Josh Greenstein’s Sony Marketing Makeover: 20 Layoffs, Danielle Misher, Damon Wolf To Co-Head Screen Gems & TriStar Marketing

EXCLUSIVE: A year and change after he left Paramount to become President of Marketing and Distribution at Sony, Josh Greenstein has reorganized his department globally. He laid out the details in an email just sent to marketing staff. Part of the change will mean that 20 of its 600 worldwide staffers are being laid off, and he’s elevated Sony execs Danielle Misher and Damon Wolf to become co-heads of marketing for Screen Gems, TriStar and Acquisitions.

All of this activity occurs before Sony and Tom Rothman launch Ghostbusters, Inferno, The Magnificent Seven, The Dark Tower, Passengers, Spider-Man, an animated Smurfs, The Equalizer 2, Resident Evil, Baby Driver, Trainspotting 2, Jumanji, and Blade Runner, the latter of which Sony acquired for foreign distribution.

The moves are meant to build up Sony’s international marketing operations, which already was underway with the hiring of Michael Horn to head international marketing, Louise Chater for strategy and research, Steve Peace for media and Paul Noble in creative advertising. Also hired were Joseph Liao as CMO in China and Stephane Huard as MD in France. Greenstein previously added Christine Birch to serve a cross-functional position to the domestic marketing team.

Greenstein has realigned the consumer marketing team so that the Consumer Products & Licensing and Marketing Partnerships & Promotions operate as stand-alone global functions. Heads of those divisions will be named shortly, and the rationale behind bolstering those units is to create revenue for the studio after films leave theaters in the areas of theme parks, slot machines and merchandise, and Partnership & Promotions drive theater traffic with initiatives from Happy Meals to other initiatives.

Here is the memo just issued to staffers:

Subject: Marketing Group Announcement

As you know, our industry continues to change in ways that impact virtually every aspect of our business. It’s an exciting time for all of us, but also a time that requires us to continually assess our operations and adjust accordingly.

We have already made a number of important strategic additions to support our international marketing efforts, bringing on Michael Horn in Marketing, Louise Chater for strategy and research, Steve Peace for media, and Paul Noble in creative advertising, as well as Joseph Liao as CMO in China, and Stephane Huard as MD in France. Today, we are announcing additional changes to strengthen our marketing organization in this competitive and rapidly evolving environment:

• We have realigned the Consumer Marketing team so that Consumer Products & Licensing and Marketing Partnerships & Promotions will each become a standalone global function. A strong, independent consumer products team, accountable for its own P&L, will help us better exploit the content we own by generating new revenues from our most popular IP. Consumer Products & Licensing will report to me and Marketing Partnerships & Promotions will dual report to Dwight Caines and Michael Horn.

• Our studio’s multi-label strategy remains a key component to our future success. To strengthen our focus on the campaigns across our specialty labels, we have named Danielle Misher and Damon Wolf as Co-Heads of marketing for Screen Gems, TriStar, and Acquisitions. They will continue to report to Dwight Caines.

• We have also added a cross-functional position to the marketing team to better unify our domestic campaigns. As our newly hired EVP, Domestic Creative Marketing Strategy, Christine Birch will work across advertising, publicity, digital, and creative content, to apply our overall campaign strategies across all consumer touchpoints.

This restructure has also included the elimination of approximately 20 positions in Marketing & Distribution. Even such limited consolidations are hard, and were not undertaken lightly, as we appreciate the efforts and contributions of every employee. Those whose positions were impacted have already been notified.

Our studio has an exciting slate to look forward to, including Ghostbusters, Inferno, Magnificent Seven, The Dark Tower, Passengers, Spider-Man, the all-new animated Smurfs, The Equalizer 2, Resident Evil, Baby Driver, Trainspotting 2, Jumanji, Blade Runner, and many others, as well as all the great work being done on local productions and acquisitions in markets around the world.

We have a fantastic team in place to market and distribute these movies across the globe, and to be very successful in the years ahead.

Thank you for your continued hard work and dedication.

Josh