So if I was to ask you what the connection between a bottle of Tide detergent and sweat was, you'd probably think that's the easiest question that you're going to be asked in Edinburgh all week. But if I was to say that they're both examples of alternative or new forms of currency in a hyperconnected, data-driven global economy, you'd probably think I was a little bit bonkers. But trust me, I work in advertising.
Nese ju pyes ju çfare lidhje ekziston ndermjet nje shishe Tide me detergjent dhe djersës, ka gjasa qe ju te mendoni se kjo eshte pyetja me e thjeshte qe mund t'ju behet ne Edinburgh gjate gjithe javes. Por nese do te thoja se te dyja jane shembuj formash te reja ose alternative te parasë ne nje ekonomi super-te-lidhur dhe te udhehequr-nga-te-dhenat ju do mendonit se jam pak i lajthitur. Por me besoni, une punoj ne reklame.
(Laughter)
(Te qeshura)
And I am going to tell you the answer, but obviously after this short break.
Do t'ua tregoj pergjigjen, por sigurisht pas ketij pushimi te shkruter.
So a more challenging question is one that I was asked, actually, by one of our writers a couple of weeks ago, and I didn't know the answer: What's the world's best performing currency? It's actually Bitcoin. Now, for those of you who may not be familiar, Bitcoin is a crypto-currency, a virtual currency, synthetic currency. It was founded in 2008 by this anonymous programmer using a pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. No one knows who or what he is. He's almost like the Banksy of the Internet.
Nje pyetje me sfiduese eshte ajo qe me eshte bere mua, ne fakt, nga nje prej shkrimtarëve tane disa jave me pare dhe une s'e dija pergjigjen: Cila eshte monedha me performancen me te mire ne bote ? Ne fakt eshte Bitcoin. Tani, per ata qe nuk dine shume ne lidhje me kete, Bitcoin eshte nje monedhe virtuale, kripto-monedhe, monedhe artificiale. U krijua ne 2008 nga ky programues anonim duke perdorur pseudonimin Satoshi Nakamoto. Asnje nuk e di kush apo cfare eshte ai. Ai pothuajse eshte si Banksy i Internetit.
And I'm probably not going to do it proper service here, but my interpretation of how it works is that Bitcoins are released through this process of mining. So there's a network of computers that are challenged to solve a very complex mathematical problem and the person that manages to solve it first gets the Bitcoins. And the Bitcoins are released, they're put into a public ledger called the Blockchain, and then they float, so they become a currency, and completely decentralized, that's the sort of scary thing about this, which is why it's so popular. So it's not run by the authorities or the state. It's actually managed by the network. And the reason that it's proved very successful is it's private, it's anonymous, it's fast, and it's cheap. And you do get to the point where there's some wild fluctuations with Bitcoin. So in one level it went from something like 13 dollars to 266, literally in the space of four months, and then crashed and lost half of its value in six hours. And it's currently around that kind of 110 dollar mark in value.
Ndoshta nuk do jem duke bere nje sherbim ashtu sic duhet, por shpjegimi im se si kjo funksionon eshte se Bitcoin-et leshohen përmes ketij procesi te quajtur "venie minash". Ne kete menyre egziston nje rrjet kompjuterash qe sfidohen per te zgjidhur nje problem matematikor shume kompleks dhe personi qe ia del ta zgjidhe i pari merr Bitcoin-et. Dhe Bitcoin-et leshohen, vendosen ne nje bllok llogarish publike te quajtur Blockchain, dhe ato pastaj qarkullojne, keshtu ato behen monedhe, dhe eshte teresisht e decentralizuar, gje qe eshte pak a shume e frikshme ne lidhje me te, kjo e ben shume te njohur. Keshtu ajo nuk menaxhohet nga autoritetet apo shteti. Ne fakt menaxhohet nga rrjeti. Dhe arsyeja pse ka rezultuar e suksesshme eshte anonimiteti i saj, eshte e shpejte dhe e pakushtueshme. Dhe ju pastaj shkoni arrini ne piken ku ka luhatje te medha me Bitcoin. Ne nje nivel arriti nga 13 dollarë ne 266, ekzaktesisht ne harkun kohor prej 4 muajsh, dhe pastaj deshtoi dhe humbi gjysmen e vleres se saj ne 6 muaj. Aktualisht ndodhet ne ate pike vlere prej 110 dollaresh.
