SETHER

TL;DR

• Challenge: Create a platform that solves the trust gap between brands and media agencies in digital advertising
• Scope: Product design, brand identity, user research across both sides of the advertising relationship
• Approach: Blockchain-based escrow system that ties payments directly to verified KPI performance
• Outcome: MVP presented at Cannes Lions, securing demo meetings with Adidas, Sky TV UK, and P&G

Digital advertising has a trust problem. Brands spend millions on campaigns but never quite believe the numbers agencies report. Are those impressions real? Did the campaign actually perform? Meanwhile, agencies do the work and then wait weeks, sometimes months, to get paid, often while clients change objectives halfway through and blame them for underperformance.

**SETHER **was designed to fix both sides of this broken relationship. Built on blockchain technology, it acted as an impartial arbiter between media agencies and their clients. The concept was straightforward: set your KPIs upfront, lock them into a smart contract, monitor the campaign through verified data, and release payment automatically based on actual performance.

Hit 80% of your targets? 80% of the budget is released immediately. Exceed expectations? Bonus payments trigger automatically. No arguments, no delayed invoices, no “but you changed the brief” conversations.

I joined as Product Designer with additional responsibilities in brand identity and domain expertise. My background in advertising agencies meant I understood both sides of this relationship firsthand. I’d been the agency employee waiting for payment. I’d seen campaigns derailed by mid-flight client pivots. This wasn’t just a design project; it was solving problems I’d lived through.

Methods

Research: Both Sides of the Table.

My agency background gave me something invaluable: connections. I could pick up the phone and talk to media buyers, campaign managers, and agency directors who would give me honest answers, not polished PR responses. I developed a structured interview approach targeting two audiences:

Agency Side:

• How do you currently monitor campaign performance?
• What metrics matter most vs. what clients ask for?
• What’s your biggest frustration with client relationships?
• How long do you typically wait for payment?

Brand Side:

• What do you actually need to understand about campaign performance?
• How do you currently validate agency-reported numbers?
• What information do you wish was “translated” into business terms?

The Key Insight

From Agencies:

“Clients always want to change things mid-campaign, then blame us when results suffer. If the goals were locked in from the start, everyone would be accountable.”

“We do the work in April, invoice in May, and maybe see payment in August. Sometimes later.”

From Brands:

“Agencies give us big numbers, millions of impressions, but I can’t connect that to business outcomes. I need translation, not just data dumps.”

“I never know if I’m getting what I paid for until it’s too late to do anything about it.”

The validation was immediate. When we pitched the concept, even as just an idea, both sides got pretty excited. Agencies liked the payment security and locked objectives. Brands liked the third-party verification control and performance-based spending. We had people asking when they could try it before we’d written a line of code.

Validation Through Whitepaper

Before building anything, we documented the concept in a whitepaper and published it on blockchain-focused platforms. This served two purposes: validating market interest and raising funds to build.

The response exceeded expectations. We secured funding within weeks, fast even by crypto standards at the time. The concept resonated because it solved real problems that both sides of the advertising industry experienced in their processes.

With funding secured, we moved into full product development.

Building the Product

The architecture needed to handle several complex workflows:

Campaign Setup Flow:

1. Brand and agency agree on campaign parameters
2. KPIs are defined and locked into a smart contract
3. Budget is deposited into escrow
4. Social media channels are connected for monitoring

Monitoring Dashboard:

The heart of the product, a real-time view of campaign performance against locked KPIs. Both parties see the same verified data, eliminating the “my numbers vs. your numbers” arguments.

Settlement Flow:

At campaign end, SETHER compares achieved performance against targets and calculates payment automatically:

• Under target: Proportional payment (80% achieved = 80% released)
• On target: Full payment released immediately
• Over target: Bonus payments triggered

I started with low-fidelity wireframes to map the information architecture. The challenge was presenting complex data, multiple social channels, various KPI types, real-time vs. historical performance, without overwhelming users who aren’t data analysts.

The visual design needed to communicate trust and professionalism while feeling modern enough for a blockchain product. We developed the brand identity in parallel with the UI, ensuring consistency across the product, pitch materials, and marketing.

Cannes Lions: Proof of Concept

We timed the MVP completion to coincide with Cannes Lions, the advertising industry’s biggest annual event. Being selected for the Innovation Hall put us in front of exactly the audience we needed: global brands and major agency networks. The reception validated everything our research had suggested. Brand representatives immediately understood the value of verified, third-party performance data. Agency representatives saw the payment security and locked objectives as game-changers for their client relationships.

We left Cannes with scheduled demo and implementation meetings with:

• Adidas
• SkyTV UK
• P&G

These weren’t casual “let’s stay in touch” conversations. These were “when can you show this to our team” commitments from some of the world’s largest advertisers.

Challenge Overcome

New Territory

The biggest challenge wasn’t the design work, it was the learning curve. Blockchain technology required me to think about products differently. Concepts like smart contracts, immutable records, and decentralized verification weren’t just technical details; they fundamentally shaped what was possible in the user experience.

I couldn’t design an “edit your KPIs” feature because the whole point was that KPIs couldn’t be edited once locked. I couldn’t add a “cancel campaign” button because smart contracts don’t work that way. The constraints of the technology became features of the product—the inability to change things mid-flight was exactly what both sides wanted.

This project pushed me to understand a technology deeply enough to design within its constraints while leveraging those constraints as product benefits.

Reflection

SETHER proved that there was genuine appetite for transparency in digital advertising. The enthusiastic response, from initial interviews through whitepaper funding to Cannes Lions reception, demonstrated strong product-market fit for a solution that treated both agencies and brands fairly. The project reinforced something I believe strongly: domain expertise matters in product design. Understanding advertising from the inside, having lived the problems we were solving, made the research richer, the insights sharper, and the solution more credible to the people we were designing for.