Brandon Frankel is taking a new position overseeing strategic partnerships in music at Cameo, the app and tech company that allows users to send each other personalized video messages from celebrities.
Frankel has spent the better part of his life working in music and entertainment. He started his career freelance writing for small publications at age 14, and secured himself an internship at Atlantic Records straight out of high school and later joined the company, first as a college marketing representative and the later working in artist development.
He joined CAA Nashville in 2010 to develop tour marketing campaigns for such artists as Zac Brown Band, Sugarland and Brantley Gilbert, before joining Windish Agency in 2014 to build the company’s brand partnerships department. He was eventually promoted to senior vp brand partnerships after Paradigm acquired Windish and later landed a spot on Billboard‘s 2017 Branding Power Players list. Frankel left Paradigm in late 2017 to start his own company, Contra Inc., and most recently was consulting for Sony Music Masterworks.
“I had been actively watching Cameo for over a year,” says Frankel. “I was so mesmerized by their direct-to-consumer approach that empowers celebrities to connect in such an authentic, meaningful way with their fans.”
Frankel tells Billboard he reached out to a friend at Cameo to learn more about the company, and after applying for several jobs finally found the right role handling strategic partnerships, helping the company build out its music vertical.
“I’ve spent my entire career figuring out how to help the artists I love build careers, and helping the fans connect with those artists,” he tells Billboard. “I’ve never seen a platform that is so positive, and brings so much joy to people. My girlfriend and I were sending each other Cameos well before I worked here.”
Frankel is focused on helping to expand the talent on the platform and find new ways to collaborate with brands, labels, agencies, studios and streaming services.
“The possibilities are endless. I’m so excited that we are able to maximize the time of celebrities and really help them to scale and monetize,” he tells Billboard.
Brandon has spoken at conferences around the world including MeCon at Harvard, South by Southwest, Pollstar Live, Selina SIMS in Medellin and ADE Mumbai. Frankel describes himself as the “artist whisperer” and negotiated a Calvin Klein deal for Yung Lean, booked Major Lazer for the opening ceremonies for the Cricket Finals in India and paired Kaytranada with the Adidas EQT Fall Global campaign and Chicano Batman with Johnnie Walker.
“A huge goal I have for my role at Cameo is to focus on further diversifying the celebrities we have on the platform,” he tells Billboard. “I just love that we work closely with our artists to make sure they get the most out of the platform. We will put a budget behind boosting their social voice because we believe in what we do that much”
