Paul Delaney
Paul Delaney is a Scottish Entrepreneur, Publisher, and SEO Professional. based in Valencia, Spain. Paul has three decades of experience in generating growth for brands across the Education, Travel, and Leisure sectors.
Contents
Introduction
Paul's extensive track record includes a wide array of clients, from start-ups to PLCs, helping them achieve significant revenue milestones—breaking through the £1 million, £10 million, and £40 million marks for the first time. Additionally, Paul has a proven ability in turning around brands facing multi-million-pound losses, achieved in record times.
His academic credentials include a Postgraduate Diploma in Digital Marketing from the Digital Marketing Institute, a BA in Publishing from Edinburgh Napier University, an UCLES (Cambridge ESOL) CELTA, and an Ableton Live Certificate in Music Production from Point Blank Music School. Paul also performed as a DJ for two decades under the stage name EL dEL and has released podcasts and track-remixes under that name, also as Club Madchester and Stereo Revolver.
Early Life and Education
Paul Delaney was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. Paul was both academic and active as a child, and represented both his school, Trinity Academy, and Boroughmuir Rugby Club as a teenager. In 1995, he played in the Digital Under-18 Rugby Scottish Cup winning team. Paul pursued a BA in Publishing at Edinburgh Napier University from 1995 to 1998.
Paul later went on to study an UCLES (Cambridge ESOL) CELTA in 2003, an Ableton Live Certificate in Music Production with Point Blank Music School in 2013, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Digital Marketing with the Digital Marketing Institute in 2018,
DJing & Club Promotion at University
In 1995 Paul began working at the Edinburgh club night, Madchester, which ran from November 1994 until February 2018. Soon he and, now-renowned, DJ & Festival Promoter Chris Knight/Astrojazz started their own club night. From late 1995 Paul worked closely with Events Armoury managing, promoting or DJing at their numerous student club events. Paul built up a publicity distribution service that stretched across 11 university and college campuses, as well large street teams.
In 1996 Paul became the main DJ at Club Madchester, an event started by Steven Cumming in Shady Lady's, in The Mission, in 1994. Through the 1990s the night ran at La Belle Angele, The Music Box (later The Liquid Room), and other Edinburgh venues. The first birthday of the club, albeit in 1996, featured a live performance from Northside, their first since the collapse of Factory Records. In 1999 Mani of Stone Roses and Primal Scream joined Paul on stage and performed at the club's 5th birthday party in La Belle Angele.
Guerilla Marketing
During this period in the mid 1990s Paul and Steven unleashed guerrilla marketing campaigns that captured attention in national publications, featuring in International DJ Magazine and Loaded Magazine. Their innovative tactics included "photoshopping" the faces of Shaun Ryder and Bez from Happy Mondays/Black Grape onto movie and TV posters, old band photos and the like— a pioneering approach to meme and mashup publicity more than a decade before it became a mainstream phenomenon.
Further pushing the envelope, they employed students to place projectors in their apartment windows, which at night would display moving images of their upcoming event posters onto prominent historic buildings in Edinburgh. This not only secured local media coverage but also positioned them as avant-garde guerrilla marketers.
Career
Education Industry
In 1998 Paul took a job at Basil Paterson College, an English language school, acquired by the OISE Chain. After securing major contracts for the school, he accepted a sales and marketing role at the head office in Oxford in 2001, using email marketing and PDFs - then new technologies - to open up new marketing channels for the multinational.
In 2003 Paul relocated to Valencia, Spain. He secured a teaching position in a school, learned Spanish, and began freelancing. Paul returned to Oxford in 2006, managing agent and affiliate relationships for OISE and supporting promotion of six other brands. By 2008, Paul had moved to the Eurocentres Foundation, directing the Swiss chain's sales and marketing across Russia/CIS, North & Central America, and the Middle East. In 2011, Paul joined EAC Language Centres, acquired by TUI Travel PLC, and as sales and marketing director, was instrumental in the team that took the struggling giant back to an operating profit in one sales cycle.
Paul left the corporate world in 2013, relocated to Zurich and formed his marketing agency. Shortly after he helped AEC Education Group PLC open a new multi-million pound revenue stream for their brand Malvern House. In 2016 Paul took on Hallmark Property's struggling English language brand, and using traditional and digital marketing, delivered multimillion pound growth in one sales cycle, creating of one of the largest international summer schools ever in the UK, attracting over 2000 students, in summer 2017.
In 2020 Simon Gooch Founded Seed Educational Consulting, a company dedicated to providing study abroad opportunities to West African students, Paul is the brand's Marketing Director. The organisation has offices in six countries and representation in many others across the continent.
