HMV’s Graham Sim departs for Penguin
HMV’s marketing director Graham Sim has left the entertainment chain to join Penguin Books to work on brand strategy.
At Penguin Graham will lead the children’s marketing and publicity team and develop the division’s brand strategy as well as developing new business models to keep Penguin in line with the “fast changing media landscape”.
The rise of tablet devices and e-book readers such as Amazon’s Kindle are changing the publishing industry and Amazon revealed earlier this year that sales of e-books outstripped paperbacks in the US for the first time.
Sim is credited with leading HMV’s Get Closer and Waterstone’s Feel Every Word brand strategies and introducing HMV’s loyalty programme HMVPure, which won the CRM award at Marketing Week’s Engage Awards last year.
There is ongoing speculation that HMV Group may sell Waterstone’s. Its founder Tim Waterstone and Russian investor Alexander Mamut are among those touted as possible buyers.
HMV has yet to name a successor.
A spokesman for HMV says: “Graham has made an exceptional contribution to HMV and more recently Waterstone’s in the five years that he has been with us. We do, however, understand the appeal that he finds in working with another iconic brand that has a rich heritage, especially given his passionate love of books, and he leaves with our sincere thanks and very best wishes.
Sim joins Penguin Books as creative director of its Children’s Division 24 June.
