Coworking with Allison Varone

Each week, we spotlight Marketing Brew readers in our Coworking series. If you’d like to be featured, introduce yourself here.

Allison Varone is head of marketing at Campari America. She previously worked at LVMH.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in marketing? I oversee brand strategy, consumer engagement, innovation, and integrated campaigns across our entire portfolio. My primary role is to guide our teams in shaping how our brands resonate within culture and driving their continued growth. We manage a distinguished lineup—including Aperol, Campari, and our spritz offerings, to Wild Turkey, Espolòn Tequila, Courvoisier, Grand Marnier, and more. My goal as a marketer is to understand what consumers care about, protect what makes each brand unique, and help our teams bring that to life through advertising, partnerships, experiences, and new products. Ultimately, my job is to connect great brands with consumers in ways that feel relevant, authentic, and memorable.

Favorite project you’ve worked on? Last year, we brought the “Summer of Aperol Spritz” to life in New York City with a colorful experiential moment celebrating the social summer aperitivo ritual. To kick off the season, we sent a fleet of orange Vespas and a hundred Aperol-branded waiters across streets, parks, happy-hour spots, and subway areas for a citywide “spritz blitz.” The teams wore Aperol-branded uniforms with QR codes that unlocked offers, at-home cocktail recipes, nearby Aperol Spritz partner bars, and digital perks like Uber credits. It came together quickly and was logistically challenging to pull off in a city like New York, but we had a lot of fun running around the city and spreading joy through this “orange wave”—which is precisely what Aperol stands for: conviviality, togetherness, fun, and memorable daytime occasions. Stunts like this help amplify the brand’s joyful vision by driving buzz at the intersection of real life and online culture.

Complementing our Spritz portfolio, we launched Crodino, our non-alcoholic aperitivo, earlier this year. This September, we also introduced Sarti, a vibrant pink, tropical, fruit-forward aperitivo and the newest addition, joining Aperol, Crodino, and Campari in the Spritz universe. It’s both professionally and personally rewarding to bring these iconic spirits and aperitivo culture, long popular in Europe, to the US and watch them flourish. It reminds me of how I first fell in love with Aperol during trips to Italy, before it became so popular here.

What’s your favorite ad campaign? Most recently, I really admired KitKat’s 2025 “KitKat Heist” campaign, which won several Cannes Lions awards this year. The brand turned a real challenge and a marketer’s nightmare—the theft of 12 tons of KitKat bars—into a smart, highly shareable campaign that became a global news story and engaged millions of consumers around the world. KitKat flipped the narrative, leaned into the brand’s hallmark wit, and invited consumers into the story in a playful way. The campaign also gave the media a compelling narrative to follow, transforming a serious incident into an intriguing mystery. It was witty, culturally relevant, and sparked genuine dialogue with consumers—the kind of cultural currency, virality, and affection that paid media alone can’t easily replicate.

One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile: That I am a proud mother of two daughters—and it’s great to see they are finally asking questions on what I do and excited about it (sometimes!).

What marketing trend are you most optimistic about? Least? I’m most optimistic about the increased focus on occasions in lifestyle brands: creative campaigns that start with a consumer insight and demonstrate how people can authentically interact with products in real life. The brands that feel most relatable tend to resonate more powerfully and emotionally because they understand not just who their consumers are, but also how those consumers want brands to show up in their lives. Social media and creators have accelerated this shift, and I think it will only continue.

I’m least optimistic about AI-generated content that lacks a clear strategy or authentic human perspective. While many of us are adapting to and embracing AI, consumers still want real, genuine connections with brands. The best marketing will use AI as a tool, not a substitute for human creativity, judgment, and connection.

What’s one marketing-related podcast/social account/series you’d recommend? @PeopleBrandsandThings on Instagram is really fun—it’s a great discovery account for of-the-moment news on brands, creators, culture, and creativity.