Paul Delaney
Paul Delaney is a Scottish Entrepreneur, Publisher and SEO Professional based in Valencia, Spain. Paul has a three decade long track record of generating growth for brands in the Education, Travel and Leisure sectors.
Introduction
Paul has worked with and for a diverse range of clients and employers, from start-ups to PLCs, and has helped Education brands break £1million, £10 million, and £40 million revenue for the first time in their history. He has also helped businesses with multi-million pound losses turn their fortunes around in record time. Paul also performed as a DJ for over two decades under the stage name EL dEL and has released podcast mixtapes and track-remixes under that name and also as Club Madchester.
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 rugby in the Under-18 Scottish Cup winning team. Paul pursued a BA in Publishing at Edinburgh Napier University from 1995 to 1998, where he shone in commercial, design, and editing aspects of his coursework, allowing him time to nurture his business interests in parallel with university.
Paul later went on to study a Postgraduate Diploma in Digital Marketing with the Digital Marketing Institute in 2018, an UCLES CELTA certificate in 2003, and an Ableton Live Certificate in Music Production with Point Blank Music School in 2013.
DJing & Club Promotion
In the summer of 1995, Paul began working at the legendary Edinburgh club night, Madchester, and shortly after turning 18, he, and now-renowned DJ Chris Knight (Astrojazz), started hosting their own club nights. From late 1995 onwards, Paul worked closely with Events Armoury managing, promoting and performing at club events. He built up a nightclub publicity distribution service for them that stretched across 11 university and college campuses, as well large street teams, supporting the promotion of over 10 in-house events.
From 1996 Paul was the main DJ at Club Madchester, an event started by Steven Cummings in Shady Lady's, in The Mission, in 1994. Through the 1990s the event ran at La Belle Angele, The Music Box, The Jaffacake, The Gallery and other Edinburgh venues. In 1997 Mani of The 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 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 old movie and TV posters, Bee-Gees band photos and more— a pioneering approach to meme and mashup publicity more than a decade before it became a mainstream phenomenon.
Further pushing the envelope, the team 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.
A similar stunt by the promoters of Ministry of Sound gained national acclaim for projecting images on the Houses of Parliament nearly two years after it had been happening weekly in Edinburgh.
Career
Education Industry
In 1998 Paul took a job at Basil Paterson English Language school, acquired by the OISE Chain. After securing contracts worth six figures for the company, he accepted a sales and marketing role at the head office in Oxford in 2001. He pioneered the use of email and PDFs for materials, new technologies at that time, transforming the sales and marketing strategies of a £10 million multinational.
In 2003 Paul relocated to Valencia, Spain. He secured a teaching position, learned Spanish, and began freelance teaching. 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 chain's sales and marketing across Russia/CIS, North and 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 brand, with £3 million losses, 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 establish a multi-million pound revenue stream. In 2016 Paul took on Hallmark Property Group's struggling English language brand, part of their £500m+ portfolio, and using traditional and digital marketing, transformed it into a multimillion pound success in one sales cycle. Paul's team's efforts created of one of the largest international summer schools ever in the UK, attracting over 2000 students during a seven-week period 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 a shareholder in Seed and is the brand's Marketing Director. The organisational 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 Cummings, and others. The pair were early commercial adopters of social media platforms such as HighFive, 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 and Jez Williams from 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 - 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), Mark Morris (acoustic), Northside, and Tom Hingley from Inspiral Carpets.
Paul and Steven promoted Peter Hook & The Light's 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 Cummings ran infamous 'One Love' pre and post-gig parties for the Stone Roses' Glasgow concerts, after they reformed in 2012, including the final concert at Hampden Stadium. 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 weekend.
Throughout this period, Paul played at official post-gig parties for The Charlatans and 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. Again in 2018, as Stereo Revolver, on a bill that included Bentley Rhythm Ace, with James Atkins of EMF, who opened their set joining Paul on stage one-by-one and playing along with the last two tracks of 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. From 2015 onward only played in Glasgow.
In February 2018 the Club Madchester events stopped suddenly - 24 years after Steven Cummings started them in November 1994 at Shady Lady's in the Mission, Victoria Street, Edinburgh. 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. Paul and his friend 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.
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