You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Octopus Publishing Group has announced promotions and a restructure in its publicity and marketing department with both Matt Grindon and Megan Brown stepping up to more senior roles.
The department will now consist of three hubs — marketing, publicity and campaigns — to “reflect the specialist skillsets within the team” and an increased ambition beyond individual title campaigns, the publisher said.
Grindon is promoted to marketing director while Megan has become head of campaigns within the newly restructured department. Both continue to report to group publicity and marketing director Caroline Brown.
Octopus launched its joint publicity and marketing team in 2014 to reflect its “360-degree approach to campaigns with a dedicated communications team of two people working on every title,” the publisher said. “This holistic approach to campaigns remains at the heart of Octopus’ publicity and marketing but now sees that elevated with an additional emphasis on growth in content creation, communities, direct-to-consumer activity and brand partnerships across the list.
“Projects include the recent Nourish & Inspire x AllBright collaboration which saw a week-long series of events with wellbeing and self-development authors from across Octopus’ imprints, and the upcoming Cookbook Confidential and Fane series of virtual cookalongs launching this autumn.”
In the marketing team, Grindon (pictured, right) who recently won a BMS Award for his work on Florence Given’s Women Don’t Owe You Pretty will continue to focus on digital marketing, consumer insight, content creation and direct-to-consumer activity. Reporting to Grindon, campaigns manager Charlotte Sanders will additionally focus on social media, data analytics and platform development.
In publicity, PPC Award-winning deputy head of publicity Karen Baker and senior publicity manager Vik Scales will work alongside Brown to lead publicity campaigns on titles working across all imprints. Major campaigns lined up for the autumn include Troy Deeney’s memoir and cookbooks from Wagamama and Monica Galetti.
In the newly-created campaigns hub, Brown and campaigns officer Hazel O’Brien will continue to work on title campaigns but will additionally focus on growth across Octopus’ dedicated consumer communities including Cookbook Confidential as well as their social platforms. This will include activity across their newly launched dedicated website for booksellers and dedicated Twitter feed for booksellers.
Additionally, Rosa Patel joins the team as publicity and marketing assistant supporting across all department functions.
Anna Bond, m.d. at Octopus, said: “‘It is a joy to see the creative energy in Caroline’s publicity and marketing team. This new structure recognises the ever changing needs of our authors, consumers and booksellers and enables us to join them up to ensure that every book that we publish reaches the widest possible audience.”
Brown commented: “It’s an incredibly exciting time to be at Octopus. We recently announced the new structure across all our imprints and now is the perfect moment to upscale our publicity and marketing ambitions alongside that. We pride ourselves on our 360 approach to campaigns and this new structure allows us to grow that even further.”