EMI MUSIC GROUP / CAPITOL RECORDS

Product Development, Marketing and Sales Initiatives

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Challenge

  • Grow topline US revenue, and global business, for the company’s largest US product development, marketing and sales division.

  • Maintain a maximum 20% Marketing & Promotion spend including all retail co-op.

  • Develop relationships with top-level global partners in order to create new product opportunities.

Solution

  • Utilized a “less equals more” strategy of reducing the annual product release output and placing focus on more strategic marketing for the products released.

  • Negotiated content and marketing partnerships with over 20 U.S. media partners for new products, programming, web content, and multi-channel promotion.

  • Developed new relationships with top global artist/content partners through presentations of new and improved business opportunities tailored to their goals.

  • Revamped the marketing and product teams by recruiting numerous staffers with improved marketing, artist relations, and global business experience.

Result

  • Grew topline revenues for the legacy content division by 25%, grew profits by 53%, while maintaining a lower annual marketing spend than all competitors.

  • Grew marketing reach by tens of millions of consumers by leveraging third-party companies’ marketing budgets, while keeping our percentage of marketing spend within budget.

  • Developed a dozen globally released projects with David Bowie/RZO Management, a new Rolling Stones project that sold over 1 million units in the US, and a Beach Boys project that sold over 3 million copies globally: the best-selling album in their 50-year history.

  • Led a 10-person team utilizing innovative consumer marketing strategies, while aligning goals with the EMI Sales team, resulting in our setting EMI global sales records 5 years in a row.