Orion revamps marketing, homevideo wings
Having recently emerged from bankruptcy and moved corporate headquarters from New York to L.A., both Orion Pictures and subsid Orion Home Video were understaffed, according to insiders.
"When we moved from the East Coast to the West Coast, we lost a lot of people. This is just getting us back to speed," explained Susan Blodgett, senior VP, corporate marketing, for Orion Pictures.
"It is a revamping," added Herb Dorfman, senior VP of Orion Home Video, who rejoined the company in January. "We need to refill those positions and begin our growing process again."
Dorfman also hired Mack Tatarsky as Western regional sales manager, bringing the total of regional homevid sales managers to six. Tatarsky was previously a director of national accounts with Intl. Video Network and a regional manager for Lorimar Home Video.
Blodgett is also stepping up the marketing department, and promoted Suzanne Bouchard to director of marketing to focus on Orion Home Video. Also, she hired vet publicist Gail Block away from Rogers & Cowan last week (Daily Variety, April 27).
Blodgett also added Denise Quon to her staff as VP, media services. Quon is the new point person on ad placement via agencies Independent Media Services (for broadcast) and J. Walter Thompson (for theatrical), which was hired last month.
On Friday, JWT added Jennie Kofoed as senior media planner to handle the account. She comes from Backer Spielvogel Bates.
Aside from pending theatrical releases, "The broad picture is to take the ( 750-title) catalogue and maximize those revenues," said Dorfman. Homevid revenues of "Dances With Wolves" accounted for $ 13.4 million in revenues for OHV in the company's third quarter alone.
