WEA Corp, WMG’s global distribution, marketing, sales and research arm, has combined its direct-to-fan and merchandise capabilities into one, newly formed division called Warner Music Artist Services.
The group will be led by Matt Young, who has been promoted to the new position of EVP, Warner Music Artist Services. Young, who joined the company in 2008, will report to WEA president Matt Signore.
“We are committed to constantly improving the services we provide to artists and I believe in this current environment, our newly unified structure will enable us to move faster and experiment more,” said Signore. “It’s no secret how amazing Matt Young is, I know he’s going to bring the teams together and drive this growing part of our business forward.”
The new division will bring together WEA’s entire ancillary rights operations with Artist Arena, which WMG acquired in December 2010. The Artist Arena brand will be retired, with all of the company’s staff moving over to the new group, creating a single team with expanded expertise and resources. As a result, Warner Music Artist Services will work with WMG artists and third party partners such as Shawn Mendes, Logic, and Coheed and Cambria, among others. The division will offer a comprehensive suite of ancillary rights services for recording artists, encompassing direct-to-fan e-commerce, fan-clubs, website design, ticketing, merchandising, marketing, account management, and data research & analysis.
“We’re evolving what it means to run an integrated artist branding campaign. We’re a one stop solution made up of the best Tour & VIP experts, branding specialists, web designers, CRM marketers, analytics teams and merchandise staff in the business,” said Young. I’m so excited to work with the artists and all the folks on this new team.”
Prior to joining WMG in 2008, Young held executive positions at consumer product companies Blue Grape Merchandising and Bandmerch, where he oversaw global brand strategies for artists such as My Chemical Romance, Linkin Park, Fall Out Boy and Snoop Dog. Prior to those roles, he founded and ran his own record label, Bush League Records.