But what it does show is that it's sort of gaining ground, it's gaining respectability. You get services, like Reddit and Wordpress are actually accepting Bitcoin as a payment currency now. And that's showing you that people are actually placing trust in technology, and it's started to trump and disrupt and interrogate traditional institutions and how we think about currencies and money. And that's not surprising, if you think about the basket case that is the E.U. I think there was a Gallup survey out recently that said something like, in America, trust in banks is at an all-time low, it's something like 21 percent. And you can see here some photographs from London where Barclays sponsored the city bike scheme, and some activists have done some nice piece of guerrilla marketing here and doctored the slogans. "Sub-prime pedaling." "Barclays takes you for a ride." These are the more polite ones I could share with you today. But you get the gist, so people have really started to sort of lose faith in institutions.
Por ajo cfare shihet eshte se po fiton terren, po fiton respekt. Ju keni sherbime, si Reddit dhe Wordpress qe pranojne Bitcoin si nje monedhe pagese. Kjo ju tregon qe njerezit po besojne ne teknologji, dhe ka filluar te buçasë dhe përcajë dhe te vërë ne pikepyetje institucionet tradicionale dhe ate se si ne mendojme rreth monedhave dhe parasë. Dhe kjo nuk eshte per t'u habitur, nese mendoni rreth fenomenit shporte, si E.U. mendoj qe ka pasur se fundi nje studim Gallup qe thoshte se ne Amerike, besimi ne banka eshte me i ulti i gjithe koherave, dicka rreth 21 perqind. Mund te shikoni ketu disa fotografi nga Londra ku Barclays sponsorizoi skemen e biçikletes ne qytet, dhe disa aktiviste kane bërë nje pune guerile ne marketing dhe kane rregulluar slloganet "Pedalim per te varferit." "Barclays ju ben nje xhiro". Keto nga me te hijshmet qe mund t'i ndaj me ju sot. Por ju e kuptoni thelbin, njerezit me te vertete kane filluar disi te humbin besimin tek institucionet.
There's a P.R. company called Edelman, they do this very interesting survey every year precisely around trust and what people are thinking. And this is a global survey, so these numbers are global. And what's interesting is that you can see that hierarchy is having a bit of a wobble, and it's all about heterarchical now, so people trust people like themselves more than they trust corporations and governments. And if you look at these figures for the more developed markets like U.K., Germany, and so on, they're actually much lower. And I find that sort of scary. People are actually trusting businesspeople more than they're trusting governments and leaders.
Eshte nje kompani marredheniesh me publikun e quajtur Edelman, ato bejne nje studim interesant çdo vit pikerisht rreth besimit dhe se cfare mendojne njerezit. Dhe ky eshte nje studim global, keshtu qe te dhenat jane globale, Ajo cfare eshte interesante eshte qe ju mund te shihni qe hierarkia po peson luhatje, dhe tani eshte heterarki,, njerezit besojne njerez te tjere si vetja me teper sesa korporatat apo qeverite. Dhe nese i shikojme keto shifra per tregje me te zhvilluara si Mbreteria e Bashkuar, Gjermania, e keshtu me rradhe, ato jane ne fakt shume me te ulta. Mua me duket disi e frikshme. Njerezit po besojne me teper biznesmenet se sa besojne qeverite dhe drejtuesit.
