Thumbtom is an app that pays you to look at advertisements

Currently trending on South Africa’s Google Play store is Thumbtom — an app that pushes ads to your smartphone’s lockscreen in return for vouchers and airtime.

What the app does is it turns your phone into an advertising hub, channeling brands straight to the palm of your hand. But it also ads a dash of incentive by giving people the ability to earn points for buy vouchers and airtime.

The company claims the app to be the first South African app that pays you to view ads. Each time the you unlock your smartphone, you’ll earn points. This also allows the advertiser to gain insight into the your habits, likes and dislikes.

“For the advertisers in the market, Thumbtom provides a new and unique platform and the opportunity to be the first adapters and innovators to smartphone users,” Grant Reynolds, Thumbtom’s Managing Director, said.

Read more: Vouch wants to change the face of mobile advertising in SA

Advertisers are guaranteed user interaction as the ads appear on the device’s lockscreen, after which the user gets prompted for further engagement.

Once the phone is in use, you can swipe to explore the advertisement on display, swipe to invite friends, swipe to share promotions, swipe to tell the app more about themselves or swipe to answer polls and surveys.

Advertisers can thus use the Thumbtom research function to question users. For example, swipe left if you want A, or right if you want B.

Each interaction will earn you points, called Toms. Unlocking your phone will earn you 1 point, where as answering a question or completing an activity would earn you 5 points.

Take a look:

The app has recently reached the top trending page in Google Play with over a thousand downloads within the first six months.