NEW YORK Having conquered old media, Chris Di Cesare is now taking on new media as the first director of marketing at YouTube.
Di Cesare was formerly director of creative marketing at Microsoft. He accepted the new post two months ago, after spending 12 years at Microsoft, Redmond, Wash., working on the Xbox group.
Di Cesare helped launch Xbox and Xbox 360, and most recently helmed the biggest entertainment launch ever. Halo 3 generated $170 million in sales in its first 24 hours, outpacing not only any game ever launched, but also any movie ever launched. The record-breaking $333 million Halo 3 generated beat Spider-Man 3 and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Founded in 2005, YouTube was purchased by Google in November 2006 for $1.65 billion in stock.
“It’s a new position. We haven’t had a director of marketing. We really haven’t had much marketing efforts, period,” said a Google rep. Di Cesare reports to YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley.
Di Cesare has illustrated a firm understanding on the viral nature of the Web, which has made YouTube and its user-submitted media such a phenomenon.
This story corrects an earlier item, noting that the Halo 3 set the sales record.
Di Cesare Leads YouTube Marketing
