• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, June 6, 2018

Well sports fans, this is what you’ve been waiting for all your lives, I have no doubt: a blockchain-powered loyalty rewards program.

Yeah! Woohoo!

Brought to you by Havas Group. That is two units within the company, the recently launched Havas Blockchain and Havas Sports and Entertainment.

They need to whip up some action for the new operation -- and well, you know, bright shiny new objects appeal to lots of people, not to mention brands and agencies.

And that’s all well and good. I just think that at a time when brands are clamoring for less complicated marketing models, this initiative seems to be headed in the opposite direction.

After all, we’re talking sports here. And sports fans. I’m a fan of certain sports, I get it. Many people are.

Why complicate it with digital crypto blockchain blah blah?

Just promote a contest I can enter to win two tickets to next year’s Rose Bowl (or maybe the Bowl Championship Game) and I’ll be happier than a pig in you know what.

There’s a release on the new initiative that crams more buzzword bingo BS into two pages of PR flackery than I’ve seen in, well, a few hours anyway. For the sake of objectivity I’d provide a link but it doesn’t seem to be posted online.

And there’s also a body of work that suggests Havas may be onto something with this blockchain initiative, which could revolutionize loyalty models. I wouldn’t bet the crypto-ranch on it.

I wonder what the Winklevoss twins would make of this. As you probably know, they’ve made quite a bundle speculating in cryptocurrency. And they’re former Olympic athletes (rowing). So I’m going to leap to the conclusion they’re sports fans to a certain degree.

Maybe they’re green with envy they didn’t come up with the crypto-fan-loyalty idea first. Or maybe they’re too busy making money in the bitcoin sector to give a rat’s ass.