Assuming successful proof of concept, Brave represents an opportunity to reset the ad experience, or certainly significant portions of it. Brave have an opportunity to present content in a clean, almost reader-mode, and feature the ads separately to avoid repeat obstruction and annoying interruption.
Banner blindness is the result of decades of ignoring ads placed alongside content, and this is an issue with affects advertisers, publishers and users alike. With Brave, Ads won’t be placed in ad slots alongside content in the web page; or at least not in the early iterations.
Also, you won’t see 3-5 ads displayed within a single page load. Users will see fewer ads (no more than 10 a day, per user, most likely less than 5 per day). As the user browses, the local agent in the BAT platform will collect a mix of intent signals and data from the search, history and other client-side data that is accessible from the browser. Local machine learning algorithms will then match the right ad at the right time to the user, from a full inventory catalog of ads that is pushed to the device.
The ad will display as a call to action, from a push notification. If the user engages with the offer, they are directed to a new tab that can include an embedded video ad, full page HTML5 rich media creative, or a landing page.
Brave essentially brings an ad server onto your device, and updates the inventory catalog with regular intervals across all devices. This catalog removes the persistent network congestion that has become the norm with programmatic advertising, and avoids having to hit a user with so many ads per page load. This also improves privacy, as the catalog of available ad inventory is on the device, and does not have to be requested through any third parties. In the conventional, current ad model, each ad call and tracking request that is made to an ad server or 3rd party can leak data about the user to the cloud. (Brave blocks all such instances by default).
Brave basically cleans the slate by blocking 3rd party ads and tracking, cleaning the slate and offering a new ad model that respects user privacy and anonymity, while allowing publishers and advertisers to still monetize their content.
Brave are also doing something markedly different with their ad platform. Users who opt in to view BAT ads will receive BAT tokens for viewing ads. In other words, their attention has value which is encapsulated in the form of a token. The prevailing lumascape proves an entire industry has blown up off the value from user attention, while the users themselves get nothing. (Well, except for a chaotic experience, privacy invasion, surveillance, profiling to unknown parties behind the scenes, constant distractions & obstructions, slower connections, more data consumption, worse battery life, etc).
Braves give the user an opportunity to receive tokens for their attention, as it’s their attention. By cutting out every 3rd party passing costs through the middle, Brave are seeking to create an environment where users can receive BAT for their attention and publishers and advertisers can focus on their core business objectives.