The Blockchain Solution to the Counterfeit Drug Problem

Takeaway: Blockchain’s public ledger could be the solution to the problem of counterfeit drugs by tracking all drugs throughout the complete supply chain from raw materials to patients.

In addition to posing a health risk to patients harmed by placebos or even harmful ingredients in the fake drugs, counterfeits add up to a major loss for the pharmaceutical industry to the tune of hundreds of billions a year. Aside from concerns about harm and loss, new legal requirements that demand traceability for drugs are kicking in.

Counterfeit drugs have been identified as a persistent global problem since 1985. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that around 10 percent of drugs found in low to middle income countries are counterfeit. That translates into the deaths of tens of thousands of people with diseases who took medication without the necessary active ingredient to treat their conditions.

Given that what is at stake is not just billions of dollars for the pharma industry, but the lives and health of millions of people who have been prescribed medication, all the involved parties should come together to solve the problem of counterfeit drugs. If the difficulties in accountability and identification for drug production could be remedied by blockchain, it should be universally implemented.

Read more in  Countering Counterfeit Drugs with Blockchain

The Personal Touch in Marketing

Digital platforms open up new opportunities to reach people wherever they are on multiple devices and to pick up reams of data to feed into marketing campaigns. But with thousands of forgettable, repetitive ads coming at people every day, the challenge is not merely to blend into the background noise, but to offer relevant and personalized communication.

The second Adweek Executive Lab, which took place on Tuesday in New York and was sponsored by Tapad, included several discussions about using data to achieve personalization.

Read more in The Challenges of Drawing on Digital Data for Customized Communication

AR Marketing on the Package

ye-catching packaging helps products get noticed. Now they can go beyond attractive shapes and colors. Thanks to technology, they are also now capable of creating interactive experiences with sound and animation to engage consumers.

The Yili Industry Group in China produces Yili Weikezi, individually portioned flavored milk drinks. Han Lu, a popular singer, promotes the product in ads, as you can see in the video below:

Drawing his connection directly to store shelves, shoppers armed with a smartphone app can hear Han Lu talking to them from each package. When they scan his voiceprint, they can hear his audio greetings customized for each one of the four flavors. While that would get some attention, it wouldn't draw active engagement beyond the scanning.

The app then launches an AR game. One see a galaxy of planets in AR that offers a choice of activities and customizations. The person who launches it can arrange the planets, hear the sounds assigned to the planets by tapping them, make their own planets, or record their own voiceprints. As with most apps activities, one can share the results of these activities with one's connections.

Read more in Milking AR for Marketing

The female ideal and footwear

Feminine feet: a study in contrasts

Two current exhibits at the New York Historical Society offer a study in contrasts in representing the feminine ideal as represented by their feet. In one feet are said to become worthy of their own cameras on the red carpet when they are encased in shoes like the diamond encrusted sandals pictured below:

$1,090,000 dollar sandals  decorated with 464  Kwiat diamonds.  In 2002, these diamond shoes were worn by Oscar nominee Laura Harring. Supposedly, that's what started the trend of a cameras placed to capture footwear at the Oscars. A replica of these shoes are  the first object in the current exhibit, Walk This Way: Footwear from the Stuart Weitzman Collection of Historic Shoes.

Read more in http://uncommoncontent.blogspot.com/2018/06/feminine-feet-study-in-contrasts.html