brands target ads using the pool of first-party data owned by a big retailer. Retail media players at this year’s CES include Kroger, Albertsons, Best Buy, Amazon Ads and Walmart. Uber is another such player in Las Vegas this week, but while a newcomer to the scene (it launched its advertising business in October 2022), it is already opening its doors to worried marketers deciding to move away from cookies. “A year ago, it was, ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it’—and now we are there,” said Mark Grether, VP and general manager of Uber advertising. Read more: How Jess Shuraleff is growing Uber’s ads business Conversations around the need for tracking alternatives have become more serious and prominent, he said, compelling Uber to focus more on its first-party capabilities when talking with prospective advertisers. The company boasts two caches of consumer data—one derived from its mobility app, which reflects a consumer’s geographical interests, and the other from its delivery app, Uber Eats, which reflects their shopping and food interests. This latter platform has expanded from its initial roster of restaurants to include grocery stores, pharmacies and home goods retailers. “We have both data sources—the power is in combining them,” Grether said. He added that compared to a year ago, more agencies are coming to Uber with their clients in tow because of the data-rich ecosystem the company now offers. CES will be particularly spent on conversations with brands outside of the U.S., he said. While its post-cookie solution does not require the use of speculative technology like Web3, Uber is still making room for AI, which could this year begin helping in the analysis of first-party data to create more personalized ads. For example, Grether said that one user could receive an ad for a pizza restaurant highlighting a pepperoni pie, while another user could receive an ad for the same restaurant highlighting a veggie pie. These two creatives would have been derived based on the data that Uber has on their ordering history. Isabel Perry, global VP of emerging technology at agency DEPT, envisions a similar use case for her clients leaving for first-party pastures. Personalization, she said, has hitherto been impeded by the cost and tedium of using cookies to manually tag a user’s movements across the web, only for an advertiser to use a sliver of those tags in their actual targeting. But with generative AI, brands can “unlock ways of anticipating consumers’ needs better than they ever could through cookies,” she said.

CES 2024—decentralized ‘doughnuts’ and other post-cookie visions take shape

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