11個(gè)人的小公司如何做到25億用戶 表情符是座創(chuàng)業(yè)金礦

Like any college kid, Evan Wray loved using the tinypictograms known as emoji. But he hated that therewas no emoji to express his Fighting Irish pride withfellow University of Notre Dame students. So,alongside co-founder Sean O’Brien, he built amodest business on that disconnect. TextPride, asit was called, licensed images from brands in thesports and entertainment world and sold them assticker packs. Within a messaging app like Kik, userscould buy a packet of stickers for Disney’s Frozen for$1.99, for example.

和所有大學(xué)生一樣，埃文o雷喜歡使用表情符號。但讓他惱火的是，沒有什么表情符號能夠讓他向圣母大學(xué)的同學(xué)表達(dá)自己對該校橄欖球隊(duì)?wèi)?zhàn)斗的愛爾蘭人的自豪感。于是，他和肖恩o歐布萊恩一起創(chuàng)辦了一樁小生意，以彌補(bǔ)這一空白。這款名為TextPride的產(chǎn)品從體育和娛樂世界中獲得圖像授權(quán)，然后將其打包成貼紙出售。比如，在Kik這樣的短信應(yīng)用中，用戶可以花1.99美元買一包迪斯尼電影《冰雪奇緣》的貼紙。

 

 

TextPride was a fine business, but a tiny one. Meanwhile, the market for messaging apps wasexploding. Facebook FB 0.61% bought WhatsApp for $19 billion; that service now has 700million monthly active users. Tango, an app with 250 million registered users, is worth $1.5billion. Kik has 200 million registered users. Snapchat, worth $10 billion, has 100 million users.A new study, commissioned by Kik, shows that U.S. users now spend more time on average inmessaging apps than they do on social networking apps. The only problem? These messagingapps need ways to make money, and there’s no reasonable way for advertisers to wedgethemselves into conversations between friends.

TextPride是一門不錯(cuò)的生意，就是規(guī)模太小。與此同時(shí)，短信應(yīng)用市場正在爆炸式增長。Facebook公司斥資190億美元并購了WhatsApp，這款產(chǎn)品的每月活躍用戶現(xiàn)已達(dá)到7億人。擁有2.5億注冊用戶的應(yīng)用Tango目前市值15億美元。Kik擁有2億注冊用戶。Snapchat價(jià)值100億美元，擁有一億用戶。Kik贊助的一項(xiàng)新研究表明，美國用戶現(xiàn)在花在短信應(yīng)用上的平均時(shí)間要多于社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)應(yīng)用。不過唯一的問題是，這些短信應(yīng)用需要找到賺錢的手段，目前廣告主還沒找到靠譜的方式插入朋友間的聊天之中。

This is a thorny issue that’s unique to messaging apps. We expect ads to live alongsidecontent we consume. We don’t expect them to crop up in our one-on-one communications. “The last thing you want in a personal conversation is a banner ad or pop-up that interruptsthat,” Wray says. “It might work with more impersonal networks, but specifically withinmessaging, people hate traditional ads.”

這也是短信應(yīng)用獨(dú)有的棘手問題。在消費(fèi)內(nèi)容時(shí)，我們希望廣告乖乖待在一邊。沒人想在聊天時(shí)突然有條廣告蹦出來。雷表示：“人們在聊天時(shí)最不想看到的就是打斷對話的廣告條或彈出式廣告?？赡苓@在非個(gè)人的網(wǎng)絡(luò)上還管用，但在短信中，人們最惱火的就是看到傳統(tǒng)廣告。”

WhatsApp had been particularly ad-averse before its sale to Facebook. CEO Jan Koum kept anote from co-founder Brian Acton taped to his desk to remind him of the company’s corevalues. It read: “No Ads! No Games! No Gimmicks!”

在出售給Facebook前，WhatsApp一直特別反對植入廣告。該公司首席執(zhí)行官讓o庫姆在自己桌上一直貼著聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人布萊恩o阿克頓留下的一張便條，隨時(shí)提醒自己牢記公司的核心價(jià)值觀：“不要廣告!不要游戲!不要宣傳噱頭!”這樣一來，短信應(yīng)用只好想出別的創(chuàng)意。比如Tango就在用戶的短信“收件箱”里插入廣告。中國互聯(lián)網(wǎng)巨頭騰訊公司旗下的短信應(yīng)用——微信，則通過游戲、貼紙(類似于表情符號)和移動(dòng)購物等方式謀取賺錢之道。Kik則提供一種被一些人稱為“聊天廣告”的功能，用戶通過它能和幽默網(wǎng)站Funny or Die及電影信息網(wǎng)站Moviefone這類品牌運(yùn)營的聊天程序進(jìn)行交談。

So the messaging apps have gotten creative. Tango, for example, inserts ads within a user’smessaging “inbox.” WeChat, a popular Chinese app that is owned by Tencent, makes moneythrough games, stickers (which are similar to emojis), and mobile commerce. Kik offers afeature that some are calling “chatvertising,” where users hold conversations with chat-botspowered by brands like Funny or Die and Moviefone.

