Celtic’s Head of Marketing and Multimedia quits her job

Kerry Keenan has announced that she is leaving her job as Head of Marketing & Multimedia at Celtic. 

Over the last nine years she has covered some incredible times, a second Nine-in-a-Row, an invincible treble, a quadruple treble and a close up view of the utter shambles that was the 2020/21 season. 

Working under the remit of an ultra-conservative board during the explosion of social media must have been something of a challenge with Twitter and Instagram replacing the Celtic View and match programme as the means to communicate with supporters. 

While there has been some improvements in how the club communicates it does seem that Keenan’s scope would be fairly limited with fan engagement viewed as a necessary evil rather than a brilliant opportunity to connect. 

According to Similar Web the official Celtic website attracted just 764,000 pageviews during April, a figure surpassed by at least three fan run websites that don’t have anything like the resources and access that the official club website has. 

Announcing her departure on Linked-In Keenan explained: 

After 9 seasons, 600 or so matchday days, many many summers spent in sunny Austria & more pressers, hashtags, broadcasts, events, Christmas films and campaigns than I can even remember my amazing time at Celtic Football Club has come to an end.

It has been a joy & a privilege and I would like to thank my excellent boss Adrian Filby for the opportunity and support through all the years. Also to Peter Lawwell for giving me the chance & to both of them for believing in me and pushing me forward and also my mentors Eric, Murdoch, Lena & Michael Nicholson for their guidance too.

None of it would have been possible without the support of so many people across the club, the football community and my family too. Its not always easy being a woman in football with small kids but it is always worth it.

I would also like to thank everyone that has supported me especially my amazing team who are the best in the business led by Fiona Smith Craig Johnston gerry mcculloch Paul, Chris & Peter.

Some of what we have achieved will live with me forever. Billy McNeill famously said there is a fairytale about this club & for almost a decade I got to live that dream. Thank You 

Over the last year or so there has been some fun with Celtic twitter, some memorable Christmas videos, but season 2020/21 was a perfect example of how not to engage. Tone deaf and read the room were two terms commonly used. 

As fans watched the club implode they were being told how everything in the garden was actually rosy with Gerry McCulloch and Peter Martin putting on the most outrageous spin to matchday commentaries. Tweeting birthday wishes to former players got some predictable and angry replies.

Knowing the way that Celtic prefer to work from within an in-house replacement is probably more likely than a new broom coming in to freshen things up, connect directly to supporters ahead of the old media that has declined rapidly in reach yet remains the favoured outlets of club information.