For years, the digital advertising industry has been locked in a losing battle against a fundamental human reflex: the tendency to simply tune out. As users become increasingly adept at filtering out promotional noise, brands are facing a crisis of engagement characterized by banner blindness and plummeting click-through rates.
This systemic indifference, where audiences instinctively scroll past sponsored content or visually “mute” cluttered sidebars, represents more than just a creative hurdle. For marketers, it is a significant financial leak, systematically eroding campaign ROI and forcing a complete departmental rethink on how to capture genuine attention in an over-saturated online environment.
For the founders of Naritive, this disconnect between cost and attention sparked a bigger question: What if ads were designed to be engaging from the start? What began as a small prototype in Johannesburg in early 2024 has rapidly evolved into an ad‑tech platform now used by more than 100 brands and agencies across Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the United States.
The Problem That Sparked Naritive
Before launching Naritive, co‑founders Rafiq Phillips and Nicolas Van Zyl were deeply embedded in digital marketing. While leading search marketing efforts at MTN South Africa, including SEO and Google Ads, Phillips repeatedly confronted the same discouraging reality: traditional display ads were severely underperforming.
Conversations with agencies confirmed widespread frustration, routine issues like creative fatigue, low engagement, and an inability to hold audience attention had become systemic.
“I realized I could build something that solves this,” says Phillips, now Naritive’s CTO. Drawing on his background in IT and software development from Cape Peninsula University of Technology, he built the first prototype in just a few days. Within three months, version 1.0 of Naritive was ready.
At the same moment Phillips was preparing to exit MTN during a restructuring, Naritive secured private funding that exceeded the threshold for entry into the Google Startups programme, providing early validation and a crucial resource boost.
What Naritive Does — and How It Works
At its core, Naritive is an ad‑tech platform that enables brands and agencies to build and deploy interactive, high‑engagement ads across the open web, outside of social media and across publisher websites, using platforms like Google DV360 and other demand‑side platforms (DSPs).
The platform features two main products:
1. Ad Stories
Interactive display ads that look and behave like social‑media stories.
These can include polls, quizzes, scratch‑to‑reveal offers, event reminders, and more.
2. Ad Social
Social‑style interactive ad formats built for performance and specific campaign goals.
These formats allow users to interact directly within the ad unit, enabling:
- Polls and quizzes
- Scratchable promotions
- Live e‑commerce product browsing
- Calendar event adds
- Multi‑layered engagement actions
- Lead form submissions integrated into CRM systems
Every interaction is tracked, giving marketers access to detailed behavioural analytics that go far beyond standard impressions and clicks.
Service Options
- Managed service: Naritive’s in‑house design and ad operations teams build creatives, run campaigns, and optimise performance (premium CPM tech fees apply).
- Self‑serve SaaS: A white‑label version allowing agencies and brands to build ads, customise layouts, generate embed codes, run campaigns, and access interaction analytics independently.
Business Model
Naritive follows a focused, streamlined revenue approach: technology fees based on CPM.
- Self‑serve (SaaS): R40 ($2.50) per 1,000 impressions
- Managed service: R120 – R140 ($7.50 – $8.70) per 1,000 impressions
These fees are charged on top of a brand’s existing campaign media spend.
Since officially launching in 2024, Naritive has:
- Raised over $500,000
- Generated approximately $2.5 million in revenue
- Built a 30‑person team
- Attracted repeat customers from major brands and agencies
- Expanded to multiple global markets
Philips says repeat business remains their strongest performance signal: “When clients return with new campaigns, it shows we have satisfied users.”
What Sets Naritive Apart
Naritive’s core strength is engagement, its ads are designed to hold attention and encourage interaction.
Its technology was independently verified by Lumen, a leader in attention analytics using eye‑tracking. According to Naritive:
- Brand recall outperformed standard display ads
- Click‑through rates exceeded industry averages
- Paid engagement surpassed IAB benchmarks
The platform also drives lift across other marketing channels, with brands reporting increases in direct traffic, search volume, and engagement on non‑paid channels, suggesting interactive ads improve overall brand visibility.
Naritive positions itself as a complement to existing marketing channels, not a replacement.
Built in South Africa, Scaling Globally
Although Naritive’s development team is fully South African and based in Johannesburg, its sales operations extend into the rest of Africa and the United Kingdom, enabling global software distribution.
Less than two years after launch, the company is proving that African‑built ad‑tech can compete globally.
Naritive is actively expanding into new capabilities, including:
- AI‑driven creative tools
- Connected TV (CTV) advertising
- Smart TV ad formats
- Enhanced analytics and optimisation features
Through the Google Startups programme, its engineering team is building an AI roadmap that will transform creative generation, performance insights, and campaign automation.
