Allison Varone (Campari America) | From Spritz to Strategy: Building Culture-First Brands

21:56Jim Stengel:Sure. And we talked about your tequila a minute ago. Espelon's also on quite a growth curve. How is that story different or similar to Campari and Aperol? Has it been a very different playbook or a bit similar? Yeah, Espelon's been an amazing success story for us. I mean, everyone knows the growth of tequila in the US. I mean, Espelon has been a great driver over several years. So not nearly as an old brand the way that Campari obviously and Aperol is. But Espolon is different because it really was developed in Mexico, really going after what we say is a tequila for the people. It's really a tequila that has an irreverence and it has a creative edge and style that people really resonate towards.

22:40So we've been enjoying that. And I think that what's fun about Espolon is that we can inject some humor and inject some levity. And we have these icons, which are Ramon and Guadalupe, which is some of the characters you can see on our bottle. So we have fun with them as characters, icons of the brand, and we bring those to life in different ways. So yeah, that's really been a really fun brand for us over the years. And we have strong equity and people really, really love that brand. Consumers gravitate towards it.

23:05Jim Stengel:But the way you execute would be very similar for that brand as you have done for Campari and different story, different origin, but consistent execution. Consistent execution. Yeah. And I think the difference between, not difference, but I think what we lean in for Espelon is, I think there's much more, we lead the programming to be culturally relevant in a different way, right? We have like, our tone of voice for Espelon, as I was mentioning, is more irreverence, more kind of counterculture, a little bit more humorous, right? So we're able to activate it in different ways. So last year, We actually did like some drone shows to kind of celebrate the end of summer, remind people to drink margaritas even in the fall.

23:46Right. So we have some levity that's a little bit different and a little bit of a humor in the tone of voice, which we think is fun. Definitely different than the other brands.

23:54Jim Stengel:Now, we said you came to Campari about two years ago. After 12 years, almost 12 years at LVMH, you know, the most admired luxury brand company in the world. What compelled you to leave that monster in a good way and come to Campari two years ago? Yeah, I mean, I had a great run at LVMH. I mean, I learned so much there in terms of, you know, true luxury lifestyle brands. And I really learned so much there in terms of how to build long-term equity and emotional connection with consumers because, you know, luxury is really about emotionally connecting with consumers for them to pay, you know, high amounts of money for obviously, you know, products, right.

24:36So I was drawn to the opportunity here, I was actually drawn to the culture of the brands, I was drawn to the culture of Campari, I'm Italian American myself. So it was a little bit, you know, easy journey for me, kind of felt a little bit like home. And I actually have a funny story when I was mentioning before, I spent my teenage years, some of them in college, and I lived in Italy for one year during my university studies, is I loved Aperol and it was not in the States. It was not in the States. So I would bring it in my suitcase every single time I would come back from Italy, which was, you know, I'd go to Italy maybe two or three times a year.

25:12I have close friends there. And I was just so happy that when I finally came here. So I have a real emotional connection to the Aperitivo brands, which, you know, brought me over here as well.

25:23Jim Stengel:I love that. Now, the approach to brand building into two cultures, Campari and LVMH, would you say it's similar? What could they learn from each other? I think it's, I mean, similar in the sense of we have a lot of iconic brands here that are rooted in history and similar in the sense of we were able to bring those brands to life in the U.S. in a culturally relevant way, while still obviously paying homage to the history, right, and the provenance of the brands. So I think there's a lot of similarities. I think it's just a very different space when you're talking about luxury versus, you know, a premium sector, which we're in here at Campari, right?

25:57And I think that what's been nice is, is I think that, you know, we're in changing business times right now, obviously, the economic environment, political environment, but also, you know, consumer habits are changing. And I think that Campari is well positioned for growth with our diverse portfolio that we have in the current environment.

26:24Jim Stengel:you were promoted about a year ago to head of marketing what's been your focus allison since that promotion over the last year your personal focus yeah i think personal focus is we have a lot of brands here at campari so prioritization is a big piece where do we put our money where do we put our energy behind the biggest pieces of business which i think we're doing now also about as i mentioned before having the team stay ahead on cultural relevancy is a big one, how to make sure that we're programming the brands and speaking to the consumers in the way that they want to receive, as opposed to being so brand focused, but more consumer focused, occasion focused, making sure we're fitting the brands into people's lives where they're at, at the given time.

