NATIVE Inventions, the innovation and product development division of NATIVE, operates as a start-up within the marketing agency.
It has a range of activities under the innovation umbrella including product development, prototyping new technologies, establishing and managing relationships with technology partners such as RSAWeb and Everlytic, and expanding knowledge in the agency through TED-like Axe Sharpener Sessions.
Levon Rivers, Head of NATIVE Inventions, said: “This division is our way of investing our creativity and technical skill in exploring additional revenue streams for NATIVE. It’s amazing work, and I’m proud to be heading it up.”
Mxit was selected by NATIVE Inventions as the first technology partner.
Rivers added: “Having a beautiful, feature rich iPhone app is great, but in South Africa it means your brand is speaking to a very small percentage of the total market.
“With Mxit we have the potential to engage with millions of users, most of whom are not accessible on other social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.”
Rivers continued: “Mxit users are starved for good apps that they can use either for entertainment or utility.”
According to NATIVE Inventions, the success of their apps has been significant, with one app in less than two months getting more than 500,000 page views by Mxit users.
Andy Volk, Vice President of Developer Relations at Mxit, said: “It’s truly inspiring to see the amount of innovation in NATIVE's new apps. They’re exactly the kind of developer that we want on the Mxit platform."
