Today we’d like to introduce you to Adel Hattem.
Adel, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I began in the music industry quite young. I started a small magazine when I was 16, then, I worked for a radio station at the age of 18. My first label job was at BMG music in my early 20’s. After BMG I worked for Universal Music. I was offered a job at EMI Music Latin America in Miami in 2003. I moved to Miami from Mexico City in October of 2003 to head their marketing division for non-Latin music in Latin America. That job took me to 2013 when EMI was sold to Universal. I decided to leave the corporate world and start my own marketing agency based in Miami, but working with Latin America. When I started the company, the staff was basically me and one other person. Now, we are 6 in Miami (mainly women) with a small team in Mexico and Brazil.
Has it been a smooth road?
Starting a company is tough, especially after being in the corporate world for so long. When I decided to take a leap of faith and be independent, I had this vision of working with independent labels and artists who wanted to have a career in Latin America. I also wanted to be able to employ people who wanted to work in Music and teach them what I know. I did not know if I was going to be able to do it for a year, 6 months or 10 years.
I also wanted to have a marketing agency as marketing is what I am passionate about, rather than a label.
The first year was not easy, mainly because of the fear of the unknown and not having a salary for the first time. I have learned so much from this first year. Mainly about faith and trust. We have now been in business for over 5 years and when I look back at the beginning, I am so grateful for that first year.
Our main struggles after that first year were down to finding the right team. Our company is about people and connecting with people, The right team is essential for success.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the D Music Marketing story. Tell us more about the business.
Based in Miami, D Music Marketing is a music marketing company focused in marketing non-Latin Music in Latin America. DMM was Founded in 2013, by ex-UMG and EMI Executives, DMM has extensive experience in all the Latin American markets and a huge network of contacts. Artists developed in the region by the team range from Sharon Van Etten, Zedd, Moby, Arctic Monkeys, Father John Misty, and Garbage to Coldplay, Robbie Williams, David Guetta, Norah Jones, Katy Perry among others.
Our main focus is to grow the audience for each of our clients, with a specific set of goals, which are followed through and measured to give real and accurate results.
We are proud of developing careers for our clients. We worked very closely with The XX in their last campaign and saw them headline the biggest festivals in Latin America. We are proud of developing out of the box creative campaigns that help audiences identify the music we are working. We recently helped organize the Interpol launch from Mexico City which as streamed live engaging 200K people live.
I believe that our passion and commitment to our clients set us apart from others, as well as the experience in the filed. Each campaign is unique as it’s music. We believe that each action we take will have a long term benefit, and we view our campaign as “long term”. We have a strong teamwork ethic, we are practical, honest and humble.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
We see a lot of significant growth in the music industry thanks to the boom in the streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Deezer, etc.
We depend on the economies of the Latin region, so it’s hard to tell how the live touring business will shift in the next 5 -10 years. At the moment, there is a lot of opportunity for Live music.
The benefit we have is that Latin America is a young and passionate market, people love music and it’s one of the main markets to consume music via smart phones, which is very beneficial to what we do.
Contact Info:
- Address: DMusic Marketing
4770 Biscayne Blvd Suite 200
Miami, FL - Website: www.dmusicmarketing.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: dmusicmarketing
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dmusicmarketinglatam/
- Twitter: @dmusicmarketing
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/user/dmusicmarketing?si=b4xgZuu1QMekjiX419vXUA
Image Credit:
Toni François (Interpol Image)
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