On the latest La Previa episode, host Asli Pelit speaks with Tania Moreno, AC Milan‘s chief marketing officer, about her path to the top flight of Italian soccer.
Before AC Milan, she was the senior vice president of marketing for the NHL’s Arizona Coyotes, overseeing brand, marketing and digital efforts.
Moreno started her marketing career at Crispin Porter + Bogusky (CBP Group), one of the world’s top marketing agencies. She then moved on to companies in different sectors, including CBS Sports, PetSmart, Burger King and Mattel Inc., where she worked on Hot Wheels and Barbie campaigns.
“Barbie is the dream brand of so many marketers,” Moreno said. “She is the original influencer.”
While at Mattel, Moreno and her team realized that Barbie no longer resonated with millennial parents. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed look had to change. “We knew we had an opportunity there,” she said. “Now Barbie has many types of facial structures, such as hair color, eyes, and skin, which are very important to see.”
Next, Pelit and Moreno discuss some of the lessons she brought to the Rossoneri from her previous work experiences. “The most important lesson is that you need to know your fanbase, your consumer,” she said. For AC Milan, the current focus is to grow the brand in the United States and the Middle East, where it opened an office at the end of last year. “We are not neglecting Italy and other markets, of course,” Moreno said.
The club says it has 43 million fans in the U.S. and 35 million in the Middle East and Africa region.
For the last few months, Moreno and her team have been working on launching AC Milan’s new kit, a collab between Puma and Pleasures, the American streetwear brand from Los Angeles.
“Milan is the fashion capital of the world,” Moreno said. “We knew we had an opportunity to continue our journey in bringing fashion to the world of soccer, which has been part of our strategy for many seasons now.”
The campaign has been successful. On the day of the launch, the team’s e-commerce experienced its best performance ever with 69% more sales compared to the prior season’s home kit launch. Within a week, the jersey became an all-time best seller, selling 58% more than the 2022/23 jersey, launched shortly after AC Milan won the Scudetto in 2021/22 season.
“We used something people of Milano are naturally interested in, fashion, and brought it to soccer, another one of their passions,” Moreno said. “It was a different approach in top Italian soccer, and it is proving successful.”
(You can subscribe to La Previa through Apple, Google, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts.)
