For the fourth year running we have made it onto Campaign’s Best Places to Work golden list and despite growing our numbers by 41% in the past year, we have beaten our 2021 placing and have ranked as 31 in the industry and lucky 13th ‘small’ media company!
We asked our MD and a recent Harbour Collective intern to share their views on why MI is indeed, a great place to work….
Richard Slater, MD
It’s great to see that we’re featuring again in Campaign’s Best Places to Work awards. We have strived over the last year to maintain a positive working culture despite all the challenges that have been thrown our way. We will always put a high value on investing in our people to ensure that they feel part of an inclusive, positive, and motivating workplace. We genuinely care about keeping this at our core as we grow, so work never stops on this front; we have just introduced new initiatives around mental health and are about to move to a new office. Hopefully, our continued focus on keeping MI as place where people really enjoy coming to work, will keep us in this list for years to come!
Saul Wickremasinghe, Harbour Collective Intern
On day one, I arrived unsure of what to expect. My newly acquired Humanities degree did not appear overly related to the data-driven media solutions MI is so successful at delivering! However, quickly my reservations were dispelled. It was made clear that a role within the Planning team would suit my skills and interests. My capacity to work creatively and think laterally was encouraged from the outset, and upon arrival, the whole team was extremely welcoming.
I spent most of my internship working under Andy Brander, the Planning Director. Andy was always keen to educate me in the world of media planning and advertising more generally. I learned a lot in a short time.
My placement culminated in the ‘MI Media Planning Course‘. Two teams were given a live client brief and then asked to create a media plan from scratch. Given I had only been at the company a few months, this was a daunting challenge. However, senior management (and my team’s mentor Simon) were generous with their time and eager to provide advice and teaching throughout.
I leave MI Media, having learnt and laughed a lot!
We received a bronze WARC award in the Effective Channel Integration category and were one of only three UK campaigns to be recognised in this global award programme. Full details can be read on the WARC website.
The campaign was a huge success with the fundraising target exceeded by 55%. When looking back at their success, the team believe the following factors were critical to success:
Our strategy for growth was twofold. Firstly, a continued focus on the “business as usual” donor audience complemented by the deployment of an “agreed emergency framework” which outlined our emergency activation approach to maximise on response as soon as an emergency was announced.
We have given MSF the confidence that through increased investment it can continue to grow whilst maintaining efficiencies. The level of growth over the last 10 years has been transformative for MSF UK and through capturing all important learnings along the way we believe has scope to be continued well into the future.
Read about our incredible work with MSF in full on our case study page here.
Big thanks to both the MSF client team and Crafted for a spectacular team effort in winning this WARC award.
We are really pleased to announce our Currensea win, having secured the planning and buying for Currensea the UK’s first Direct Debit Travel Card (as quoted in Campaign). Currensea acts as a layer in front of a bank’s current account. This gives customers access to market leading exchange rates and means that they only pay when they spend abroad. In a volatile travel market, Currensea is changing the game and looking to drive rapid growth through giving customers ultimate flexibility, value and security for all their travel money needs.
Richard Slater, Managing Director at MI Media
“We’re delighted to be working with Currensea, our experience across the travel and finance verticals mean we’re a great fit. We’re confident we can help them achieve their growth targets this year, they have a great team in place and a unique product which offers excellent benefits to those returning to travel and holidays.”
Paul Foster, Marketing Director at Currensea
“Currensea is changing the game in the Travel Money market. We have ambitious targets as we all look to get back on holiday in 2021, and we look forward to driving that growth across all media in partnership with the team at MI Media.”
As the UK population craves trips abroad and welcomes the continued easing of Covid-related travel restrictions, Currensea launch on TV today (1st July) across Sky to deliver value, speed and security for all their customers’ currency needs when they can travel.
