Week Six- Young-Adult Flick 'The Giver' Gets Ad Campaign on Kik Messenger App

This week, we are back to watching marketers try to figure out instant messaging, and what's "hot" with the "cool kids" again! Many people have heard or have used the messaging app Kik before, and back in July, they ran their first ever ad campaign for a movie this week. A promotion for the Weinstein Company's "The Giver", this is another example of marketers attempting to find new young consumers in new ways. "The Giver" is based on a very famous young adult novel of the same name published in 1993. Through this app, people can send or "kik" these ads to their friends, and hence share them with others.

What I find interesting about this is that this is definitely not the first time we've seen advertisers interested in mobile messaging apps. Companies are now banding together with platforms like Snapchat and Tango, exploring them as possible outlets for advertisements and even selling merchandise. I know recently, one movie that teamed up with Snapchat was the movie Ouija, a horror movie that showed up in my Snapchat app and scared  the heck out of me. While my personal tastes do not lean towards horror films, I can see the clear benefits of sponsored ads with apps that many young adults use, especially for young adult films.

However, despite the benefits, many things still need to be sorted out before these mobile messaging apps become a go-to platform for marketers. Among these problems is the pricing of ads. Kik makes money off the sales of stickers. For "The Giver", the company is still figuring out how to price these types of campaigns. "I'd say the pricing model is evolving," says Heather Galt, Kik's VP of marketing. "There is a lot of debate about how we can help brands be effective," Ms. Galt said. "It's something we're having a lot of conversations about internally."

Article- http://adage.com/article/digital/weinstein-company-promotes-giver-kik-messenger-app/294298/

Willens, M. (n.d.). Weinstein Company Promotes 'The Giver' on Kik Messenger App | Digital - Advertising Age. Retrieved January 23, 2015, from http://adage.com/article/digital/weinstein-company-promotes-giver-kik-messenger-app/294298/