Kiip rewards mobile gamers' achievements with real-world prizes

Well gii, we never thought we'd see the day when another product successfully used the letters "ii" in its name. Kiip, a new San Francisco-based start up, wants to turn the world of in-game advertising on its head, Mashable reports. Well, at least in mobile games, but is anything stopping this from hitting Facebook someday? Not likely. Kiip is a rewards-based advertising platform for mobile games that rewards players when they reach a milestone like a new high score with real-world prizes. Say you beat a level in Angry Birds with a three-star rating. With Kiip, this otherwise minor achievement turns into a reward for hard work--play, we mean play.

How it works is that when an achievement is reached, a banner ad will rise from the bottom of the screen, offering free stuff just for reaching a new height in Doodle Jump. Clicking on the ad will open a new page that asks you to provide your email information so that you can redeem the reward. The platform has support from several partners on day one including Popchips, Sephora, 1-800-FLOWERS, Carl's Jr., Dr. Pepper, Sony, Vitaminwater, GNC and Homerun.com.

And while Kiip has its lips sealed on what games will take on the new ad platform, you could imagine how Kiip could work in Zynga games like FarmVille or even Words with Friends for iPhone. Finally master that new crop in FarmVille? Here's a coupon for free Dr. Pepper. Reach 600 points in Words with Friends? Enjoy some Popchips. Kiip's success won't be visible for some time, but you can bet that social game developers are already salivating over it.

[Video Credit: Kiip]

Do you think you'd be more likely to click on a banner ad in your game of Words with Friends if it offered (legitimately) free stuff? How long do you think it will be before social games adopt a similar advertising model?