If you want your music to be streamed, get your music on playlists. To that end, Universal Music Group has named industry veteran Jay Frank to the newly created position of Senior Vice President of Global Streaming Marketing.
A former executive at CMT and Yahoo! Music, Frank is the founder of digital-only record label DigSin and DigMark, a digital music marketing company. A source with knowledge of the hire says UMG has acquired stakes in both DigSin and DigMark. Frank and his staff will remain at the companies’ Nashville headquarters.
Frank will report jointly to Michele Anthony, Executive Vice President of Recorded Music, and Andrew Kronfeld, President of Global Marketing. His role will be “to maximize the performance of Universal Music’s artists across all streaming platforms, evaluate the effectiveness of the company’s global streaming marketing efforts and identify opportunities for artists on streaming platforms,” according to the press release.
The hiring of Frank could give UMG an advantage in the world of playlists. UMG competes in the playlist market through Digster, a company that creates themed playlists featuring mostly UMG recordings. Digster goes against Sony’s Filtr and Warner Music Group’s Topsify. Third-party playlists, often created and maintained by unknown music enthusiasts, are a prime target of the promotion services offered by Digmark.
