The Rundown is a weekly newsletter written exclusively for Digiday+ members by our editors. Below is a taste of this week's edition. Join Digiday+ for access to the full version and to continue receiving The Rundown each week.

It seems like the latest technology to get the marketing world hot and bothered is blockchain. Previously relegated to discussions of bitcoin, using the blockchain — essentially a decentralized, ultra-secure Excel sheet — for solving many of digital advertising’s woes is en vogue. Here’s everything blockchain is purportedly hoping to do:

• Reward and pay creators for making content.
• Make ad buys by pooling data securely on the blockchain.
• Ensure ads are seen and record who has seen them by tagging them.
• Incentivize people using cryptocurrencies to police the internet and determine which publishers are fake and which are real.
• Mattr, an influencer marketing company, is using smart contracts to handle digital contracts for influencer marketing campaigns.

And some big names are involved. The IAB is reportedly developing a working group to figure out if blockchain could in fact solve ad fraud, while Comcast has teamed up with a who’s who of brands, including Disney, to help them pool their data together to make better TV ad buyers. In China, a media platform developed on the blockchain has produced 7,000 “intelligent screens” in multiple cities that will target and personalize ads to individuals.

Reality check: Of course, the excitement about blockchain is far removed from the reality: Blockchain remains narrowly adopted and mostly theoretical. Most of the companies doing the above are still in the “proof of concept” (read: public relations) stage — most won’t have anything to show until at least six months to a year from now. Still, it’s nice to have something new to get pumped about beyond header bidding.

The Trump effect

On Monday, Kenneth Frazier, CEO for pharmaceutical company Merck, announced he was quitting Donald Trump’s American Manufacturing Council amid criticism of the president’s remarks about the protests in Charlottesville, Virginia. Within an hour of Frazier’s resignation, Trump criticized the CEO on Twitter, saying the move would give the CEO “more time to lower ripoff drug prices.” A few hours later, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich and Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank joined Frazier in leaving the council.

The president’s Twitter attacks are known to tank a brand’s public sentiment. Brand mentions around these three companies soared as news of each CEO’s departure went public, with #ImpeachTrump being the most used hashtag (over 33 million impressions) in the combined conversations of all three companies, according to stats from social analytics company Brandwatch. Brandwatch’s data also shows that from Sunday to Tuesday morning, Merck has been mentioned more than 344,000 times online, followed by Under Armour (130,000 times) and Intel (116,000 times). Among them, Merck’s sentiment is the most negative within the time frame, with around 63 percent of all categorized mentions being negative, while social sentiment around Intel and Under Armour is largely positive. — Yuyu Chen

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