Andrea Zappolini grew up playing football between parked cars in a small Tuscan village, then fell for NBA sneakers and never quite let go. That mix of sport and product carried him through McCann advertising agency, Nike Italy and seven years at Adidas, where he worked on the Superstar relaunch and the Yeezy era, and into his current role leading performance eCom marketing across Puma Europe. In this episode, he explains why marketing today runs on data as much as on ideas, how brand building and performance pull in different directions sometimes, what it felt like to read a script to Roberto Baggio with his hands shaking, and where AI is letting smaller brands move faster than the giants.

NO TIME OFF, the podcast where we explore the careers powering the sport industry.

⏱️ Chapters

[00:32] — Who is Andrea Zappolini?

[01:25] — Street football in Tuscany and the Reebok Pump

[03:15] — Landing at Adidas for the Superstar relaunch and the Yeezy years

[06:10] — How Adidas Originals turned sport into culture

[09:35] — Brand building versus performance: the full funnel

[10:45] — Why marketing is as much numbers as ideas

[15:05] — 5am starts and pre-planned weekends

[23:25] — Reading a script to Roberto Baggio with shaking hands

[32:25] — What failure looks like early in a career

[34:45] — How AI lets smaller brands compete with the giants

[39:10] — His advice for breaking into the sport industry

🤝🏻 Follow Andrea https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreazappolini/

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🎶 Sound bites:

Music from #InAudio: https://inaudio.org/

Sport Power (Indie Rock) and Higher (Electronic Vlog) by Infraction.

💪🏻 The podcast “No Time Off” is an independent production.

Content writing, editing and production by Veronica Zanchi 🔗 bit.ly/veronicazanchi

💌 Do you have a question for the show? notimeoff.podcast@gmail.com