Senior Director, International Marketing
Warner Music Group
Jesse Coolbroth leads a team at Warner Music Group (WMG) in charge of marketing artists across all WMG labels outside their home territories. He says:
“My team is involved in breaking artists and repertoire from countries all over the world outside their home market and working with our 40+ affiliates across the globe. We work with big names including Birdy, James Blunt, Michael Bublé, Jason Derulo and Linkin Park.”
The international marketing team is based in London and runs promotional campaigns for artists across traditional, creative, online and social media platforms.
“We ensure that when we’re planning a campaign for an artist that the album cycle calendar is fully synched with planned promotional trips and the rollout of a digital strategy. If an artist is appearing in a top TV spot, we want to make sure that their fan base has been energised through social media and digital platforms beforehand to maximise its impact.”
Coolbroth cites the recent campaign for Jason Derulo as an example of his team’s work.
“We look after all of Jason’s activity outside the US. It’s an interesting challenge, balancing markets such as the UK, where the lifespan of a single is six weeks, and the US, where it can take four to six months to break a single. Jason is also established in Europe as a pop artist, whereas in the US he is more part of the urban scene, which means we use different singles and strategy to build his profile across all markets.”
The international marketing team supports Derulo’s overseas tours, helps manage his online properties and works to develop the promotional strategy with all major markets over the entire album campaign. The current Tattoos campaign saw Derulo top the singles chart in the UK and further break the top markets including Germany, Netherlands, and Australia.
A big remit for Coolbroth’s team is the globalization of local ideas, creative, and strategy.
“We work with so many respected local offices and labels, and a big part of our role is to take those local initiatives and make them available and adaptable for the rest of the world.”
This covers all aspects of a campaign from the IT functionality, creative builds, marketing tools, and strategic rollout from one territory or artist to the wider group.
Fortunately, Coolbroth has the experience and expertise to lead such a project. He first joined the industry in Los Angeles, where he got a job with Warner Bros. Records when he was straight out of university.
“I’d played in a few bands and worked in production studios, I knew music was my passion and I was lucky enough to join the marketing department at Warner Bros. Records before growing into the international department for five years.”
His career then took him to work for Warner Music Australia while he completed an MBA at the University of Sydney. After a short stint back in LA, he was offered the opportunity to take up an international marketing role for WMG in London.
“It was an interesting time to join that team as we were beginning to integrate digital and traditional marketing functions and expanding from covering just US repertoire to promoting artists from any country outside their home market.”
Today, Coolbroth spends less time on the road on promotional tours and more time developing the company’s marketing strategy to support the artists on its roster. He believes that artists have a lot to benefit from by signing up to WMG. He believes Warner can provide the best expertise in primarily two areas: artist development and international exploitation:
“We concentrate on artist development. We want to have relationships with artists through their third, fourth and fifth albums. We’re looking to build on a roster that includes such heritage acts as Eric Clapton, The Doors and Neil Young, and into modern headliners like Muse, Green Day, and Linkin Park”
Coolbroth also believes that artists seeking to build their fan base in a globalised world will still need to rely on local marketing knowledge.
“We have a global network that enables us to promote artists worldwide. We can find the right TV shows, the right press opportunities anywhere in the world. We always say, if you want to reach the coolest blogger in South Korea, or the hippest radio show in Japan, we can find them. That’s the difference working with a global company can make.”
