This week we had the honor to interview Fabien Allègre, Chief Brand Officer at PSG (Ligue 1).
📝Show Notes: Through this interview, we touched on his background, his role at PSG. Then we talked about what PSG is doing in the NFT/Crypto space. Then we touched on the metaverse space and what PSG’s goals are when it comes to the NFT, crypto, and metaverse space. We also discussed PSG’s goal to build a global fashion brand.
🚀Best Quotes: Here’s some of the key discussion points and best quotes from our conversation with Fabien:
On his background and role at PSG:
“I've been working for PSG since 2008, so it has been a long journey. But before that I was working in the music and entertainment industry”.
On the vision of PSG’s chairman to create a global brand:
“I was really interesting especially in 2011 with the takeover of the club by the chairman, with this clear vision, which was to make PSG a global brand. And when it comes to the brand expansion, it's something that I'm really into it for the past 20 years. So the project here was to make the vision of the chairman a reality which was to steadily execute on his vision. And after 10 years PSG is a never evolving ecosystem of creative minds. So it's been once again a long journey with a lot of beautiful projects and it was driven by a strong motivation that we have and we still have”.
On the state of the NFT/Crypto space, and PSG’s efforts in that space with the deal with socios.com and Leo Messi, as well as Sorare and crypto.com:
“As a club of the new generation, the objective here is not only for the brand, but also for the sponsoring department or the digital department as well. It is about working together as a team. And it's a fact that PSG was an early adopter of this new kind of category (NFT/crypto). We were maybe the first club to sign with Sorare, socios.com, and crypto.com. And we were the first club to get our first NFT back in 2020. But it's once again a global vision of the project shared by the sponsoring and digital departments, and the brands of course, and Paris is still the youngest club among the top European clubs”.
“We are the club of the new generation. So for us, it was not a big deal to go into this area. The first signal we sent was in 2016, when Paris entered the Esport market at the highest level of competition. And if you look at all the metaverse and NFT, for us it was a no-brainer because we are used to it”.
“If you look at what dota (PSG.LGD is a professional Dota 2 esport team based in China) is, you have some skin. So this is also a good way to explain without any complexity, what the metaverse is for us. It's a new kind of video games”.
On the metaverse space and what PSG intends to do there:
“The metaverse is a fantastic opportunity for all of us and not only for the football clubs to be able to create a new space. But as we did in the past on the fashion, music side or on the outside, it has to be authentic. And the main focus for us on this one is how to involve and engage our fans more and more through this metaverse and this new world. But once again, it has to be really authentic. so that's why, compared to other clubs, we have not made any announcement on the metaverse side yet, but we have been working hard on this for a long time”.
“As you can imagine all the strategy that we built around NFTs, starting in 2020, is a way also to potentially later on implement these NFTs into our metaverse project. But this one will take time, but this is once again a fantastic opportunity for the club to know more about what the fans and the new fans are expecting perhaps in terms of rewards. And of course entering this metaverse space is about generating additional revenue, but it is also about engaging our community. This is our mindset and I don't believe in the streetwear trend. I believe in the streetwear community”.
“I believe that the community that we're going to build into the metaverse might come from different horizons and this community will have not only the passion for football, but it could also be about Paris as a hub of all the cultural aspects, where we could offer fans all kind of relevant content”.
On how the metaverse is a new place for PSG to offer dedicated content tied to the fashion brands they work with:
“We are very humble, but we are unique. We were the first club to move into fashion, having some collaborations with brands. For example we had the chance to work with the Michael Jordan brand (Air Jordan) and Dior, but on top of that, we continue to have some new partnerships with smaller but talented brands like Clown Skateboards, which is the latest brand that we announced”.
“We are going to announce some new collaborations in Japan with some top and iconic designers, but also a young and talented designer as well. This is why Paris is so unique. It is about our capacity to bridge any kind of communities when it comes to the full entertainment ecosystem. And for us, once again, our goal is to attract new fans and retain our fans as the club of the new generation. That's where we need to be focused. And the metaverse is a good place to share more dedicated content”.
On PSG’s upcoming new training center set to be unveiled in June 2023:
“The new training center that we're going to open in June 2023 will be a new kind of training center and maybe the first of the new generation of training centers. You will have the pro players, but you will also have the Youth academy there. And as an institution, our responsibility is to share a little bit more than just football, but it is also about sharing the cultural aspect”.
On what makes PSG a unique football club:
“Our approach has allowed PSG to be the only club to have stores in Japan, Korea, and in the US, because PSG fans are not only fans of Paris Saint Germain as a football club, but they are also fans of our lifestyle brand. There's more to it. It is more than just a soccer club I think”.
“The vision of the chairman was about putting Paris at the heart of the club project, but at the same time it was also about building a name for ourselves which was really smart. That was the vision and I think that all the departments within PSG from the digital, sponsoring to the ticketing departments, are all on the same page on this one”.
“That's why I think that we succeeded. And of course having Neymar, David Beckham, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Thiago Silva, Kylian Mbappe, Leo Messi, helped us a lot. But once again, the goal here is also to build the project of Paris Saint Germain. And I think the players and PSG project project work perfectly together because we are building our own road, and we have our own roadmap”.
“And at the same time, we built the steps year after year to make the club an institution as well. For a club it is always about keeping our agility and singularity. I believe that's that the key recipe for success here”.
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