Having joined Motor Sport in 2012 as Head of Subscription Marketing, Gerard O’ Brien has been instrumental in transforming its marketing strategy from a predominantly print subscription focus to a portfolio of revenue generating products across app, website, merchandise, white label stores and events, say the publishers.
Over the last 5 years, Gerard has been a key part of creating and monetising the successful gated paywall around the Motor Sport digital archive, creating a tiered subscription product strategy and leading the development of the company’s single customer view and digital development.
Motor Sport is now moving towards a greater digital focus aiming to build on a core strategy around data acquisition, channel growth and monetization, and creative content delivery. Gerard, in his new role, will be responsible for the overall digital strategy and operations for Motor Sport as well as brand marketing, subscription strategy and pricing, monetising content, ecommerce, CRM leadership and a remit for developing new partnerships to extend the brand readership and engagement across the world.
With over 16 years’ experience of working in publishing, prior to Motor Sport, Gerard had senior marketing roles at several publishers including Haymarket Media Group, Informa Business Information, Perform Group & Sport Business International.
Commenting on Gerard O Brien’s appointment, Giovanna Latimer, Managing Director, said: “I’m absolutely delighted to appoint Gerard to this key role as Marketing & Operations Director. Thanks to Gerard’s leadership, Motor Sport is growing well in terms of non-traditional revenue streams and his passion for results and digital innovation, will be fantastic assets as our long-term growth and ambitions in the UK and the rest of the world.”
Gerard O’Brien said: “Consumers have raised the bar for brands and content providers, so I’m very excited about leveraging the brand towards a cross platform user experience and building audience growth by enhancing our digitally led content through the brands continuous passion for delivering premium products and services.”
In addition, Motor Sport says that the marketing team has been transformed and expanded to focus on digital, ecommerce and circulation. Sarah Fawcett has been appointed Brand & E-commerce Marketing Manager leading e-commerce, Joel Fothergill becomes Digital & Analytics Marketing Executive, harnessing his expertise in digital and SEO and Oliver Ring joins the team in the new role of Circulation Marketing Executive, focusing on the core areas of subscriptions and retail.
