HOW WE THINK ABOUT MEDIA
Reach is easy to buy.
Relevance is earned.
Media isn’t just a banner, a video or a billboard. It’s any way of reaching your audience at the moment it matters. So we don’t start with formats or impressions. We start with who you’re talking to, and what they’d actually notice.
No volume deals and no rebates means we’re free to pick whatever actually works.
Bring us a brief that needs this →Does your marketing feel like this?
Recognise any of it? Press the big orange button and watch what we do about it.
Sound familiar?
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We can’t tell what’s actually working.
MEASUREMENT PLAN
We agree what success looks like before a dollar is spent - the outcome, the baseline and the measures that lead to it. Then we report real impact, good or bad, not just what the platforms say.
“
Our agency is slow, and things slip.
ON TIME, EVERY TIME
Stretch, our AI infrastructure, documents every action. Call reports are automated, your client portal shows live work in progress, and the key insights land every week.
“
We pitched with the seniors. We got the juniors.
SENIOR TEAM
Five senior people with 50+ years between us. The people in the pitch are the people doing the work, from the first workshop to every quarterly deep review.
“
Every media plan looks the same.
INNOVATIVE WORK
Media is anything that moves your audience - a game, a TVNZ series, a sports partnership, a mural. We start with what we know about your audience and find the right moment.
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I’m not sure whose interests the plan serves.
TRULY INDEPENDENT
We take no volume deals and no rebates. Nothing flows back to us from media owners, so the only thing we’re paid to care about is your result.
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If we change agency, we lose everything.
YOUR DATA
Your data, your models and your client wiki are yours. If we ever part ways, you take all of it with you. No ransom, no rebuild.
“
The board wants proof before we spend more.
PREDICTIVE MODELLING
Your datalake combines every channel with outside data - the Official Cash Rate, weather, unemployment - so we can model what will work before you commit. We’ve built one for NZ Police.
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We want to build our own capability.
YOUR TEAM
We share everything we learn. Start with campaign management, move to a retained partnership, then plan and buy in house when you’re ready.
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We have sustainability targets to hit.
THE PLANET
We measure carbon per business outcome and plan out wasted media. A campaign should do what it needs to succeed, and nothing more.
MEET STRETCH
The AI that does the admin, so our people do the thinking.
Stretch is 81M’s own AI infrastructure. Every client gets one, built around their fence posts. It remembers everything, documents every action and makes sure nothing slips.
Your client wiki
Every brief, workshop, decision and result in one place. Nothing is lost when people change.
Automated call reports
Every meeting captured. Every action assigned an owner and a date.
Your client portal
Live work in progress your team can check any time, without chasing us.
Weekly key insights
What happened, what it means and what’s next. Short, on purpose.
It keeps us honest
An idea that doesn’t fit your fence posts gets stopped before it reaches you.
It spots opportunities
Something working on another 81M campaign that could reach your audience? Flagged.
Stretch.
Client portal preview
THIS WEEK’S KEY INSIGHT
Regional audio is driving enquiries at half the cost of social. Recommend shifting budget for the next flight.
WORK IN PROGRESS
Q1 media plan
With you for approval
Fri
Sports partnership brief
In progress - Lex
Wed
Weekly insights
Delivered
Mon
Measurement plan refresh
Booked for deep review
Mar
How we keep it tidy: four fence posts.
We document them first. Then our AI, Stretch, keeps us inside the paddock. An idea that doesn’t fit gets stopped. A better way to reach your audience, spotted on another 81M campaign, gets flagged.
Strategy
Measurement plan
Goals and KPIs
Audience insights
Your brief → a workshop to unpick it → the four posts → Stretch, your client wiki and portal → a year on rhythm, with a deep review every quarter → from month six, we push further: consolidating data, automating MMM and trying new things.
Take as much of us as you need.
01
Campaign management
We research, plan, innovate, buy, optimise and report. You get the outcome without the overhead.
02
Retained partnership
A senior extension of your team. Every campaign builds on the last, and your wiki keeps growing.
03
Your own capability
Plan and buy in house, if you wish, with your data, your tools and your AI. We stay on call.
WHO WE LEAVE BETTER
- TEC
- Firearms Safety Authority
- Ravensdown
- UCC Coffee
- L’affare
- Robert Harris
- Barnardos
- Paysauce
- Quinovic
- Institute of Directors
- StudyLink
- Experience Wellington
- Queen Margaret College
- Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga
- Lifetime Retirement Income
- NZ Police
- Department of Conservation
- KiwiRail
- WellingtonNZ
- City Gallery Wellington
- Hurricanes
THE CREDITS
Five senior people, 50+ years between us. The people in the pitch do the work.
Lex
Senior media planner and buyer
Sam Harris
Partner, measurement and performance
Grant
Managing Director, strategy
Kai
Media planner and buyer
Adele
Senior media planner and buyer
OUR VALUES
We give a sh*t. People first. Say the hard thing. Better every day. Make it matter.
Send us your brief.
One page is plenty. Tell us who you are, what the brand is, and what you’re trying to achieve. It comes straight to Sam, and we’ll come back to you with a few questions.
Fields marked * are required. A few lines is enough - unpicking the brief is what the workshop is for.