In 2021 Paul rebranded his marketing agency to Content Ranked to focus purely on delivering SEO projects for clients in the education sector.
Paul has recently also embarked on a new publishing venture with Rhys Southern, the Australian entrepreneur, SEO professional and public speaker.
Music Industry
Alongside his career in international education, Paul continued to promote and perform at events with Steven Cumming, and others. The pair were early commercial adopters of social media platforms such as High5, Bebo, MySpace, and Facebook, and built a significant following for their Club Madchester nights, with reach across Scotland, the UK and beyond.
The popular combination of meme style event publicity with Paul's innovative mixes mashing guitar music and acid house, resonated with the obsessive fans of the Madchester scene and soon there were people travelling from England for the event every month. Paul and Steven took a groundbreaking step by inviting artists from bands to DJ at their events, a first in the UK alternative club scene.
Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays and Tim Burgess of The Charlatans played their first club DJ gigs with Paul, both nights setting attendance and revenue records for The Liquid Rooms. Over the years their events in Edinburgh and Glasgow hosted an impressive roster of guest DJs from the UK's alternative music scene, including:
- Mani of the Stone Roses - Clint Boon of Inspiral Carpets - Peter Hook of New Order - Bez of Happy Mondays - Rick Witter of Shed Seven - Andy Williams and Jez Williams of Doves - DJ Dave Booth, the original Stone Roses DJ
Paul and Steven also ran 'after-show party' events with members of touring bands appearing, such as: - Terry Hall of The Specials - Steve Craddock of Ocean Colour Scene - Nigel Clark of Dodgy - Kyle Falconer and Kieran Webster of The View
They also promoted live music events featuring performances by notable bands and artists such as Stereo MCs, The La’s (acoustic), Shed Seven (acoustic), Chris Helme (acoustic), Northside, The Bluetones, Mark Morris (acoustic), and Tom Hingley from Inspiral Carpets.
Paul and Steven promoted Peter Hook & The Light's very first concert outside of Manchester which took place at The Liquid Room, Edinburgh, in 2011. The band, including Rowetta of Happy Mondays on backing vocals, performed the first Joy Division album and some tracks from their second album. This was one of the very first public performances of Peter Hook and The Light, footage is still available on YouTube and Facebook.
Paul Delaney and Steven Cumming ran infamous 'One Love' pre and post-gig parties for the Stone Roses' Glasgow Green concerts at The Admiral Bar in Glasgow. Again for the final ever Roses' concert at Hampden Stadium in 2017. These events featured performances from long-time collaborators Clint Boon, Dave Booth, and also the Stone Roses tour manager, Steve Adge. The parties were very popular, with online feedback overwhelmingly pointing to Paul and Steven's events as the best of the weekends.
Throughout this period, Paul played at official post-gig parties for The Charlatans, and also Beady Eye, alongside Alan McGee of Creation records. In 2015 at the first ever Shiiine On Festival, as Club Madchester, with one of the rooms being dedicated to the Scottish club night. He returned to the festival in 2018 as Stereo Revolver, on a bill that included Bentley Rhythm Ace, playing with James Atkins of EMF, who opened their set joining Paul on stage playing along with his DJ set. Paul also appeared at Edinburgh nights including FBI, Day Tripper, eXhibit Music, and Fabrika De Funk - opening for Ghetto Funk artists including Shaka Loves You, Sammy Senior, and DJ Detta. In 2014, Paul took a career break to care for his infant son, during this time, he continued to DJ, performing in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and guest slots in Switzerland alongside producer DJ Groovecellar.
The Club Madchester events stopped suddenly after 24 years, the final night took place at The Record Factory in Byres Road, Glasgow in February 2018. Trademark disputes and an acrimonious split had halted the Edinburgh events in November 2017, and it led Paul and Steven to abruptly dissolve their partnership in Glasgow. Paul later performed at a one-off event for the Official Madchester brand at The Liquid Rooms later that year, finally becoming an 'official' Madchester DJ, after two decades of keeping that style of music alive for fans across Scotland. In 2018, Paul and his friend, Glasgow's DJ Fran Tamburrini, launched the Stereo Revolver club nights. COVID-19 brought them to a halt.
Personal Life
Details about Paul Delaney’s personal life are primarily private, but it's known that he resides in Valencia, Spain with two sons.
Gallery
References and External Links
Stereo Revolver (and old Club Madchester) Facebook
Tim Burgess at Club Madchester
Peter Hook & The Light at Club Madchester