27:05So I think that's been kind of the big focus for us.

27:08Jim Stengel:You have over 50 brands, which I didn't realize before doing my research. How do you decide that focus? I mean, I know it's a company decision, it's a team decision, but wow, I mean, you have to be thinking about what you could make something of, what's on trend, what's maybe undiscovered. So what's the next Aperol? So how do you do that? It's a constant challenge and it's a constant discipline that we foster here. Some days are easier than others, of course. I would say, I think the scale of the business has a lot to do with the decisions that we make. We can choose to do things on a small piece of business, but it won't necessarily.

27:46how big is that business and the effort that it requires? Is it going to really impact our company growth in any way? And if the answer is it's not going to have a material impact on growth, then we have to question, is it worth it? So I think that's the lens that we have is about how big is the opportunity or how big could it be to make a decision if we do action something or not?

28:12Jim Stengel:Do you have a favorite undiscovered gem in your portfolio? Oh, that's a great question. We have a lot of beautiful brands that, you know, are what we call kind of darlings in the portfolio where they're not so big, but they are lovely brands. Appleton Estates is a great one. It's one of our rum brands. We don't talk a ton about that, but it has such history. It has, you know, it has a brand that's over 275 years old, female master blender, Joy Spence. So that's beautiful. Our Jamaican portfolio in Appleton. And then we have a couple of small brands, Monte Lobos, Anche Reyes, which are these smaller agave-based brands that help us, obviously, elevate our tequila business, but are just delicious brands that people forget that we have.

28:53And it really is all about craft, and people are always surprised that we have some of those brands in our portfolio, but they're beautiful.

29:00Jim Stengel:What are you most proud of over the last year? I think my team has done a really good job of putting the brands in culture as best we can and picking what those moments are. So I think I'm very proud of the team being on the pulse of what's cool, what resonates, you know, and what's going to put our brands at the forefront of chatter and awareness. You have a crazy ecosystem to manage it. I think I read you do 3 ,000 events or activations a year. More than that, almost 7 ,000. Yeah, it's huge. So how do you manage that ecosystem? With so many brands, certain brands are obviously more active than others, but we have wonderful partners, I will say.

29:40It's about bringing on the right activation partners throughout agency model because we're not big. No one can have that many staff to do all of that, but we have great partners. And we're very lucky that people love to work on our business. And if you have partners that love to work on your business, and it's a fun business at the end of the day. It's a hospitality business. It's fun. It's never dull. It's social. So we're very lucky to have a lot of partners to help us drive all of that throughout the year.

30:08Jim Stengel:What's been more challenging this past year than you might have imagined? Always a challenge of prioritization, as I mentioned before, really being disciplined. And I think the challenge is staying on top of all the changes that's happening out in the world, all the trends, discussion about consumers, news coming out of people are not drinking, they are drinking, they are drinking less, they're drinking mindful. I mean, we grew all of that of what is really the crux of the changing consumer habits and how do we fit into that. That has been a challenge, but it's also dynamic and it's also makes it fun because that's our job is to take the challenge on and figure out how to grow our business through that.

30:49Jim Stengel:Yeah, there's I mean, there's lots of press about the category. I mean, it's hard to pick anything up this these days and not read something about your category. What do you do with your team to kind of keep the confidence up? You know, they're reading a lot of heavy headlines and stories. It's obviously an enormous category in this market and globally, and it's been around forever. But what do you do? How do you talk about that stuff? Do you talk about it frequently? Yeah, we do talk about it frequently because we have to be on the pulse of what's happening out there in the world. But I think for us, we celebrate what we're good at.

31:23We celebrate what we're good at. But, you know, I mentioned the Academy as an example, right? We are really, really good in the on trade and we have a real equity in the restaurant bar business in the United States and globally, right? And that has been consistent and that hasn't changed, right? So even though maybe there's some changes in consumer habits, when they are, when people are going out, you know, to have a meal and be social, they're picking our brand. So we focus on the good, right? We focus on what works. We focus on what we're good at and we celebrate that. And we get through some of the challenges, right?

