No idea if it was a publicity stunt but I'm not sure.
coindesk.com/the-8-biggest-bombshells-from-the-secs-kik-ico-lawsuitThis article shows a few points uncovered through Kik's lawsuit including showing that Kik was losing money back in 2017 (cost $3 million per month to run), and no-one wanted to buy it presumably for that reason. As a result they decided to create and focus on a cryptocurrency, Kin, to keep themselves profitable and keep Kik Messenger afloat.
However this year the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) sued Kik alleging that they conducted an “illegal $100 million securities offering" saying they sold Kin tokens to US investors without properly registering the currency. As a result of all of the above Kik said they were shutting down Kik Messenger so they could afford to fight the lawsuit.
edition.cnn.com/2019/10/19/tech/kik-messenger-saved/index.htmlHowever, a buyer finally stepped in - Kik was bought by one of its holders, MediaLab, so Kik Messenger won't be shut down anymore. However as one might expect a company wouldn't just buy something that was losing money and let that continue without changes, which is why they're going to introduce ads into Kik to cover the costs of running it. However they also say that they will develop Kik to be faster, more reliable, and remove bugs apparently.
tl;dr Kik was losing money and the company got into legal trouble so that's why they were shutting down Kik, before MediaLab bought Kik and are going to introduce ads to it to make up for the running costs.
