Save 50% on a 3-month Digiday+ membership. Ends Dec 12.
Kik’s making its own currency.
On Thursday, the messenger platform that claims to have 15 million monthly active users (57 percent of whom are aged 13 to 24), launched Kin, a currency of its own that will let users earn and buy things from inside the app.
“It is becoming increasingly difficult for companies in our space to continue to differentiate through innovation,” said Erin Clift, chief marketing officer of the Waterloo, Canada-based company. Although Kik’s user base pales in comparison is small compared to its competitors — WeChat had 889 million monthly active users last year, while as of March of this year, Facebook had 1.9 billion monthly active users — Kik said it hopes it will break the dominance of established players by creating its own payments ecosystem.
More in Marketing
How Costco stood against Trump’s agenda on tariffs, DEI this year
Costco has continuously been held up as an example of a company that has stood firm in its willingness to do what it believes is best for the business.
Brands look to experiential marketing as antidote to AI slop, digital fatigue
Brands are prioritizing experiential and IRL marketing as an antidote to ‘AI slop’ and digital fatigue.
Agencies push curation upstream, reclaiming control of the programmatic bidstream
Curation spent much of this year in a fog, loosely defined and inconsistently applied. Agencies say they plan to tighten the screws in 2026.