Kik is part of a new guard of chat messaging apps that teens are using to escape from mom-infested Facebook. Though still in its early days, the Waterloo-based social network shows a lot of potential to become a playground for brands to creatively engage young audiences, and in some ways looks more promising than rival Snapchat.
The Waterloo-based company has spent the last five years quietly building up a large, engaged audience in the 14-25 age bracket. As of August, 240 million users globally had registered accounts on Kik, over 70% of whom were under 25. The growth trajectory is strong, too — in the first 8 months of 2015, it grew its base by 20%, adding 40 million new users.
Although it’s not yet as big as Twitter or Instagram, Kik claims its users are much more engaged than users on rival social apps. According to a study it commissioned in January, users spend on average 35 minutes Kik-ing when they open the app, compared to 21 minutes on Snapchat or 27 minutes on Instagram. A Business Insider Intelligence report backed up that finding, reporting that Kik’s teen users spend on average 97 minutes per week with the app.
Kik’s potential was enough to attract a $50-million funding round in August, led by Tencent, the massive Chinese corporation that owns WeChat. Valued in the deal at more than $1 billion, Kik is now breathing the same rarified air as Canadian tech unicorns Shopify and Hootsuite.
Kik has dabbled with brands like Skull Candy, Vans and Burger King, but it’s not looking into large-scale monetization just yet, says Josh Jacobs, president of Kik’s partner services division. The former global head of Omnicom agency Accuen joined the company in May to help it begin building better relationships with brands and publishers.
“We have the luxury of being able to say, ‘Let’s take our time and get this right,'” he says. “We’re really trying build an advertising solution that works for the next generation of consumers, who just won’t tolerate that kind of interruption and distraction-driven advertising.”
Kik’s secret to driving so much engagement is its chatbot-style channels. Young users can joust back and forth with a bot to get jokes, stories and content recommendations, all personalized based on how they reacted to previous responses. So far, 16 million users have chosen to engage with Kik’s bots, exchanging some half a billion messages — all interactions that have helped the bots machine-learn their way to cleverness.
Last fall, Kik introduced Promoted Chats, which let brands and publishers recruit its chatbot army to connect with users. Advertisers like Burger King and the Indianapolis Colts and media brands like Funny or Die and The Washington Post have had a lot of success engaging users through the feature. In total, over 10 million users have had a conversation with a brand on Kik, exchanging 250 million messages. Kik’s also seen success with branded stickers and gif keyboards, similar to what other chat apps are doing.
The next step for Kik, says Jacobs, is figuring out how to string these kinds of experiences together into a consistent, ongoing brand offering. “Engagement is the number one priority, but natural brand inclusion is the second priority,” he says. “We’re looking for ways to bring brands into these new environments in ways where they’re contributors to it, and don’t degrade the experience.”