So what's starting to happen, if you think about money, if you sort of boil money down to an essence, it is literally just an expression of value, an agreed value. So what's happening now, in the digital age, is that we can quantify value in lots of different ways and do it more easily, and sometimes the way that we quantify those values, it makes it much easier to create new forms and valid forms of currency. In that context, you can see that networks like Bitcoin suddenly start to make a bit more sense.
Cfare po ndodh, nese mendoni per paranë nese e zhveshim ate deri ne thelb, eshte thjeshte nje shprehje vlere, nje vlere e rënë dakord mbi të. Ajo qe po ndodh sot ne epoken dixhitale, eshte se ne mund ta percaktojme sasine e vleres ne shume menyra te ndryshme dhe ta bejme me me lehtesi, dhe nganjehere menyra qe ne percaktojme sasine e ketyre vlerave, e ben shume me te lehte krijimin e formave te reja dhe te vlefshme te monedhes. Ne ate kontekst, ju mund at shihni qe rrjete si Bitcoin papritur fillojne te kene me shume kuptim.
So if you think we're starting to question and disrupt and interrogate what money means, what our relationship with it is, what defines money, then the ultimate extension of that is, is there a reason for the government to be in charge of money anymore? So obviously I'm looking at this through a marketing prism, so from a brand perspective, brands literally stand or fall on their reputations. And if you think about it, reputation has now become a currency. You know, reputations are built on trust, consistency, transparency. So if you've actually decided that you trust a brand, you want a relationship, you want to engage with the brand, you're already kind of participating in lots of new forms of currency.
Nese mendoni se po fillojme te veme ne diskutim ate qe cfare kuptimi ka paraja, cfare lidhje kemi ne me te, cfare e perkufizon parane, dhe zgjatimi perfundimtar i saj eshte, a ka ndonje arsye qe qeverite akoma te kene ne dore paranë ? Qartesisht po e shikoj kete ne prizmin e marketingut, keshtu ne kendveshtrimin e markes, markat me tere kuptimin qendrojne ose bien nga reputacioni. Nese mendoni rreth kesaj, reputacioni eshte bere nje monedhe. E dini, reputacionet ndertohen mbi besim, qendrueshmeri, transparence. Nese ne te vertete vendos te besoni ne nje marke, ju doni nje marredhenie, doni te angazhoheni me marken, ju tashme jeni duke marre pjese ne shume forma te reja monedhe.
So you think about loyalty. Loyalty essentially is a micro-economy. You think about rewards schemes, air miles. The Economist said a few years ago that there are actually more unredeemed air miles in the world than there are dollar bills in circulation. You know, when you are standing in line in Starbucks, 30 percent of transactions in Starbucks on any one day are actually being made with Starbucks Star points. So that's a sort of Starbucks currency staying within its ecosystem.
Keshtu mendoni per besnikerine. Besnikeria eshte ne thelb nje mikro-ekonomi. Pra mendoni per skemat e shperblimit ndaj besimit (milje ajrore). The Economist ca vite me pare tha qe ne fakt ka me shume milje ajrore te pashperblyera ne bote se sa ka kartmonedha dollaresh ne qakullim. E keni parasysh, kur qendroni ne rradhe tek Starbucks, 30 perqind e transaksioneve ne Starbucks ne cdo dite ne fakt behen me pike Star te Starbucks. Ajo eshte nje lloj monedhe of Starbucks qe qendron brenda ekosistemit te saj.
And what I find interesting is that Amazon has recently launched Amazon coins. So admittedly it's a currency at the moment that's purely for the Kindle. So you can buy apps and make purchases within those apps, but you think about Amazon, you look at the trust barometer that I showed you where people are starting to trust businesses, especially businesses that they believe in and trust more than governments. So suddenly, you start thinking, well Amazon potentially could push this. It could become a natural extension, that as well as buying stuff -- take it out of the Kindle -- you could buy books, music, real-life products, appliances and goods and so on. And suddenly you're getting Amazon, as a brand, is going head to head with the Federal Reserve in terms of how you want to spend your money, what money is, what constitutes money.
