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Sony president of worldwide digital marketing Dwight Caines is being promoted to head the studio’s domestic marketing operation.
Official word that Caines has been offered the top gig comes only a day after the embattled studio showed Marc Weinstock, who served as president of worldwide marketing, the door. While Caines is expected to take over Weinstock’s domestic duties, Nigel Clark, who was promoted to president of international marketing, reporting to Weinstock, in 2011, would oversee Sony’s international marketing efforts.
Charles Sipkins, Sony’s newly named head of corporate communications, declined to comment.
STORY: Sony Ousts Marketing President Marc Weinstock
Caines, who joined the studio in 1997 as a director of market research, worked his way up through the ranks and was named to his current post heading worldwide digital marketing in 2008.
Sony Pictures Entertainment chiefs Michael Lynton and Amy Pascal decided to make a change in the studio’s marketing team following a downbeat summer where the studio fielded such major disappointments as After Earth and White House Down.
STORY: Sony Publicity Exec Steve Elzer to Exit
The studio’s poor performance took a further hit in July from Daniel Loeb, whose New York-based hedge fund Third Point has accumulated nearly 7 percent of Sony’s common stock. Calling the studio “poorly managed,” he blasted its corporate structure as “bloated” and specifically targeted “marketing budgets that do not seem to be in line with any sense of return on capital investment.”
Caines’ appointment and Weinstock’s departure reflects a larger executive shake-up that is taking place at Sony, where last week Steve Elzer, a 12-year veteran of the studio, announced that he is stepping down as senior vp media relations.
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