31:57And that's what marketing is, is navigating the changing times and being true to what you're good at. I think that even if consumers are changing drinking habits, they also, what we've seen in the data is that they want to actually drink better when they do decide to drink better, which actually is also another proof point for us that we choose to celebrate that we have a great portfolio that can answer on that.

32:21Jim Stengel:Yeah, you're well positioned for that trend. We talked a minute ago about how, at least from the outside, you look so globally synchronized. So I'd like you to speak a little bit about how you work with your peers in the other regions and with headquarters. And so what are your rituals, your rhythms, your practices that others might learn from to go to market so, I don't know, synchronized on brand as you seem to do? Yeah, I mean, we're in a matrix organization, as many multinational companies are. And I think the trick is that understanding that we are stewards of a global group and we are stewards of global brands, right?

33:00So we do want the brands to look and feel similarly across the globe. And the way that we do that ways of working wise is close collaboration with our global partners, with our central teams, obviously, as the global brand teams and the global marketing. So we work very closely with them, you know, making sure that we understand the brand strategy globally and work with them closely on how do we quarter turn that? How do we make that applicable to a U.S. consumer? Right. And some brands it's easier to do than others because the consumer is similar, us versus the globe, or sometimes they're different.

33:37But I would say the true to success is true collaboration, but also being empathetic of what the big goal is of running a global brand.

33:45Jim Stengel:Is your biggest and most important market today looking forward to the US? Yes, one of our most important markets. So it's the biggest spirits market in the world. So yeah, we have a huge role to play in terms of what we deliver to the overall global group. Now, you spent the bulk of your career at LVMH and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, which is an interesting one, too. So I'd like you to reflect on those times. What's the biggest mistake or triumph from those years that has influenced how you lead? I guess it could be a mentor as well. Yeah, I mean, I started my career in publishing. And speaking of Time Inc, I know you mentioned it yourself.

34:21Martha's MSLO was part of Time Inc and then spun off and I joined her at MSLO and then LVMH, obviously. So I think probably the biggest lesson I've learned is a couple of things is knowing your brands and staying true to them. Again, recognizing you won't be on them forever, but the brand lives beyond you. And then I would say is being adaptable. I mean, Martha Stewart, I was there during some very interesting years of that business. I saw such consumer loyalty that early in my career, Martha, people loved that magazine. I still do. People are loyal, right? So if you do the right thing by the brand and you just stay true to your brand, consumers will be loyal back to you.

35:04Same thing at LVMH with all those beautiful brands that I worked on and same thing at Campari. So do right by the brand and know that the consumer will be with you for a very long time. And as a leader, I think you have to be agile and you have to, you know, go with the flow and you have to live and sometimes manage through some ambiguity and changing environments.

35:34Jim Stengel:I want to flip into the creative brief. And we talked about this already, but you studied Italian as an undergraduate. I think it was one of your majors. And you spent a year in Italy and you seemed to get there a lot. Way back then, when you were this young student studying, I guess, business and Italian, did you have an aspiration to work for an Italian company? I did. Yes, I did. And my Italian is not nearly as good as it used to be, but it gets me by. And yeah, I've always wanted to work in international marketing and international business. And I think that I just find it to be extremely dynamic, extremely interesting.

36:07I have personally been able to enjoy such travel and experiences that I never would have if I wasn't in this business and working for such international companies. So it's been a real pleasure.

36:18Jim Stengel:This is probably an impossible question, but what two or three cities or areas of Italy are your favorites? Oh, that's a tough one. Because it's all good. It's all good. Exactly. By the way, I had my first Negroni ever in Italy. I was traveling with my wife after Ken Lyons. I mean, I discovered Negroni is kind of late in my life. And I went to this bar in Italy, Northern Italy, and it was a hot summer day. And I sat down and he served me a Negroni and it was like life-changing. It's memorable, right? Yeah. I mean, you never forget it. So it's a good question. I mean, I've traveled all over Italy.

