“Real Awards for Virtual Achievements”

Imagine yourself standing with a gazillion commuters during the usual afternoon rush, smartphone in hand, Angry Birds on, and suddenly a banner appeared saying that you have won six bags of popchips! And, you thought to yourself, hey, your day just got a little better.

Co-founded by a UBC Sauder graduate Brian Wong, Kiip is a mobile rewards network that “has partnered up with big brands (Sephora, popchips) to offer players actual in-game rewards” when gaining achievements like proceeding to new level or accumulating a certain number of points (Alexia Tsotsis, April 2011). It’s basically reaching out to consumers when they get an “earned” promotion while playing games. They also target “algorithmically based on game demographics” which means they wouldn’t offer a lipstick sample if the customer wasn’t a girl! Customers are also given the choice of gifting the reward if they don’t want it for themselves.  This mobile ads start up exhibits promising innovation to traditional advertising. It’s creating a business model for in-game advertising, and what’s even better is that it doesn’t have to fight for consumer’s attention anymore because most are on their phones 24/7.

And gaming’s always a fun way to kill time when on transit!

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Image: http://www.okaygeek.com/storage/post-images/internet/websites/kiip.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1304456461332