Brian Wong's Kiip comes out of stealth mode
The much anticipated startup from Vancouver's Brian Wong revealed their plans today.
Kiip, the seven month-old mobile ads startup, is finally coming out of stealth mode and revealing an entirely new model for in-game advertising, one that offers users value instead of fighting an uphill battle for their attention.
TechCrunch's Alexia Tsotsis sat down with Wong to learn more about Kiip.
Unlike Tap.me, Kiip doesn’t just show an ad when those moments are achieved. What it does instead is pretty interesting: Kiip has partnered up with big brands like Sephora, popchips, Homerun.com, Sony Dash, Vitamin Water, 1-800-Flowers, Dr. Pepper, GNC, Carl’s Jr and Hardee’s to offer players actual in-game rewards like a voucher for six bags of popchips, a lipstick sample or a complimentary smoothie when they complete gaming milestones.
“Achievements are the universal currency for accomplishment and every game in the world has achievments,” 19-year-old Kiip co-founder Brian Wong tells me, explaining what he calls the “Achievement Moment.” “The achievement itself isn’t the cool thing, it’s the moment. We realized that the moment was worth something. The natural evolution is to put something there that actually matches the achievement.”
Wong emphasizes that Kiip (pronounced Keep) isn’t a conventional ads network but a “Rewards Network”. Hmmm … It depends on what you consider an ad. Offering players custom-tailored rewards is basically lead generation. It’s an easy away for advertisers to associate their brand with a positive moment, almost diabolical in its simplicity; “Driving for customer acquisition when players are happy.”
As of midnight tonight the Kiip Rewards Network will be rolling out rewards in over 15 games, reaching 12 million monthly active users. Brands will pay up when a user signs up for a reward, from 25 cents to $3 per cost per engagement.
Co-founded by former Digg employees Wong, Courtney Guertin and Sequence’s Amadeus Demarzi, Kiip raised $4 million in Series A funding from Hummer Winblad and True Ventures just last week.
