“We ensure that we're always being very direct and honest with our potential partners and current partners. And we don’t offer anything that we're not prepared to stand behind.”
(Rhys Heron, Managing Director, Mi9 NZ)
Creating mutually beneficial partnerships in a digital landscape takes more transparency and honesty than most. Because we rely on the success of our partnerships to widen our network and provide more opportunities to those in the network, being completely honest and transparent becomes crucial when representing the advertising opportunities for publishers. As a company we will steer away from offering anything that we're not prepared to stand behind. The team is very careful in ensuring that at all points in the conversation with clients, that we're only offering what we reasonably believe we can deliver for our clients and their business. That transparency and honesty generally creates a good relationship that’s then reciprocated.
When you are a small player going up against global brands the landscape can be tough and you need to stand firm and fast by the partnerships that you create. Mi9 believes in providing wide audience reach and one of the key ways it delivers upon this is through the partnerships we form. We have to look at ways to stand out and still provide value. Microsoft is one such partnership. Through Microsoft Mi9 is able to offer MSN NZ and Outlook.com, both of which are large properties in the New Zealand market and ultimately very blue chip in terms of viewability and performance. But it is important to surround yourself with other likeminded partners and in our case we also have two other really important partnerships, one of which is with ViacomCBS offering MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon. We understand that these partnerships give us a point of differentiation which is important when you are a smaller player in the market.
Mi9 understands that its key partnership with Microsoft in return will provide its own clients with access to its global network. This collaborative relationship of working with Microsoft data, Experian socio-economic data and Grapeshot contextual targeting (all of which are products in our portfolio) allows us to create 18 custom macro segment data products that we can on-sell to our clients to meet their specific needs so we’re always thinking of how we can add value from within our partnership mix. We continue to work cooperatively with our partners to create a path for them to invest more in custom New Zealand content. Our representation of their brands within the New Zealand market leads to more profitability for our partners. Then they're able to reinvest some of that profitability in more localized content for the New Zealand audience, which they wouldn't otherwise have done if Mi9 wasn't involved. This becomes a win-win for all.
The success of Microsoft’s recent header-bidding strategy has allowed Mi9 to lead a global implementation on a larger scale. This ability to now integrate into that global program really delivered a win-win outcome for both businesses. It goes back to the central idea of partnership with both parties having skin in the game and contributing to local success. This success is invariably passed onto our clients .
Transparency and honesty aren’t just buzz words for Mi9. They form a critical part of our mission and value statement and have become integrated into our team’s DNA. If we cannot live it we cannot practice it, therefore we carry this mentality into all partnerships we’ve created or will create into the future. A company needs to stand strongly behind its beliefs, as your partners and clients can definitely spot a fake relationship a mile away.