上周二，Snapchat推出了一種名為Discover的服務(wù)，Vice、CNN和《人物》雜志等媒體可通過它在Snapchat發(fā)布視頻內(nèi)容。已經(jīng)有幾個(gè)頻道推出廣告服務(wù)，要價(jià)可不便宜。據(jù)《廣告周刊》報(bào)道，Snapchat的廣告標(biāo)價(jià)是每天75萬美元。

Snapchat on Tuesday launched Discover, a section of its app where media outlets including Vice,CNN andPeople magazine can publish video content within Snapchat. Already several of thechannels feature ads, which aren’t cheap. According to Adweek, Snapchat ads cost $750,000per day.

還是說回TextPride吧。雷和歐布萊恩發(fā)現(xiàn)，用戶很喜歡各種品牌授權(quán)的表情符號，他們相信廣告主肯定希望非常便捷地通過一家供應(yīng)商來進(jìn)入多種短信應(yīng)用。但他們也明白，這充其量只能占到這項(xiàng)業(yè)務(wù)的一半份額。對運(yùn)動(dòng)隊(duì)這類大名鼎鼎的品牌來說，用戶是愿意為這些貼紙埋單的。但那些不知名的品牌就需要自己掏錢來擠進(jìn)這個(gè)圈子了。

But back to TextPride. Wray and O’Brien saw the way users eagerly engaged with theirbranded emojis, and believed advertisers appreciated the convenience of using one vendor toget many different messaging apps. But they realized that that was only half of the business.For certain established brands like sports teams, people will pay for stickers. But other,unknown brands would pay just to be included.

TextPride已經(jīng)改名為Swyft Media，并推出了一個(gè)能將新品牌表情符號和貼紙推送到短信應(yīng)用中的新平臺。各大品牌需要為此付費(fèi)，一如傳統(tǒng)的廣告推廣活動(dòng)。

TextPride changed its name to Swyft Media and launched a platform that pushes emojis andstickers from new brands into messaging apps. Brands pay for the privilege, as they wouldwith a regular ad campaign.

最近的一個(gè)例子是：當(dāng)格溫o史蒂芬尼發(fā)布新專輯《 Spark the Fire》時(shí)，Swyft公司即時(shí)設(shè)計(jì)了一個(gè)免費(fèi)貼紙包，在自己的幾個(gè)短信應(yīng)用中推出。它被下載了近一百萬次，并在用戶中傳送了七百萬次，最后在10天內(nèi)被觀看了4100萬次。雷表示，對任何品牌來說，要在其他渠道達(dá)到這樣的廣告效果，需要花上5萬到25萬美元。

A recent example: When Gwen Stefani launched her new album Spark the Fire, Swyft created afree sticker pack and distributed it on several of its messaging apps. It was downloaded almosta million times and sent between users seven million times, resulting in 41 million impressions in10 days. Such campaigns cost anywhere from $50,000 to $250,000 for brands, Wray says.

格溫o史蒂芬尼的廣告在好幾個(gè)應(yīng)用上同時(shí)推出，其中就有總部位于硅谷的短信應(yīng)用Tango。Tango主要通過用戶收件箱里的廣告賺錢，但它已采用了Swyft的平臺，該公司廣告和平臺副總裁理查德o拉百特表示，這類廣告非常契合人們使用Tango的方式。一年前，Tango決定不再賣貼紙了，因?yàn)橄蛴脩粢X總會(huì)帶來很多摩擦。拉百特稱：“在人們溝通過程中放上一道‘留下買路錢’的大門絕不是我們希望帶給用戶的體驗(yàn)。”所以，就由Swyft來提供這種廣告吧。

The Gwen Stefani campaign ran on several apps, including Tango, the Silicon Valley-basedmessaging app. Tango earns money on ads within a user’s inbox, but it has adopted Swyft’splatform because the ads are in line with the way people already use Tango, says RichardRabbat, vice president of Advertising and Platform at Tango. A year ago, Tango decided not tosell stickers, because asking users for money creates too much friction, he says. “Putting apayment gate in the way of communication is not the right experience we want to give to ourusers,” Rabbat says. Ergo, ad campaigns from Swyft.

現(xiàn)在，Swyft一半的收入都來自于為格溫o史蒂芬尼制作的這類廣告。雷表示，Swyft每月收入的增長幅度在50% 到100%之間。另一半就來自銷售貼紙——主要是靠知名運(yùn)動(dòng)隊(duì)和《怪物史萊克》這樣的娛樂品牌授權(quán)。

Swyft now makes half of its money from ad campaigns like the one for Gwen Stefani. Swyft’srevenue has increased between 50% and 100% each month, Wray says. The other half comesfrom selling stickers—typically licensed from sports teams and entertainment brands likeShrek.

Swyft有50家短信應(yīng)用合作伙伴，包括Kakao Talk, Facebook Messenger, BlackBerry Messenger和Line。這種合作讓這家只有11個(gè)人的小公司能接觸到25億注冊用戶。隨著利用短信應(yīng)用賺錢的辦法不斷演化，這家年輕的創(chuàng)業(yè)公司已探索出一條可讓各大品牌擠進(jìn)人們聊天領(lǐng)域的生財(cái)之道。(財(cái)富中文網(wǎng))

Swyft works with 50 different messaging partners, including Kakao Talk, Facebook Messenger,BlackBerry Messenger, and Line. The partnerships give the 11-person company access to 2.5billion registered users. As the strategies for monetizing messaging apps evolve, the youngstartup has carved out a way for brands to inject themselves into the conversation.