VEVO appoints new sales director

VEVO, the music and video hosting service owned by Universal, Google and Sony Music Entertainment, has announced the appointment of James Cornish as its UK sales director.

Cornish joins VEVO from Virgin Media and will be responsible for managing all aspects of the company’s UK sales function with an emphasis on driving and diversifying advertising revenues across digital properties and creating creative commercial opportunities around music videos and original content.

Cornish will also be tasked with furthering VEVO’s strategic partnerships with advertising and media agencies in the UK and will manage VEVO UK’s existing in-house sales team.

“I’m very pleased to welcome James to VEVO; his appointment marks a significant strengthening of our UK sales team,” said Hong Nguyen, general manager.

“James’ extensive skill and experience, particularly in the digital and connected TV space, will be invaluable as we continue to grow our sales opportunities and develop our long term strategy in the UK.”

Cornish, who starts this week, added: “I’m incredibly excited to be joining what is a fantastic team at VEVO. There simply isn’t another opportunity in market – with VEVO’s scale – to connect brands and advertisers with premium video experiences around the one of the most powerful and influential media – music.”

VEVO, which launched in December 2009, has been described as a Hulu for music videos. It attracts high-end advertisers, including the likes of Schwarzkopf and Mercedes Benz, with its video content syndicated across the Internet. Google and Vevo share the advertising revenue.