36:51I studied in Florence, Italy. So obviously I have a personal connection there, but I've spent family and friends I have in the Northeast. So the Venice area, Padova, Treviso, some of those areas up there. And obviously I've spent time now in Milan because our headquarter is there and I've learned to really enjoy that. And, you know, the epicenter of business, obviously, and obviously the Campari homes. So they're all good. They're all amazing places to be. So we're very lucky.

37:17Jim Stengel:We talked about all these brand activations you do, 7 ,000. What's the one you've personally enjoyed the most over the last year? I know you don't go to all 7 ,000, but you probably go to a few? Yeah, that's a really, it's a really good question. And one that's hard to answer. I think they're all different. You know, sometimes we'll do small tasting events, which are beautiful with only, you know, small group of people. And then we'll do like a Coachella's, which I'll be there this weekend with thousands of people, right? So it totally depends. So I would say we had a couple last year, we had one in New York, the Campari Spritz Square, where we're being more forward thinking on Campari, not just Negroni, which everyone knows, but also we did a Spritz Square down by Chinatown in lower Manhattan, right?

37:58Where we took over a corner of downtown and had Spritz, Campari Spritzes in about four or five places in one weekend, right? Which is super fun, so.

38:06Jim Stengel:Oh, what fun. Yeah, so I think my most ones are where people are getting an experience that they remember. And we do a lot of that. So how will you spend Coachella next weekend? What will you do? Yeah, we'll be there. We had weekend one, which was fantastic. A surprise kind of guest of Joe Jonas that we partnered with. He was serving Spritzes. He's a big brand fan. So, yeah, we have a piazza. Basically, we set up in the middle of the festival and, you know, we serve thousands of Aperol spritzes and we give out lots of merchandise. People cannot get enough Aperol merchandise. The orange color is just fantastic.

38:40Yeah, we'll be there to enjoy the music, enjoy the atmosphere, give people an experience that they'll remember, you know, and it'll be it'll be a ton of fun.

38:47Jim Stengel:So what do you personally do? Do you float around with your people and with consumers? Yeah. Yeah. I'll be there. I do a lot of kind of checking out what everyone's doing in our space, just listening and hearing what people are saying about the space, right? How they're enjoying it, what they're talking about. Yeah. And it's a very big, proud moment for my team. It's a tremendous undertaking. So it's fun to enjoy it together. They get to celebrate all their hard work. What are you most curious about these days, either in the business side or personal side? I think I'm curious about the idea of how consumer habits are changing.

39:19Years ago, everyone was in nightlife space, drinking occasions later in the night. Now everyone's doing day, which personally is obviously, as I get older, it's a lot easier. I'm curious how that will evolve, how people consume differently over the years. I think we've had a massive change over the last couple of years. I'm curious to see if this current climate sticks, how it will evolve in the future. What's old is new. And I think also this idea of nostalgia of people wanting to, younger consumers. I mean, just like my kids, they don't even remember the nineties. They weren't alive, but somehow they want to be in it.

39:56So that's always interesting too. There's a lot of trends out there. So I'm curious to see how long they will stick.

40:02Jim Stengel:And love story, right. Has really fueled that, right? The Kennedy. Yeah. Right. It's just such an interesting time. It's interesting times. What are you most looking forward to this summer coming up on your big season? Yeah, I'm looking forward to Spritz season is here, alive and well. We also have Espelon, which is going to be massive. We have a big program coming up. We have a new innovation in Spritz for later this summer. So I won't spill the beans here, but we're going to be launching something extremely exciting. So we have that going on. And then at the end of the year, we do a big push on Friendsgiving with our wild turkey and American whiskey business.

40:34So we have a lot, but it's going to be a very, very busy year and never dull and lots of fun.

40:39Jim Stengel:We haven't talked about AI yet. It's hard to do a podcast here without talking about AI, but I would think you guys are all over it, but it's not one of the first categories people think about when they think about AI application. But I would think with all of the activations you do and all the content you create and your supply chain, there's got to be an enormous role. Yeah. I mean, we're still, we're navigating through it, I think just like everyone else. And we're being very strategic on how we use, you know, different platforms, different tools. You know, to date, we've been using it more on the efficiency operation side.