Ajo cka me duket interesante eshte qe Amazon se fundi ka leshuar monedhat Amazon. Eshte pranueshme qe eshte nje monedhe qartesisht per Kindle. Mund te bleni aplikacione dhe te beni blerje brenda atyre aplikacioneve, por mendoni per Amazon, shikoni tek barometri i besimit qe iu tregova ku njerezit kane filluar te besojne bizneset, sidomos bizneset te cileve u besojne dhe kane besim me shume sa qeverite. Krejt papritur, ju filloi te mendoni, dakord Amazon mund ta kishte shtyre kete. Mund te behej nje zgjatim natyral, qe gjiithashtu blen gjera -- po te mos llogarisim Kindle -- ju mund te bleni libra, muzike, produkte reale, pajisje and mallra dhe keshtu me rradhe. Papritur ju po e shihni Amazon si nje marke, qe po shkon koke me koke me Reserven Federale per sa i perket menyres qe deshironi t'i shpenzoni parate, cfare eshte paraja, cfare e perben parane.
And I'll get you back to Tide, the detergent now, as I promised. This is a fantastic article I came across in New York Magazine, where it was saying that drug users across America are actually purchasing drugs with bottles of Tide detergent. So they're going into convenience stores, stealing Tide, and a $20 bottle of Tide is equal to 10 dollars of crack cocaine or weed. And what they're saying, so some criminologists have looked at this and they're saying, well, okay, Tide as a product sells at a premium. It's 50 percent above the category average. It's infused with a very complex cocktail of chemicals, so it smells very luxurious and very distinctive, and, being a Procter and Gamble brand, it's been supported by a lot of mass media advertising. So what they're saying is that drug users are consumers too, so they have this in their neural pathways. When they spot Tide, there's a shortcut. They say, that is trust. I trust that. That's quality. So it becomes this unit of currency, which the New York Magazine described as a very oddly loyal crime wave, brand-loyal crime wave, and criminals are actually calling Tide "liquid gold."
Dhe do te ktheheni tek detergjenti Tide tani, sic premtova. Ky eshte nje artikull fantastik qe e hasa ne revisten New York Magazine, ku thoshte qe perdoruesit e droges ne te gjithe Ameriken po blejne droge me shishe detergjent Tide. Ato shkojne ne dyqane te aferta, vjedhin Tide, dhe nje shishe Tide 20 dollareshe eshte e barabarte me 10 dollare kokaine ose mariuane. Dhe cfare thone ato, ca kriminologjiste kane shikuar kete dhe thone, dakord, ne rregull, Tide si produkt shitet me vlere me te larte. Eshte 50 perqind me shume se mesatarja e kategorise. Eshte e mbushur me nje koktej kimikatesh shume komplekse keshtu qe ka nje ere shume te pasur dhe te dallueshme, dhe duke qene nje marke Procter and Gamble, eshte suportuar nga shume masmedia reklamimi. Ajo cfare ato thone eshte se perdoruesit e droges jane gjithashtu konsumatore, keshtu qe ato e kane kete ne rruget e tyre neurale. Kur e shikojne Tide, ka nje rruge te shkruter. Ato thone, ky eshte besim. Une e besoj ate. Eshte kualitet. Keshtu behet nje njesi monedhe, te cilen revista New York Magazine e pershkroi si nje vale krimi te besueshme shume te cuditshme, vale krimi me besim tek marka, dhe kriminelet po e quajne Tide "ari i lengshem"
Now, what I thought was funny was the reaction from the P&G spokesperson. They said, obviously tried to dissociate themselves from drugs, but said, "It reminds me of one thing and that's the value of the brand has stayed consistent." (Laughter) Which backs up my point and shows he didn't even break a sweat when he said that.
