????和所有大學生一樣，埃文?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的同學表達自己對該校橄欖球隊戰斗的愛爾蘭人的自豪感。于是，他和肖恩?歐布萊恩一起創辦了一樁小生意，以彌補這一空白。這款名為TextPride的產品從體育和娛樂世界中獲得圖像授權，然后將其打包成貼紙出售。比如，在Kik這樣的短信應用中，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是一門不錯的生意，就是規模太小。與此同時，短信應用市場正在爆炸式增長。Facebook公司斥資190億美元并購了WhatsApp，這款產品的每月活躍用戶現已達到7億人。擁有2.5億注冊用戶的應用Tango目前市值15億美元。Kik擁有2億注冊用戶。Snapchat價值100億美元，擁有一億用戶。Kik贊助的一項新研究表明，美國用戶現在花在短信應用上的平均時間要多于社交網絡應用。不過唯一的問題是，這些短信應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。

????這也是短信應用獨有的棘手問題。在消費內容時，我們希望廣告乖乖待在一邊。沒人想在聊天時突然有條廣告蹦出來。雷表示：“人們在聊天時最不想看到的就是打斷對話的廣告條或彈出式廣告。可能這在非個人的網絡上還管用，但在短信中，人們最惱火的就是看到傳統廣告。”

????在出售給Facebook前，WhatsApp一直特別反對植入廣告。該公司首席執行官讓?庫姆在自己桌上一直貼著聯合創始人布萊恩?阿克頓留下的一張便條，隨時提醒自己牢記公司的核心價值觀：“不要廣告！不要游戲！不要宣傳噱頭！”這樣一來，短信應用只好想出別的創意。比如Tango就在用戶的短信“收件箱”里插入廣告。中國互聯網巨頭騰訊公司旗下的短信應用——微信，則通過游戲、貼紙（類似于表情符號）和移動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站Funny or Die及電影信息網站Moviefone這類品牌運營的聊天程序進行交談。

????上周二，Snapchat推出了一種名為Discover的服務，Vice、CNN和《人物》雜志等媒體可通過它在Snapchat發布視頻內容。已經有幾個頻道推出廣告服務，要價可不便宜。據《廣告周刊》報道，Snapchat的廣告標價是每天75萬美元。

????還是說回TextPride吧。雷和歐布萊恩發現，用戶很喜歡各種品牌授權的表情符號，他們相信廣告主肯定希望非常便捷地通過一家供應商來進入多種短信應用。但他們也明白，這充其量只能占到這項業務的一半份額。對運動隊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這個圈子了。

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

????最近的一個例子是：當格溫?史蒂芬尼發布新專輯《 Spark the Fire》時，Swyft公司即時設計了一個免費貼紙包，在自己的幾個短信應用中推出。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天內被觀看了4100萬次。雷表示，對任何品牌來說，要在其他渠道達到這樣的廣告效果，需要花上5萬到25萬美元。

????格溫?史蒂芬尼的廣告在好幾個應用上同時推出，其中就有總部位于硅谷的短信應用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?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，因為向用戶要錢總會帶來很多摩擦。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。”所以，就由Swyft來提供這種廣告吧。

????現在，Swyft一半的收入都來自于為格溫?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——主要是靠知名運動隊和《怪物史萊克》這樣的娛樂品牌授權。

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

????譯者：清遠

????審校：任文科

????Like any college kid, Evan Wray loved using the tiny pictograms known as emoji. But he hated that there was no emoji to express his Fighting Irish pride with fellow University of Notre Dame students. So, alongside co-founder Sean O’Brien, he built a modest business on that disconnect. TextPride, as it was called, licensed images from brands in the sports and entertainment world and sold them as sticker packs. Within a messaging app like Kik, users could buy a packet of stickers for Disney’s Frozen for $1.99, for example.

????TextPride was a fine business, but a tiny one. Meanwhile, the market for messaging apps was exploding. Facebook FB 0.61% bought WhatsApp for $19 billion; that service now has 700 million monthly active users. Tango, an app with 250 million registered users, is worth $1.5 billion. 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 in messaging apps than they do on social networking apps. The only problem? These messaging apps need ways to make money, and there’s no reasonable way for advertisers to wedge themselves into conversations between friends.

????This is a thorny issue that’s unique to messaging apps. We expect ads to live alongside content 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 interrupts that,” Wray says. “It might work with more impersonal networks, but specifically within messaging, people hate traditional ads.”

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

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

????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 the channels feature ads, which aren’t cheap. According to Adweek, Snapchat ads cost $750,000 per day.

????But back to TextPride. Wray and O’Brien saw the way users eagerly engaged with their branded emojis, and believed advertisers appreciated the convenience of using one vendor to get 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 changed its name to Swyft Media and launched a platform that pushes emojis and stickers from new brands into messaging apps. Brands pay for the privilege, as they would with a regular ad campaign.

????A recent example: When Gwen Stefani launched her new album Spark the Fire, Swyft created a free sticker pack and distributed it on several of its messaging apps. It was downloaded almost a million times and sent between users seven million times, resulting in 41 million impressions in 10 days. Such campaigns cost anywhere from $50,000 to $250,000 for brands, Wray says.

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

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

????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 2.5 billion registered users. As the strategies for monetizing messaging apps evolve, the young startup has carved out a way for brands to inject themselves into the conversation.