Monitronics on Friday announced that it is rebranding as “MONI,” which the company says is intended to reflect the beginning of a new era for the company in which they will be more tightly focused on meeting the needs of today’s smart home users. Also in a break with tradition, the company, under the new MONI brand, will be marketed directly to consumers and supported by direct-to-consumer sales and customer support.
According to Bruce Mungiguerra, senior vice president of operations at Monitronics, the company began working on the rebranding initiative in January as they started to think about where they were as a company and how they could adapt to meet the changing needs of consumers in the age of the smart home and the Internet of Things.
“For the last 22 years, we have been the ‘secret sauce,’ if you will, behind more than 600 or so independent alarm companies. Obviously that has helped us grow to over one million customers, so that model has worked well and served us well,” Mungiguerra says. “But as we’ve talked about what the next few years look like, moving into a combined dealer program and direct-to-consumer model was something we wanted to focus on and put some effort around.”
While the company may sell to consumers directly over the phone, Mungiguerra says MONI will not be taking potential clients away from their existing dealers; in fact, he says MONI dealers could see their customer bases grow as a result of the company’s increased marketing efforts.
“The majority of our dealers are in a direct, door-to-door business and not necessarily involved in direct SEO or Internet marketing with a radio or TV presence. We, as well as our dealers, really see this as a positive to help us generate more of a brand around MONI - so when they are at the door, they are going to be knocking now with a brand that is more well-known and has been in front of the customers in more situations than it has been in the past,” Mungiguerra explains. “We’re not going to have brick-and-mortar locations and be out door-to-door selling security. Our direct-to-consumer piece is really directing our brand out there and then passing off those leads off to our dealers to continue the sell and install.”
By selling direct to consumers, Mungiguerra believes they will create an even stronger brand for their dealers to leverage. For example, their recently inked national partnership with AARP and a new regional partnership covering 11 states with AAA will mean more leads for MONI dealers.
“Ultimately, for all of our dealers, a stronger reputation and better products and services create stronger packages for our dealers to sell. Another big focus for us in the brand change is building some large national partner programs so we can continue to grow the organization.”
Because Monitronics has more or less been a “silent brand” within the industry, Mungiguerra says they wanted to have a new modern name to go along with their new direct-to-consumer business model that they could build awareness around moving forward.
“The name ‘Monitronics’ seems like an older technology and we’re obviously now moving towards the new technology world in the Internet of Things, thus came the name MONI, which to us is a much more approachable, contemporary name and one that’s quite familiar to our employees, dealers and even our customers,” he says.
Over the next three months, Mungiguerra says they will be discussing the rebranding initiative with their dealers and customers and the reasons for it as part of an effort to raise awareness about the products and services they provide for potential upsell opportunities. “We’re definitely going to be pushing a lot more outward communication to our customer base than we ever have in the past,” he says.
Mungiguerra says they will also be making increased efforts to facilitate the transition of their dealers and end-user customers to the new connected technology landscape. “We think the market demands more customer service, more products and more industry leadership,” he says. “Given who we are with our size, we can provide that to our dealers to help ease that transition for them.
“Customers are definitely looking for that guidance on all of the IoT products that are out there today,” Mungiguerra continues. “We want to provide more personalization for those customers, giving them more control over their systems. We think that, through our dealer channel, communicating more of that information, testing more of those products and services, and pushing that down to our dealers to be able to offer those as well, we are going to be a stronger company and they are going to be a stronger independent brand.”