Ajo cfare une e mendoja si qesharake ishte reagimi nga zedhenesja e P&G. Ato thane, qartesisht e distancuan veten nga drogat, por tha, dhe kjo eshte qe vlera e markes ka qene e qendrueshme." (Qesh) Qe mbeshtet argumentin tim dhe tregon qe ai as nuk u djersit kur e tha kete.
So that brings me back to the connection with sweat. In Mexico, Nike has run a campaign recently called, literally, Bid Your Sweat. So you think about, these Nike shoes have got sensors in them, or you're using a Nike FuelBand that basically tracks your movement, your energy, your calorie consumption. And what's happening here, this is where you've actually elected to join that Nike community. You've bought into it. They're not advertising loud messages at you, and that's where advertising has started to shift now is into things like services, tools and applications. So Nike is literally acting as a well-being partner, a health and fitness partner and service provider.
Keshtu kjo me kthen tek lidhja me djersen. Ne Meksike, Nike ka drejtuar nje fushate se fundmi te quajtur, ekzaktesisht, Ofroni Djersen Tuaj. Mendoni rreth kesaj, kete kepuce Nike kane sensore brenda tyre, ose ju po perdorni nje Nike FuelBand qe thjesht regjistron levizjet tuaja, energjine tuaj, konsumin tuaj kalorik. Ajo cfare po ndodh ketu, ju keni zgjedhur te jeni pjese e komunitetit Nike. Ju keni blere prej tyre. Ato nuk po bejne reklama duke bertitur drejt jush, dhe ja ku reklamimi ka filluar te zhvendoset tani eshte ne gjera sic jane sherbimet, mjetet dhe aplikimet. Keshtu Nike tamam po vepron si nje partner i mbarevajtur, nje partner ne shendet dhe fitnes dhe nje sigurues sherbimi.
So what happens with this is they're saying, "Right, you have a data dashboard. We know how far you've run, how far you've moved, what your calorie intake, all that sort of stuff. What you can do is, the more you run, the more points you get, and we have an auction where you can buy Nike stuff but only by proving that you've actually used the product to do stuff." And you can't come into this. This is purely for the community that are sweating using Nike products. You can't buy stuff with pesos. This is literally a closed environment, a closed auction space.
Ajo cfare ndodh me kete eshte se ato thone, "Dakord, ju keni nje panel kontrolli mbi te dhenat. Ne e dime sa larg keni vrapuar, sa larg keni shkuar, kalorite tuaja te marra, te gjitha keto lloj gjerash. Ajo cfare mund te beni eshte, sa me shume vraponi, aq me shume pike fitoni, dhe ne kemi nje ankand ku mund te bleni gjera Nike por vetem duke vertetuar qe ne fakt ju keni perdorur produktin per te blere gjera." Dhe ju smund te futeni ketu. Kjo eshte qartesisht per komunitetin qe po djersijne duke perdorur produkte Nike. S''mund te bleni gjera me pesos. Ky eshte egzaktesisht nje ambjent i mbyllur, nje hapesire ankandi e mbyllur.
In Africa, you know, airtime has become literally a currency in its own right. People are used to, because mobile is king, they're very, very used to transferring money, making payments via mobile. And one of my favorite examples from a brand perspective going on is Vodafone, where, in Egypt, lots of people make purchases in markets and very small independent stores. Loose change, small change is a real problem, and what tends to happen is you buy a bunch of stuff, you're due, say, 10 cents, 20 cents in change. The shopkeepers tend to give you things like an onion or an aspirin, or a piece of gum, because they don't have small change. So when Vodafone came in and saw this problem, this consumer pain point, they created some small change which they call Fakka, which literally sits and is given by the shopkeepers to people, and it's credit that goes straight onto their mobile phone. So this currency becomes credit, which again, is really, really interesting.
