Precise Digital’s Founder & CEO Michael Giles Discusses the New Zealand and South Pacific Markets

Can you discuss the journey of Precise Digital from its inception to becoming a global distributor for musicians and artists? What inspired you to establish Precise Digital, and how has the company evolved over time?

In 2020 I theorized the idea of starting a music distribution service as I could see there were a lot of local opportunities and under-represented artists that we could help. Prior to us becoming a full-fledged distributor, we had already been working with a lot of local artists and labels on the YouTube side to help them optimize and grow their channels. So covering distribution seemed like the natural progression for us, since we’d built strong relationships with many leading local artists.

I spent years learning and researching how the music industry works operationally prior to launching our distribution offering. Early on, I realized it was important for us to have a unique point of difference in what is a very saturated space. It’s always been important to me that we’re continuously adding value to our clients and in frequent communication with them. This creates a much healthier long term dynamic with artists so they don’t feel like they’re just another number.

Since inception we’ve had a highly curated model. We know our catalog and artists well and work with them all closely. This allows us to better support our artists and identify growth opportunities. Over the past few years, we’ve quickly become the independent market leader in New Zealand. We’ve also grown significantly in the United States, Australia and South Africa. Precise has been in stealth mode over the past couple of years. 

As the CEO and founder of Precise Digital, what values or principles guide your decision-making process when it comes to supporting artists and shaping the company’s direction? How do you balance commercial success with artistic integrity?

Decisions I make are always thought about with our artists and our organizational integrity in mind. We are a true artist focused company that doesn’t have the same corporate red-tape as many other organizations. Transparency, flexibility and honesty are important values to me.

We don’t want to disrupt the creative process of our artists. Precise intends to primarily be a service provider. All of our artists have complete freedom and creative control. We’ll make suggestions around actions artists can take, trends and release planning. But authenticity is key in music, and we never want to disrupt that. So if an artist wants to release a song tomorrow (although we’d probably advise against it), we won’t hold them back from doing so. Precise works for its artists, so we are here to support any direction they want to go in. Artists know their audience best.

We’ve had great growth in our business over the past few years while maintaining an extremely curated model. I realize the importance of not over-scaling or taking on too many clients that we can’t properly add value to. By operating this way, it’s also allowed us to mitigate fraud on our platform. Across DSPs, we have very few copyright or fraud related issues on our catalog.  

I’ve always done things my own way and like to challenge industry norms. Our growth has not stemmed from a large investment strategy. We’ve gotten where we are now by having a genuine, non corporate approach and word-of-mouth advertising. In our local market, that’s essential. Precise is certainly a disruptor in the industry. That word often gets overused, but it is true in our case!

Can you discuss the unique characteristics of the New Zealand music market compared to other regions, especially in terms of consumer preferences and streaming behaviors?

New Zealand is a unique market that is often misunderstood. One of the big misconceptions many DSPs have is that Australia and New Zealand are one of the same. Both markets are very different. Australia’s market for example very closely mirrors the US, however New Zealand has a lot more consumption across regional & local music.

New Zealand is home to the largest population of Pacific people in the world. So there’s significant consumption of Māori, Samoan, Tongan and Fijian music in New Zealand. Overall, the most popular genre in New Zealand is Reggae which has many subgenres and styles. We’ve also seen significant growth across Country and Afro-Beat locally.

The vast majority of music consumption locally comes from Spotify & YouTube. On YouTube New Zealand, we typically represent 20-30% of the top 100 most streamed songs, often more than any of the major labels. Most often, local music has longevity and is consistently streamed over a long period of time.

How has Precise Digital contributed to the growth and recognition of independent artists from New Zealand on a global scale, particularly in the context of digital platforms and technology?

It’s been amazing to see the global success of many of our key artists. We have a number of locally based artists that now have their biggest streaming audience in the US and other parts of the world. Sons of Zion for instance are one of the most recognizable names in music locally, but their biggest streaming audience is in the US. There are a lot of synergies between New Zealand and Hawaii. We work to push priorities to more US based platforms like Apple, Pandora & Amazon and have a good understanding of what music will perform well in these markets.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen that local music has grown significantly in popularity all over the world. We’re big on sharing information and knowledge with our artists to give them insights into where their catalog is trending and performing well to help them understand their audience better. Our team is always looking to spot smoke-signals where our catalog may be gaining momentum. 

