Who will use the Smart Social Contracts?
Early customers & market size. Data from today and dreams for tomorrow.
Smart Social Contracts and Reason provide a fantastic argument for companies to start using blockchain: Unstoppable Cause Marketing.
(If you missed part 1: What are the Smart Social Contracts).
Why companies use Cause Marketing in 3 stats:
- When choosing between two brands of equal quality and price, 90% of U.S. shoppers are likely to switch to a cause branded product. (2015 Cone Communications/Ebiquity Global CSR Study)
- 42% of North American shoppers would pay extra for products and services from companies committed to positive social and environmental impact. (2014 Nielsen Do Well By Doing Good Report)
- It’s not philanthropy: 97% of marketing executives believe cause marketing is a valid business strategy. (2010 PRWeek/Barkley Cause Survey)
Read more Cause Marketing statistics here.
So what could the adoption of Smart Social Contracts be?
Intersecting two industries that have never met so far (blockchain and the corporate social responsibility) means projecting current data into uncharted waters.
The market size. Cause Marketing
In 2018, the Cause Marketing market was valued at $2.2B with a projected annual growth of 4.4%. According to surveys conducted on 250+ billion dollar companies, 82% of CSR activities are cash transactions.
This means that $1.8B could potentially flow with Reason.
Cause Marketing is particularly popular among mom (2.1 trillion annual buying power) and millennial (200 billion annual buying power) demographics, two groups that are certainly of interest to a big number of retailers, and potentially any b2c company.
Market size — What if we could dream big.
What is the biggest asset for a company today?
Trust.
Because Reason works on a trust-less system (all the instructions on a Smart Social Contract have to be mathematically executed), customers do not need to trust the promises that companies make.
Customers’ trust is converted into value for companies.
Trust is one of those qualities that leads to compliance with requests, provided that it has been planted before the request is made (R. Cialdini, Pre-suasion).
With Reason, any company doing Cause Marketing can boost its level of Trust. A great reason for any company to do Cause Marketing.
Who is in need of most trust?
- Startups. Not having a history of “good behaviour” because, by definition, the company doesn’t have any history. “You can trust us. To prove it, we add our promises on a trustless system”.
- Companies (or industries) with a damaged reputation that needs a quick recovery. No half measures, the best way to recover trust is a system that doesn’t need trust at all. (All banks welcome here).
- Companies in unpopular countries, with a reputation that might prevent some potential customers to engage with them. It’s important to give a trust signal to escape a spiral of mistrust.
- Companies in a highly competitive market, that need to step out of the competition by creating a real connection between their product and purpose.
If Reason is successful, more existing companies would start using Cause Marketing as it is a much more effective strategy: it’s on the blockchain.
Adoption will also be exponential because Reason is a protocol: any tool can be built on top of it to improve the user experience and expand the access to the market.
- We dream of BitPay and Coinbase Commerce to give retailers the opportunity to accept RSN. Empowering their customers to do Cause Marketing is itself Cause Marketing.
- We dream of MetaMask — a browser plugin used to easily pay, receive and hold cryptocurrencies — to show companies’ promises during online payments.
- We dream of Revolut and Monzo, the banks of the future that already allow the use of cryptocurrencies, to invent the best ways to use our protocol.
Why would they? Because it’s Cause Marketing.
What if we could dream bigger.
Although most of the consumers prefer the “Buy to donate” proposition, Cause Marketing is much more than that: it’s a great opportunity to develop better Social Businesses.
A new generation of entrepreneurs can now create new blockchain ventures on our protocol.
What better way to attract customers towards a new technology than using Cause Marketing?
Now there is a Reason for the blockchain industry to really take off.
Here some examples of projects we are working on:
- 42social, advertising reinvented. When you like an image that contains advertisement, food is donated to people in need.
- PowerUp, A platform to employ low-income people for needed tasks (housekeeping, babysitting, etc). The premium paid for their services is transferred to pay off their studies.
- The Nash Network, where business referrals are automatically paid, and part of the commission goes to a charity.
Our platform supports entrepreneurs and their ideas to create new sustainable businesses.
Why? Because it’s our Cause Marketing!
But what if we could actually dream bigger.
As Internet revolutionized almost any industry, so could Blockchain.
“An estimated €966 billion opportunity exists for brands that make their sustainability credentials clear “ — Unilever Report
Consider the Freelancer market for example ($1.5 Trillion globally).
It has become an ultra-competitive space where often there is very little differentiation between more offers. Similar reviews, similar price. How would a customer choose? Cause Marketing.
Consider gratuities in restaurants.
A client could pay with RSN to be sure waiters receive a percentage of the total bill, without having the restaurant as an intermediary. Waiters: incentivize bigger tips by using Cause Marketing: “15% of your payment goes directly to the waiter, 5% goes directly to a food charity”.
Consider companies that incentivize (and match) their employees’ donations to charities. Even if there is trust between the parties, a trustless system conveys a much more powerful message for companies trying to differentiate themselves as good corporate citizens in order to increase retention.
Consider B2B companies. Why wouldn’t Cause Marketing work for them?
Consider that a new wave of entrepreneurs is ready to create wealth with a new technology while supporting noble projects, and it’s backed by conscious consumers. Doing Well by Doing Good.
Maybe we are dreaming too big.
But consider there is finally a Reason to do it.
