Julka Villa （Italy）

CMO & Group Global Head of Marketing, Campri Group

Julka Villa, a native of ltaly who currently resides in NYC, holds a degree from Luigi Bocconi University’s Graduate School of Economics. With over 20 years of experience, Julka previously spent nearly a decade contributing to the brand building in Heineken and L’Oréal in ltaly in a variety of roles across business intelligence, marketing, and communication. Julka joined Campar Group in 2009 where she initially held the role of Global Brand Director for Campari on the Global Strategic Marketing Team (GSM).

She continued her career as Marketing Director for Brazil, which she was appointed in 2011. She returned to GSM as Managing Director of the ltalian Icons portfolio in 2014, being based in Milan, and subsequently in 2017 she moved to the US as Managing Director Spirits. She also held the position of Managing Director of the RARE US, a super-premium division, which she designed and launched at the beginning of 2021.

Following significant acceleration in the growth of the Spirits Brands portfolio, she was appointed Group Head of Marketing in February 2022.

As Global CMO, Julka is responsible for the category and brand strategy of more than 50 brands, with the objective of sustainable growth as well as expansion and enhancement of the brand’s equity. In her position, she is responsible for all aspects of category strategy, brand positioning and values, as well as innovation, communication, media, digital content, sponsorships and hospitality marketing.

ABOUT CAMPARI GROUP

Campari was founded in 1860 – the year Gaspare Campari invented the bright red bittersweet aperitif in downtown Milan. In the 1960s, Campari Group’s distribution power already reached over 80 countries.

Campari Group today is a major player in the global branded spirits industry, with a portfolio of over 50 premium and super premium brands, marketed and distributed in over 190 markets around the world, with leading positions in Europe and the Americas. The Group employs around 4,000 people and has an extensive portfolio of premium and super premium brands, spreading across Global, Regional and Local priorities. Shares of the parent company Davide Campari – Milano N.V. are listed on the Italian Stock Exchange since 2001. Campari Group is today the sixth-largest player worldwide in the premium spirits industry.

Q: What makes you devoted to the wine and spirits industry?

J.V: The alcoholic beverage industry has been my first love, and indeed I started my career with Heineken. At a later stage, I moved to the beauty business – another passion of mine – with L’Oreal which I worked 8 years with. It is in 2009 that I move back to beverage, joining Campari. It fulfilled my goal to work in corporate marketing with more international exposure.

When I joined Campari Group, I had the joy and privilege to start working with an iconic brand like Campari. But my passion had the chance to express itself also working on minor brands, like when I moved to Brazil as Head of local Marketing. I then realized that my true satisfaction come same from helping brands flourish, regardless of their dimension and life stage, by respecting the DNA / personality of the product and presenting to consumers with the image and essence of its merits. It’s like raising a child.

The common thing between the beauty and drink business, is the attention to detail and the intent to create desire / dreams for consumers, who need to feel the emotional links with the products.

Q: What are the campaigns or projects that you are most proud of?

 J.V: Interestingly, I had this sense of achievement with 2 brands that were struggling at the time.

One is Appleton Estate, a fantastic premium Jamaica rum, forged and shaped by the tropical aging, where one year counts like 3 of continental aging. Nevertheless, it belongs to a category that’s difficult to navigate by consumers, since there are no rules universally applied and followed by the producers of the different provenances. But I was fascinated by the exquisite quality of the liquid (nothing to envy to a premium single malt scotch whisky), its story and the people of the island. There was a real treasure to share with the world! We redesigned packaging and revise the age statement of some expressions, paying tribute to its quality and legacy. The re-launch in Canada took place during pandemics but the overall proposition still worked greatly, and it keeps growing today.

The other one is Dreher Brandy in Brazil, which was a brand consumed and loved by consumers belonging to the middle class (the so-called class C, in the very layered Brazilian society). We repositioned it, portraying the consumers as an “achiever” instead of a “loser”, and that immediately attracted more middle-class consumers because it was recognizing their efforts to achieve a better life and created pride and sense of identification.

I try to treat every brand with same importance today.

Q: What are the consumer trends you have observed in the recent years? What are the category shifts that you see in Spirits sector?

J.V: From what I observed, there are mainly 4 trends today in the spirits business:

· Premiumization, along with normalizationafter pandemic. But the premiumization doesn’t mean necessarily just going after expensive offerings. Instead, today’s consumers have more choices, and they love to choose for themselves with more confidence, drinking less but better.

· Escapism: the consumersenjoyed the “virtual journey” implied by the drink. For example, the Aperol spirits often reminds people of summer in Italy…

· Health Consciousness:Especially the young consumers are conscious about what they drink, and they welcome No-Lo spirits as an option. Campari has Crodino-the non-alcohol aperitivo as alternative offering which has had success in Italy.

· Familiarizationwith bitterness：The palate of consumers definitely evolved in the past decade, and they are more into “bitterness” which exists in coffee, dark chocolate etc. and also hallmarks the finish of Aperol.

Q: Will you share with us any practices in Campari Group are undertaken in terms of integrating technology, AI into your product development etc.?

J.V: I was at Cannes in June for Advertising Festival and the AI was obviously the main topic. I think it is also now part of our lives. I’d rather look at AI as a tool, which can help people on dealing with repetitive or data-related aspects. This could save time and make people focusing on more valuable tasks.

In Campari, we are starting using AI for creative adaptation, data collection and mining.

Q: What does your typical day of work look like?

J.V: I live in New York and wake up normally very early. The first thing in the morning is to catch up with 3 marketing teams in 3 offices in Milan, Paris and NYC, sending my daughter to school, then join other meetings.

Another portion of my time is spent with agencies and external stakeholder. Finally, being a member of the leadership team, I dedicated time to discuss matters around organization, people, processes.

As I travel a lot, during my stay in NYC, I try to spend as much time as possible with my daughter for homework or story-reading before bed. Balance is not easy, and I tend to believe the balance is in motion, meaning constant micro-adjustment for equilibrium.

Q: What you enjoyed most in your career? What drives you keep going?

J.V: The biggest gift from my career is the encountering with so many cultures, learning new ways to reach out to people, never judging but embracing the changes and differences.

Q: What are the main distinguishing merits or qualities in women attributing to the career success?

J.V: Men or women, regardless of the gender, if they wish to excel, they must be competent, a good listener and good at decision-making. However, I found in women, 2 qualities are more common: resilience and gentle leadership.

When we talked about the resilience, it’s more about the faith in what you do, despite of many doubts from outside. And empathy is also very important in bringing team together. In a traditionally male-dominant business, women could be a capable leader but no need to act like men. The gentle leadership and encouragement sometimes work better.

Q: What will you do if you are no longer in the drink business one day?

J.V: Where I live now is just in the neighborhood of the Metropolitan Museum in New York. If possible, I would dream to manage MET one day as I find it that the Management in the art world is fascinating. I could put my experiences into it.

Most importantly, art helps so much to facilitate communications beyond borders and enable us to connect deeply with inner selves.

 

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Photo Credit: Campari Group