Guest · Publishers and media owners
Martin Corke
Chief Marketing Officer, Bauer Media Outdoor
Martin Corke is Chief Marketing Officer of Bauer Media Outdoor. Thirty-three years across UK media, from magazine recruitment ads at Miller Freeman to digital strategy at News International to 13 years at what is now Bauer Media Outdoor. A sales veteran turned CMO, making the case for out-of-home as the oldest medium with the brightest future.
About
Martin Corke has spent thirty-three years in UK media, across every major transformation the industry has lived through. He began at Miller Freeman in 1993 selling recruitment advertising for an engineering title and has since held commercial leadership roles in consumer magazines, national newspapers, digital publishing and out-of-home. Since 2016 he has been a marketer, currently leading the marketing function at Bauer Media Outdoor as Chief Marketing Officer, a role he has held since 2019.
Corke’s career arc spans four media eras. Early sales roles at Miller Freeman and Personnel Publications (People Management) moved into six years at IPC Media, first as an Agency Sales Executive across the women’s monthly portfolio, then as Group Advertisement Director responsible for regional and insert advertising across more than 100 consumer titles, sitting on the IPC advertising board. A two-year stint at TDI Advertising (now Global Outdoor) selling poster packages on London Underground and buses gave him a first grounding in out-of-home as a category.
Three years at Associated Northcliffe Digital followed, leading sales across 65-plus websites, before a four-year stretch at News International that covered both the digital advertising strategy across thesun.co.uk and timesonline.co.uk and the Director of Digital Integration role leading the publisher’s multi-platform commercial transition. He was part of the team that launched The Times iPad subscription at a moment when the industry consensus was that no one would pay for digital news content. Twenty-five thousand subscriptions in the first weekend proved the consensus wrong.
Since 2012 Corke has been at what is now Bauer Media Outdoor, originally as Group Agency Director at Clear Channel UK leading national agency sales, through Sales Director, UK Sales Director and Managing Director of Storm (interim) roles, before moving to Marketing Director in 2016 and Chief Marketing Officer in May 2019. In 2020 Bauer Media Group acquired Clear Channel UK, rebranding it as Bauer Media Outdoor. In 2024 the business acquired Amscreen, bringing its digital-screen technology supply chain in-house with an explicit focus on reducing electricity consumption.
Career33 years
- 2019 to now Bauer Media Outdoor Chief Marketing Officer
- 2016 to 2019 Bauer Media Outdoor Marketing Director
- 2012 to 2016 Clear Channel UK / Bauer Media Outdoor Sales Leadership
- 2008 to 2012 News International Head of Digital Advertising Strategy / Director of Digital Integration
Show earlier roles: Associated Northcliffe Digital, IPC Media, TDI Advertising (now Global Outdoor), Miller Freeman, Personnel Publications, IPC South Bank Group
- 2005 to 2008 Associated Northcliffe Digital Digital Sales Director
- 1999 to 2005 IPC Media Group Advertisement Director
- 1997 to 1999 TDI Advertising (now Global Outdoor) National Sales Account Manager
- 1993 to 1997 Miller Freeman, Personnel Publications, IPC South Bank Group Early sales roles
How Martin thinks3 convictions
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Technology has been an enabler, not a disruptor
Every channel Corke has worked in has been through a digital transformation. Out-of-home’s version is the healthiest one. Screen technology, programmatic platforms, data-layered targeting and rising energy efficiency have compounded broadcast reach rather than cannibalised it. That, not nostalgia, is why Corke talks about out-of-home as the oldest medium with the brightest future.
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Brand and demand, not brand or demand
The pure broadcast-brand framing understates the medium. In retail environments, with programmatic data layered in, out-of-home can move short-term sales, footfall and conversion. Corke’s job at Bauer Media Outdoor is to push back against the false split: the best OOH campaigns deliver brand and demand simultaneously, and the case studies in the Outdoor Media Awards prove the thesis.
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Marketers must market marketing
Corke, a 23-year sales veteran who crossed into marketing at Bauer in 2016, argues that the CMO deficit is partly the marketing profession’s fault. A marketer has to answer "so what?" at the commercial level: does it sell more? Does it build reputation? Does it help win public tenders? Marketers who cannot answer those questions lose the top-table seat. Using technology, CRM and marketing automation to execute good ideas quickly, and to kill them if they are not working, is part of the professional standard.
