Founder of Kiip (pr. KEEP), Brian Wong skipped 4 grades and started college at age 14. Graduated in 4 years at age 18 and
immediately had a desire to discover Silicon Valley in order to understand “Nerdland”. During his trip he got a job offer to work at Digg (online news website) in Business Development. Since Wong, a Canadian from birth, wanted to work at Digg he got a working visa tied to Digg, but this proved complicated when he got laid off shortly thereafter. This forced Wong back home and forced him to forge a new path.
Wong got the idea for Kiip while walking up and down the isle of a long flight to Singapore. He observed many illuminated faces with games buzzing on the screens of smartphones. He thought their must be a huge advertising opportunity in the gaming medium – and he found there was, however, it was basically the same format as the web (banner advertisements), just smaller. That’s when the epiphany hit. Revolutionize advertising during in app experiences.
The mission of Kiip is to reward moments of achievement in apps and games. The rewards range from free samples to coupons to virtual currency. They are dedicated to connecting brands to consumers at a time when the consumer is most receptive. (i.e. this is when they level up, complete an achievement or surpass a personal record)
Kiip is particularly inspiring to me because Wong challenged typical advertisement mediums by designing a new, better way to engage consumers. Even though Wong hasn’t been forced to pivot or make new iterations of his original plan he has been able to scale the idea much larger than he previously anticipated and is now helping to change the world, one advertisement at a time.
As you can tell Wong’s idea for Kiip and advertising is one that I am very impressed with because I wrote on this topic as well. I think Wong’s simple but brilliant idea to reward and advertise to a consumer at their brightest time is an idea that is going to reshape the advertising world. As Kiip continues to grow and Wong continues to partner with more apps and companies I am excited to see all the rewards I will be acquiring from my iPhone gaming ability. Wong’s creative idea takes the most annoying part of any experience and completely changes our view wanting those ads to Kiip on coming.
Wong’s idea is one of those “I wish I had come up with it myself” ventures. In a time of need, he was actively aware of his surroundings and formulated a business plan based on a simple psychology and marketing combination. It’s inspiring to know that his initial idea wasn’t the product of hours in a think tank, but rather everyday brilliance and assertion. I’m interested to see if his company will pivot in the future; expanding or alternating their current product!