Serendipity, karma, courage or madness? 

This is the redesigned Mi3 for 2021. Welcome. It’s better than what we were but not yet where we want to be. Much more is to come but I’m thrilled with where Mi3 has landed just 20 months on from our launch in 2019. 

After a grinding and almost cathartic 2020 for many of us, 2021 remains an unknown. Most likely better and hopefully less crazy... but who knows. 

Mi3’s redesign was supposed to start nearly a year ago. You can probably guess why it didn’t but we made a decision in the second half of 2020 to defy the rational, take a leap and push ahead with an overhaul despite the unnerving business and public health environment. 

Call it serendipity, karma, courage or madness but we’re now thankful we kept our foot on the pedal last year, despite raging uncertainty. 

This overhaul is part of our efforts for Mi3 to constantly evolve and improve industry coverage and conversations - and to be acutely on trend with insight.  

Mi3’s approach seems, so far, to be resonating strongly with senior and progressive professionals across the industry sectors we cover in marketing, media, tech, agencies and advisories.

Dozens of testimonials from marketers, media and agency professionals attest to that, as you’ll see across our website from today. 

Mi3 audience triples, Podcasts top 100,000 streams

Our monthly web audience has more than tripled since we launched in April 2019 to about 25,000 with an additional 6,000 podcast streams each month. As we stated in December, our flagship Mi3 podcast has now topped 100,000 streams since launch and is proving a staple for those influential and progressive industry professionals we reference frequently. 

We know Mi3 is hardly racy or an easy, sugar hit read. But we want to cover and create conversations that matter – considered, constructive and challenging was our mantra at launch and it remains our core today. 

Despite the attention deficit pressures that all of us face in our daily gigs, and a prevailing narrative to go short and spicy with content to achieve scale, Mi3 is proving an exception. Our long-form podcasts and features land at least 30 minutes of time in audio from the industry’s most influential while our individual feature stories garner between 12 and 20 minutes of time and attention per article. That is not the norm in publishing but it confirms what we suspected in creating Mi3’s editorial position – there is widespread demand at a senior level for content beyond the light, the fast and the furious.

Our founding focus at Mi3 is to help drive considered and intelligent industry debate and insight around trends and themes that matter within marketing and the marketing supply chain. We’ve done that in long-form content and it will continue to be our defining position. But for 2021, we’ll start bringing that ethos to a new way of covering news too. 

Mi3 news coverage overhauled

From today, you’ll see us do more with the industry’s daily news cycle in a format that aims to distil and quickly convey key points. Here's our approach to News: 

• News Analysis, which we launched a year ago, aims to get underneath the news, delving deeper into industry trends and issues.
• News Plus will see our editorial team explore key daily news announcements, interview those making the news and corral and curate industry viewpoints to go a little deeper.
• News will come in a sharp, fast format reporting of announcements, people moves, wins and strategic developments from brands, tech, media and agencies.
• Announcements can be sent to editorialteam@mi-3.com.au.

You’ll see News Analysis, News Plus and News descriptors and their colour codes throughout our website as part of the design overhaul. 

We’ve also redesigned our content verticals: 

• Reports + Analysis carries our longer-form pieces and News Analysis. 
• News + Views houses News Plus and News as well as standalone industry views. Our weekly industry contributors have proven hugely popular.
• Market Voice is the vertical which houses Mi3’s lifeblood – smart, native content from our commercial partners which in many instances is as popular as editorial. Without our commercial partners, there is no Mi3 and audience support and feedback is incredibly important for those initiatives.
• Podcasts and Mi3’s Video & TV series are our final two.

Take a tour, knock yourself out with smarter industry knowledge. We’re all going to need it. 

Industry talent and knowledge must keep advancing

Now, back to the macro for a moment. 

So much is to play out this year on so many fronts – marketers and brands have real pressures and opportunities within their companies to better articulate and prove marketing’s contribution to enterprise. Likewise for the marketing supply chain right across media, tech, agencies and advisors. 

If the marketing industry is to remain vibrant, progressive and important to broader industry and business at large then the quality of thought, understanding, conversation, debate and professional talent in our industry must keep advancing. Our intent at Mi3 is to contribute to a smarter, sharper and sustainable marketing sector. 

So, it’s with great delight – and relief – that we’ve invested in our editorial team to help us get there in 2021. 

New Editor, Contributing Editors join Mi3

Brendan Coyne has been appointed Mi3 Editor, joined by new Contributing Editors Nicola Riches and Andrea Sophocleous. All of them have been journalists for 15-20 years across a broad range of sectors including telecommunications, media, music, energy, food, electric vehicles and consumer lifestyle. And they’ve all, at various points, covered the tech, media, advertising and marketing sectors in Australia. Brendan has been part of Mi3 from its launch, operating in the background with his formidable writing and editing capabilities. He, Nicola and Andrea now officially join Mi3 Senior Writer Josh McDonnell, who started this time last year. 

It’s incredibly difficult to find and build an editorial team with experience across Mi3’s core industry sectors so I’m particularly chipper that we’ve got the team we have now.

And that’s the good news. There is one caveat: Brendan and his Australian-English family are returning to Australia from the UK. So it’s a considerable stretch to say Brendan is working from home at present but let’s run with that. We hope to have him to be on the ground in coming months. On the flip side, we are now genuinely operating 24/7.

As contributing editors, Nicola and Andrea will continue in their other editing and advisory roles but bring their considerable experience to Mi3 every week.   

You can read-up on the bios of our editorial team here.

Finally, send any news or contributions to editorialteam@mi-3.com.au and let us know what you think of the revamp. Here’s to a smarter, new and improved 2021!

Paul McIntyre

Executive Editor