The KIK messenger was dying and this was their marketing play to bring it back. I highly doubt it will be a token of appreciation. The utility portion is forced and the messenger is a dying application. Telegram, WeChat all these are dominating the space. KIK will have a hard time regaining dominance.
While your statement may have some truth to it, it's by no means the full story. Yes Kik was declining in users and losing it's placement among other chat apps. Yes, KIN was created as an option that could be beneficial to the company. Because of KIN, Kik no longer will have to rely on monetizing via ads or selling consumer data. They own 30% of the supply of KIN. Their main goal as a company is to make KIN as valuable as possible as they will reap benefits from doing so. Kik's fate is in the hands of Kin's success.
This does not mean that it is a "marketing play". They didn't just make an empty announcement in order to pump their stock and cash out on the crypto trend. They've been actively working on building this ecosystem over the last 9 months and have had this plan for years.
Do think these huge partners would get involved with a "marketing play":
Unity - Biggest Game Development Platform in the World
Blackhawk Incentives - Leading Global Stored Value and Payments Provider
IMVU - The Worlds Largest Avatar-Based Social NetworkKin will not only exist within Kik. It's going to be integrated in many games via the Unity SDK, integrated within IMVU, and many more large scale partners that will continue to be announced. Not to mention the smaller apps and projects that decide to integrate as well.
Kik will eventually be just a small part of the entire ecosystem. Even if Kik failed to exist and closed it's doors, Kin would continue to thrive.