Ne Afrike, ju e dini, qe minutat e celularit jane bere pikerisht nje monedhe me kuptimin e plote te fjales. Njerezit jane mesuar, sepse celulari eshte mbret, eshte bere shume e zakonshme te transferohen para, duke bere pagese nepermjet celularit. Dhe nje nga shembujt me te parapelqyer nga une shikuar ne perspektiven e markes eshte Vodafone, ku ne Egjypt, shume njerez bejne blerje ne tregje dhe dyqane shume te vogla te pavarura. Kusuri shume i vogel eshte nje problem real, dhe tendenca eshte qe ju bleni nje grumbull me gjera, le te themi ju mbetet borxh, 10 cente, 20 cente si kusur. Shitesi ka tendence t'iu jape gjera si nje qepe ose nje aspirine, or nje camcakez, sepse ato s'kane kusur te vogel. Keshtu kur erdhi Vodafone dhe e pa kete problem, kete pike dhimbjeje per konsumatorin, ato krijuan kusure te vogla te cilat i quajten Fakka, qe pershtatet tamam dhe i jepet bleresit nga shitesi, dhe eshte kredit qe shkon drejt ne celularin e tyre. Kjo monedhe behet kredit, i cili perseri, eshte me te vertete shume interesant.
And we did a survey that backs up the fact that, you know, 45 percent of people in this very crucial demographic in the U.S. were saying that they're comfortable using an independent or branded currency. So that's getting really interesting here, a really interesting dynamic going on. And you think, corporations should start taking their assets and thinking of them in a different way and trading them. And you think, is it much of a leap? It seems farfetched, but when you think about it, in America in 1860, there were 1,600 corporations issuing banknotes. There were 8,000 kinds of notes in America. And the only thing that stopped that, the government controlled four percent of the supply, and the only thing that stopped it was the Civil War breaking out, and the government suddenly wanted to take control of the money. So government, money, war, nothing changes there, then.
Ne beme nje anketim qe mbeshtet faktin qe, 45 perqind e njerezve ne demografine teper te rendesishme te SH.B.A thone qe jane te kenaqur duke perdorur nje monedhe te pavarur ose te brand-uar. Keshtu kjo po behet shume interesante, nje dinamike shume interesante po ndodh. Mendoni, korporatat duhet te fillojne te mendojne rreth aseteve te tyre ne nje menyre te ndryshme dhe t'i tregetojne ato. Eshte me te vertete nje kapercim? Duket e panatyrshme, por kur mendoni rreth saj, ne Amerike ne 1860, kishte 1600 korporata qe perdornin bankenota. Kishte 8000 lloje kartash ne Amerike. Dhe e vetmja qe e ndaloi ate, qeveria kontrolloi 4 perqind te furnizimit, dhe e vetmja gje qe e ndaloi ate ishte shperthimi i Luftes Civile dhe qeveria papritur donte te merte ne kontroll parane. Keshtu qeveria, paraja, lufta, asgje nuk ndryshon ketu atehere.
So what I'm going to ask is, basically, is history repeating itself? Is technology making paper money feel outmoded? Are we decoupling money from the government? You know, you think about, brands are starting to fill the gaps. Corporations are filling gaps that governments can't afford to fill. So I think, you know, will we be standing on stage buying a coffee -- organic, fair trade coffee -- next year using TED florins or TED shillings?
Ajo cfare do te pyes eshte, thjesht, a po e perserit veten historia ? A po e ben teknologjia parane leter te ndihet si e dale jashte mode ? A po e ndajme parane nga qeveria? E keni parasysh, mendoni perseri, markat po fillojne te mbushin boshlleqet. Korporatat po mbushin boshlleqet qe qeverite nuk munden. Mendoj, e keni parasysh, do te jemi duke qendruar ne skene duke blere nje kafe -- organike, kafe me tregti te ndershme -- ne vitin tjeter duke perdorur florinet TED ose shilingat TED ?
Thank you very much.
Shume faleminderit.
(Applause)
(Duartrokitje)
Thank you. (Applause)
Faleminderit.(Duartrokitje)