‘Tradition with innovation’: How Italian coffee brand Kimbo is eyeing growth through sports
With a global footprint and Italian heritage, Kimbo is betting on sports sponsorship with the America’s Cup to boost its UK awareness and retail proposition.
· Marketing WeekBy Molly Innes 6 Oct 2026 1:49 pm
Kimbo is a Neapolitan coffee brand with more than 60 years of history and a presence in over 100 countries. However, it has seemingly flown under the radar compared to its larger rivals including Lavazza and Nespresso, something it is hoping to change.
The brand is focusing on its expansion, supported by an increased marketing investment and sponsorship of sailing competition The America’s Cup, which is taking place in Naples next summer. It has also signed a deal to become the official coffee partner of Great Britain’s racing team, GB1, to bolster its reach in the UK.
As a traditional Naples-based brand, it already has deep roots in Italy, but is viewing the upcoming America’s Cup as a “unique” opportunity to grow its brand awareness globally.
“We trust in tradition, but we want to make sure that tradition evolves with innovation,” Massimiliano Scala, head of marketing at Kimbo, tells Marketing Week.
The competition was looking for a local brand to represent the city, but with a global presence, he says.
Much of its brand footprint outside of Italy is in the service industry, supplying chains with its product. Now, it has its eyes set on retail for its next stage of expansion.
Setting sail
It’s not the brand’s first foray into sports sponsorship, but it does represent a new approach.
For many years, Kimbo was a shirt sponsor for the Napoli football team, as well as holding deals with other Serie A clubs.
So, why the move to sailing? “The premium positioning,” says Scala. Kimbo’s marketing is focused on the premium positioning of the coffee, and sailing represents a “premium” sport, he says.
Kimbo has a wide footprint, however, it “has never invested in specific countries” outside of Italy until recently, says Scala. Eyeing up expansion, the UK is one of its target markets, alongside the US and wider Europe.
“The Americas Cup was also an opportunity to increase and build awareness. This is the first step,” he explains. Partnering with GB1 is a “crucial” second step for its growth plans.
Kimbo is currently sold in the UK through Amazon and Ocado, but its ambition is to be on supermarket shelves. As UK commercial manager, Damon Wilson, tells Marketing Week, the competition is “great brand exposure”.
“By default, we don’t have great brand awareness because we’re not on shelves,” says Wilson, who believes the brand is now approaching the “perfect storm” to grow, noting that it already supplies its coffee to the likes of Pizza Pilgrims and Rudy’s.
Investment in marketing
Scala has been with the brand for 20 years. When he joined, it had a small marketing team and most of its output was through TV advertising.
There have been challenges, as has been the case for many marketers, with budgets in the last decade. Compounded by the fact the price of coffee has shot up in recent years, with Scala noting a 300% rise in just two years. It led to a period where the marketing budget was “cut to the minimum level” because of economic headwinds.
“But it was the opportunity to test some other digital opportunities in communications,” he says. It stopped investing in TV, for example, against the norm for a mass marketing premium brand advertising in Italy, says Scala.
His team made changes, from its media budget to how it worked with agencies – moving from one creative agency to multiple specialist ones. “We optimised and tested,” he says.
The business recovered. Its 2025 financial results showed revenues above €300m (£254m), up 32.8% on 2024. Its international sales also grew by 46%. “Today, our budget is much bigger,” says Scala, who is making sure it is invested in the right way, taking learnings from a period where the team had to be scrappy.
The business is also investing in innovation to appeal to new audiences, as the coffee market has evolved and proliferated. Kimbo is “one of the most traditional companies in Italy”, he says, “but we still work on innovation”. It has been moving into coffee pods, as well as flavoured coffees, and has launched a cold lemon espresso in the US, which he says has gone down well. Effective sports sponsorship requires a different set of 4Ps
“If you want to be present all over the world, you need to have a cold drink proposition,” he says of the coffee market today, worlds away from the traditional Italian espresso.
While Scala and his team are focused on growing brand awareness, he notes it can only get you so far. Particularly in sport sponsorship, he says the focus is on “activating the brand with consumers” beyond the branding.
At the America’s Cup Preliminaries, which took place at the end of September, Kimbo had a large activation in the race village. During the week, there were more than 250,000 visitors to the village overall, and more than 20 million social media views.
At the Kimbo stand, there were games for customers to take part in. Scala notes at some points the queue for this side of the activation was larger than the coffee queue.
He believes it’s crucial for a coffee brand like Kimbo to be in front of customers in person. “Today, coffee and other commodities, you can buy everywhere, you don’t need to go to the shops. The event and activation became a way to connect with consumers and tell the story of the brand,” he explains.
He wants Kimbo to be “at every touch point”, adding that consumers “want” an experience. “They want to experience the brand, not only see it as a logo,” he says.
Alongside increasing its investment in marketing, Kimbo has been growing its marketing team.
It’s “crucial” to have a specialised marketing team, he says, that can operate across the full funnel. He has added roles across digital, media, communications and trade, and the business is planning on building out its teams across different regions, with the majority of its 300+ staff currently in Naples.
Reflecting on how the business has evolved, he says “everything has changed”.
Its top market outside of Italy is the US, followed by Poland and the UK, whereas it used to be France. The coffee market has blown up, and customers see Italian brands as a “premium product”.
“It’s the perfect time for our brand to evolve into something bigger in the UK,” adds Wilson.