MediaBrix Brings Its Brand Of Mobile Ads To Messaging App Kik

New York City-based company is the latest to try its hand at user-rewarded advertising on this booming service.

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From the MediaBrix home page

If you’re a teen or a young adult in North America, you probably already know about Kik. The Ontario, Canada-based messaging app claims over 240 million users and average user sessions of 35 minutes, which is why brands want in.

Teens and young adults are “the first mobile-first generation,” MediaBrix CEO Ari Brandt told me, adding that they are “also the first generation growing up in a media world where ads are skippable.”

Today, MediaBrix is bringing its user-centric approach to mobile advertising to Kik. It joins others that are trying to create Kik-appropriate ads, like a Washington Post trivia game about March Madness, a promotion from Burger King to push its Chicken Fries stickers, or an invitation to watch a branded video in exchange for points by footwear maker K-Swiss.

Points are the key medium of exchange for users on Kik. They can be used to buy coveted emojis and stickers, and you can only gain points in ways that Kik offers with brands.

MediaBrix specializes in delivering the right ads with rewards at just the right moment, as determined by location, time of day, user behavior, game play and other factors.

In its ads on Kik, a user gets a push notification or notice during a conversation that there’s an opportunity to get some points. Clicking on that brings up a screen that says X Kik points are available from, say, Snickers, for watching a 15- or 30-second video.

Here’s a mockup sequence from MediaBrix, which said it couldn’t provide actual brands because the ads are not yet live:

MediaBrix

If you click to proceed, you watch the video, and then get the points. On each screen, Snickers gets co-credit with Kik for delivering those points.

Brandt calls this “brand contextualization.” Because it’s part of a user flow and not interruptive, he contends it’s a kind of native ad. But regardless of the classification, MediaBrix is keeping with the messaging service’s emphasis on giving the user an option to exchange attention for rewards.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Barry Levine
Contributor
Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.

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