What trends do you foresee shaping the future of music consumption and distribution globally? How is Precise Digital adapting to stay ahead in this rapidly evolving landscape?

The music industry has been majorly democratized. Fans very much pick the hits now, which I think is healthy. On the DSP side, I think we’ll continue to see a shift-away from manual curation and an increase in algorithmic playlists. Traditional music marketing has changed completely. Now more than ever, growing and maintaining an organic fanbase is crucial. I also think we’ll continue to see more of an emphasis on “Premium” content and a shift away from pro-rata payout models on DSPs. One potential area of concern is growing consumption of short-form content. Over time we’ll see the effects of this on consumer attention spans.

We’re working on additional products and services to help our artists better monetise their audience, and continuing to refine our technology and infrastructure to give our artists the tools they need to succeed. One of our biggest strong points has been on the market intelligence side. We’re always assessing where consumption is moving to and doing a lot of research into regional market trends around the world. I think regional and local music will only continue to grow in popularity, and we’ll see emerging markets like India generate more over time.

With over a hundred local Samoan artists signed up with Precise Digital, how do you see the role of digital distribution platforms like yours in empowering and amplifying the voices of underrepresented communities within the New Zealand music industry?

I’m really proud of the work the team and I have done that has changed many lives. We have artists based in Samoa, Fiji, Solomon Islands and other Pacific islands. Previously these artists were not supported by any platforms or distributors. Many of our artists had a lot of music that had never been uploaded to streaming platforms, since Spotify and other platforms had historically not been available in many of these islands. In these markets, YouTube is the most universally accessible platform.

The first ever Samoan artist we signed (Mautoatasi) called us when he received his first payment crying and thanking us. He thought it was just a one-off payment, but we explained that it was a monthly payment. 

We’ve had quite a few clients who actually wanted us to take a higher percentage of their royalties because they could see how involved we are. I don’t think many other companies could say the same, and it speaks volumes about the results we are able to achieve.

A thousand NZ dollars goes a long way in countries like Samoa & Fiji and makes a huge difference. Not only for the artist, but for their entire families. The work we do supports the livelihoods of hundreds of artists every month. This is why it was crucial for us to create a reliable payment system that artists can trust. We pay all of our clients at the same time every month. I’m a fan of the artists we work with, in an artistic and personal sense.

Could you share some insights into how Precise Digital optimizes content and engages with streaming platforms to maximize exposure and revenue for New Zealand artists, considering the nuances of the local market?

It’s certainly not a one size fits all approach for us and our goal is to maximise any available opportunities for artists. We do a lot of work on the rights management side to ensure our artists rights are protected and that they’re collecting all of their fair dues. When we onboard a client, we’ll do a full audit across their catalog to find unclaimed UGC on YouTube, Facebook and TikTok where they may be missing out on revenue. Precise engages frequently with Spotify, Apple, Vevo and other platforms to support our priority releases and garner better platform and editorial support.

Sometimes our work involves setting up a YouTube channel for an artist that doesn’t yet have one, ensuring all of the lyrics are synced across platforms, growing and building playlists for the artists and creating visual assets for their releases & artist profiles.

Many artists have profiles on Spotify, Apple and YouTube that haven’t been optimized. Our team gets stuck in and optimizes this for all of our clients and then works with our DSP partners to drive additional growth and to maximize any opportunities that are available. 

We also work closely with local organizations like NZ On Air to help with government funding opportunities that are available to artists. Precise also collaborates with Recorded Music (on the neighboring rights side) and APRA/AMCOS on the publishing side to ensure our artists are onboarded with these organizations.

We have an in-house team that works to create content (like lyric videos and visualisers) for both new and catalog releases. We also have a content and recording studio at our headquarters. Our team helps to record music videos and other content for our artists. It’s a resource that comes part of our service at no additional charge.  

We have also built a number of dedicated brands for regional artists like Precise Samoa, Precise Hawaii, Precise Fiji and Precise Tonga to better support our partners. 

Lastly, working with Merlin has been hugely important for our business and we’ve learned a lot along this journey. The transparency and access Merlin provides is second to none. I’m a massive supporter of the positive impact Merlin has on the industry as a whole. We’re appreciative of all the opportunities that Merlin has provided us, which has truly allowed us to control our future.