41:08You know, So obviously we have legacy brands, so we're being very careful on if and when we use it from a content perspective. So we have not leaned in very heavily on that at all yet, but really curious on how it can help us be smarter, faster, more agile, cost reduction, all that stuff. So that's kind of where we're at now. But yeah, it's an interesting space.

41:27Jim Stengel:Allison, what's the first brand you remember making an impact on you as a young girl? It's funny. I was thinking about kind of brands when I was younger. I'm going to show my age here, but in the 80s. Do you remember, I mean, back in the 80s and also 90s, I felt like there was so many brands that were leaning in on humor and taglines and the TV commercials, because obviously media was just so much more simple back then. You know, remember the Wendy's Where's the Beef ad? Remember all that, right? Oh, sure. I remember like Slim Jims. Remember the Slim Jim ad, right? I just think about it. I think about all of those brands when my childhood were so memorable and the humor was leaning really hard on humor, which it's interesting because in this spirit space, you know, we can get a little serious.

42:11right and i think one of our brands espalon is a brand where we dial up the humor which is a lot of fun which is a lot of fun and remember that so so lots of brands in my childhood of some of those you know cpg type of companies i remember even as a young kid i mean the cereal business was big back in the day if you remember the boxes the prizes the very simple marketing but memorable

42:32Jim Stengel:in a lot of ways how about the first spirits or beer or wine brand made an impact on you I'd say Aperol. Aperol, you're from college? Yeah, as I was mentioning back when I would travel to Italy and I was able to drink before 21 there. And that was the first brand I was introduced to. And I just got sucked in ever since. Who's been the most inspiring person in your life? I'd probably say my father. Yeah, he was a business consultant in IT, worked in the corporate world and taught me how to navigate things and how to be. I mean, IT, he was in telecom. So that's gone through its industry perspective, constant change.

43:07And, you know, spirits is in constant change. So it's not for the person that's going to want to be clocking in every day, but it's going to have to navigate all the dynamics that are at play, which, you know, keeps me on my toes.

43:19Jim Stengel:When did you decide you wanted to be in business? I'd say in undergrad. Yeah, I'd say undergrad. I enjoy people. I enjoy organizations. I enjoy, you know, presenting and kind of have an idea and how to spin it for an audience. And marketing is fun because it's half psychology, half science, right? Yeah, I knew early on. Okay, Allison, last thing you have to do is make me an honorary Campari today. Can we do that? Can we make it official? You got it. I have your swag in the background here. I'm enjoying a very light Campari and soda. We'll get you some more so you can continue to enjoy it. No, thank you.

43:50Jim Stengel:This has been great fun. Really great fun. You're an amazing company, amazing brand, amazing story. I'm very happy we had the chance to share it. Same. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. That was my conversation with Allison. A really fun one. Three takeaways for your business brand and life from this one. First one, the idea of an academy. This Campari Academy is a beautiful thought. I was reminded a bit of what Jack Daniels does to bring their partners and their team close to the brand, especially with new hires. They use this academy to work with bartenders, to talk with bartenders, to educate, to entertain, to get ideas.

44:26Jim Stengel:Really, really powerful thought. If you're in a business where you would benefit from this, this was full of great lessons. Second takeaway, I love the ambition of Aperol. to be the first shared drink of the day. What a simple thought, what an expansive thought, what a joyful thought. They understand their brand. That's the place they want to be. They're very focused on making that happen in markets around the world. It's a beautiful, simple ambition that energizes their team. And the third takeaway, they are in culture in such a way that is relevant to their brands. We talk a lot about being in popular culture on this show.

45:02Jim Stengel:They do it in a way that is disciplined, but gets them in discussions, conversations at places where people see them and say, ah, that is really cool. That's fun. I want to be a part of that. So I think they're in culture in the right way relative to their brand and their brand story and their brand strategy. That's it for this week's episode of the CMO podcast. As always, I would be grateful if you shared our show with your friends, along with subscribing and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. The CMO Podcast is a Vive Original Production.