Guy Wingate

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Guy Wingate, FRSA is a pioneering British brand strategist. Born on June 10, 1967 he was educated at University College School alongside fellow innovators such as disk jockey Judge Jules - both held their first club night on the same day in 1983, Wingate at a fringe theatre and Jules on the top floor of a well-known pub. Wingate went on from there to build a career in successful London club nights, particularly through nights at the infamous Wag Club in Wardour Street.

During this time, he was approached by fledgling pirate radio station, Kiss FM (now known as Kiss 100) which had started sporadic weekend broadcasts several months earlier in South East London. Relatively unknown at that point, Kiss were desperate to gain credibility and publicity and asked Wingate to become involved in building up the marketing profile and publicity of the station. Through a series of highly successful club nights and the launch of the UK's first free music magazine, Kiss became a high-profile respected presence on the London music scene boasting an impressive line-up of DJs such as Jay Strongman, Coldcut, Trevor Nelson, Jazzie 'B' and Judge Jules.

Whilst at Kiss, Wingate signed a record deal with Chris Blackwell's Island Records where he not only released many singles but was also responsible for penning and producing those for others under a series of different pseudonyms. His music career also encompassed many soundtracks and title music sequences for the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and MTV television networks.

After playing an instrumental part in the successful licence application for the station, Wingate quit Kiss to become editor of what was then the subscription only Mixmag magazine. Alongside co-editor and later disc jockey, Dave Seaman, the magazine gained full distribution and jumped in circulation to 80,000 copies when Wingate pioneered the first-ever Music CD give-away in 1990.

After leaving MixMag, Wingate went on to pursue a career in television, working for Jonathan Ross' production company, Channel X, where he co-created the cult UK music series Hypnosis, the first music television show to feature DJ mixes as the soundtrack to the show. Wingate went on to produce and direct many television shows, advertisements and music videos.

In 1993, Guy was hired in by the United Nations on a consultancy basis to create a global subliminal Land Mine awareness campaign. At the time, the ongoing and devastating effects of land-mines were not widely known and the campaign successfully attracted the attention to the problem of key public figures such as Diana, Princess Of Wales.

In 1994 EMAP PLC, who had recently acquired Kiss 100 brought Guy back in to form and head-up a new television unit. The challenge that they set down was to interpret their iconic magazine and radio brands onto television - masthead television (as the concept was then called) was the golden goose that the TV industry were all chasing. The project nearly fell at the first hurdle when the UK television regulator, the Independent Television Commission ruled that such television would be unduly promoting its sister product (i.e. free advertising). Wingate negotiated long and hard with their lawyers and, through a technicality, managed to convince them certain projects could be launched. The first of these was to take Wingate's old brand, Kiss, and extend it onto television. Thus, masthead television and Kiss TV were both born at the same time and EMAP were in pole position to extend many other brands into the medium.

In 2000, Wingate was brought in to be the Managing Director of the Curzon Cinemas whose flagships, the Curzon Mayfair and Curzon Soho, were both refurbished and the brand revitalised back into being the UK's leading art-house cinemas.

Guy Wingate now spends his time advising key media and retail businesses on their rebranding and supporting business initiatives. He is married to radio broadcaster, Sarah HB, and has two children.