The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

Music Marketing

Cornerstone expands London office and sets sights on Europe

Author

By Seb Joseph, News editor

April 13, 2015 | 3 min read

Creative agency Cornerstone is bolstering its London office with three senior hires as it looks to turn the region into its gateway into Europe.

Cornerstone_Cohen

Cornerstone co-CEO Jon Cohen says the London office will serve as its gateway into Europe.

Coming from all corners of the advertising industry, Cornerstone’s latest recruits reflect the agency's efforts to attract new talent to spearhead its international intent. Cornerstone prides itself on its understanding of music culture and the hires fuel efforts to both deepen this expertise as well as strengthen in the areas of fashion, film and technology.

Rob Mathie has joined the team as account director for the agency’s Coca-Cola and Diageo briefs after doing the same role at HeyHuman where he worked with brands such as Lucozade and Unilever. Former Adidas Originals activation manager Lawrence Ajayi has joined the agency’s Converse team though will also do project work across other accounts, while Cailan de Villiers has arrived as account coordinator.

All three will report to managing director Ollie Oshodi, who has grown the team to 15 and is credited with masterminding account wins in 2014 that included Coca-Cola and Diageo.

“A deeper trust” from its clients in 2014 is how co-chief executive Jon Cohen sums up how the agency has arrived at a point where expansion across Europe now makes sense. “We’re using [the London office] as a way to navigate all of Europe,” he continued. “It’s a great base for us to run everything we’re doing in Spain, Amsterdam and then the rest of the EMEA territory.”

Cornerstone’s growth belies the advent of a more sophisticated attitude to reaching younger audiences from some of the world’s biggest advertisers. It is this shift from the likes of Coca-Cola and Diageo, whereby it is more about the quality of content than the channel, that fuelled Cornerstone’s expansion into Brazil last month as well as sibling magazine Fader’s strategy for 2015.

Fader is a music and fashion media platform that the agency has expanded to help ease brands into the fast-paced cultures since it started publishing in 1999.

“In 18 years I don’t think we’ve ever been more relevant than we are now,” he continued. “As an American company we wanted to come to the UK and have respect and take our time to really fit into the culture. We all work in a global marketplace and our clients more and more are rolling out campaigns that are testament to that but you still have to have people that have been raised in the culture that you’re marketing toward.”

Music Marketing

More from Music Marketing

View all

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +