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Sony appoints new global marketing advisor for One Direction
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 7 September 2012
So, it’s been a tricky few weeks for British boyband One Direction.
First, MTV shunned the boys and gave the Best Female VMA gong to Nicki Minaj, when they were clearly the worthy winners, and to add insult to injury Kanye West was nowhere to be seen to come to their defence. Then they lost in their legal battle to win the right to rebrand as Uncharted Shores. And, of course, main man Styles is no longer the most famous naked British Harry on the internet (perhaps next time he should make sure his naked photos are genuine).
All of which probably explains why the group’s label, Sony Music UK, has brought in a new Global Marketing Consultant to lead marketing efforts on behalf of the band who may have to start calling themselves Well Charted Shores. That consultant is former EMI exec Mark Collen, who has most recently been found running his own music consultancy Tideswell Media.
He worked with a plethora of famous and fantastic artists while at EMI, and also signed Starsailor, so, now you know. In his new role he’ll work closely with the boss of Sony/Simon Cowell’s Syco unit, Sonny Takhar, and the 1D management team at Modest to spearhead a global marketing strategy for the X-alumi-non (hmm, that was my attempt at creating a new word for ‘X-Factor alumni phenomenon’, but I possibly turned the group into metal in the process – well, that’s an idea for Collen to work on).
Collen will report directly into Sony Music UK top dude Nick Gatfield who told CMU: “Mark has managed global release campaigns for some of the biggest artists in the world. His experience and his depth of understanding of the international music market makes him the ideal executive to drive and maximise the potential of the One Direction brand. I’m delighted to welcome him to Sony”.
Collen himself added: “One Direction are rapidly becoming a global phenomenon; It’s a privilege to be asked to be part of such an exciting story and to work with Sony and Modest on a worldwide basis. I’m relishing the challenge!”
