On partnership content

Dear Readers,

Starting today, you’ll find that all of our branded and sponsored content are tagged as TIA Partnership.

We’re making this adjustment to reflect our experience of working with the world’s most reputable brands. Over the last three years, we’ve developed trusted partnerships with them, creating a dialogue about content and positioning instead of having an “I pay, you publish” relationship.

Leading brands collaborate with us to develop stories that express their brand identity and value proposition. It’s something that excites us, and we’re grateful to help our partners achieve their communication goals through authentic storytelling.

But the integrity of our content and platform always comes first. If partners push us too far by putting business interests before quality or ethics, we don’t hesitate to push back or even walk away when we can’t strike this balance.

In short, our priority is to create genuine content with our clients – content that sparks your interest, content that brings you new opportunities and perspectives.

Below are some of the works that we’ve enjoyed developing with our partners:

• The smart tee – How well does it work? – with ASTAR
• How a media conglomerate stays relevant in the digital age – with Alibaba Cloud
• Meet these 5 Singaporean startups that solve problems for social good – with Temasek
• Why partnerships are key to Grab’s super app vision – with Grab
• From fisherman to business owner – with QuadX
• Shopee is developing the next generation of data science and AI talent – with Shopee
• A peek into the startup economies of Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia – with NTT
• Founders Face to Face, #InsiderStories – with Spaces
• Here’s how mini programs are impacting the tech scene – with WeChat
• How this Malaysian TV network is taking on the burgeoning esports market – with Astro

You’ll find that from their headlines to story angles, these co-produced materials are of similar quality as our newsroom content. That’s because our newsroom editors serve as the final gatekeepers of our partnership content.

While editing resources are shared, our newsroom remains strictly independent, working on premium stories for our paying subscribers.

We hope that this announcement helps clarify the small change we made. We take our work, our credibility, and our readers – that’s you – seriously. The trust we’ve built over the years matters to us – we protect it as fiercely as a lioness guards her cubs.

As always, thank you for reading Tech in Asia.

Sincerely,
Willis
Founder, Tech in Asia