CMP is the brand of sports clothing, specializing in ski and outdoor garments, launched in 2010 by Italy's Fratelli Campagnolo to make a clear statement in the market for an affordable and functional apparel line with Italian design. The idea behind the new brand name, which took the place of another house label, Kilkenny, was to distinguish it more clearly from the competition and from the company's own private label offerings in the same domain.
The CMP line has been expanded in its technical and lifestyle ranges, and it has been made more colorful. CMP has been upgrading its more technical lines, introducing Primaloft insulation three seasons ago and 3M Thinsulate in the past winter, but it is shying away from top performance. Many of its products are lifestyle-oriented and designed to be used in outdoor activities as well as in an urban context, in line with present fashion trends.
Coupled with the introduction of new sales strategies and marketing initiatives, the new branding and product initiatives have been very successful. Sales under the CMP label reached €65,990,435 in 2014, up sharply from €48,309,752 in the previous year. The numbers for this year and next will show further major increases, thanks in part to the appointment of new distributors.
The new marketing efforts have been deployed by a team run by Alice Testi, who was hired as marketing manager four years ago. She previously worked in marketing for Adidas at its head office in Herzogenaurach for five years until 2006. Prior to that she handled sports marketing at Lotto Sport Italia, and after leaving Adidas, she returned to Italy to take care of sports marketing at Diadora.
CMP has been conducting rather effective cooperative advertising campaigns with major key accounts such as SportScheck in Germany. Taking the place of the name Fratelli Campagnolo at international trade shows, the CMP brand sported a newly styled stand at Ispo Munich and at the OutDoor show in Friedrichshafen, where it launched new lines for cardio fitness and trail running, respectively. CMP also showed its first line of footwear.
Big sales increases have been recorded recently in Germany, where Fratelli Campagnolo has had its own sales subsidiary since 1988, and in other countries including Italy and Spain. Earlier this year, Intersport Germany rated CMP as one of its major suppliers. CMP works also with Sport 2000 and Zalando. It has dedicated corners in many German stores.
This past winter, CMP opened its first mono-brand store in northern Italy, at Cortina d'Ampezzo, in partnership with a local retail cooperative. Fratelli Campagnolo also set up its own sales subsidiary for the Austrian market last year, with a showroom in Salzburg's trademart. More recently, it hired a new distributor for the Nordic markets, Sport Group Danmark, and a distributor for Canada, Sport Design Studio.
One of CMP's advantages is the availability of merchandise for quick reorders during the selling season. Most of the clothing and its own pile are made at the company's own five factories - three in Italy and two in Romania - and at a partly owned plant in Tunisia.
As a group, Fratelli Campagnolo is also involved in children's wear and homewear on the Italian market. It has owned since 1996 a line of children's clothing called Melby and operates a network of 60 franchised children's stores under the Nucleo banner. Its pile fabrics are used in its sports clothing as well as in a line of bed covers and other home textiles called Maryplaid and Maryhome. The total turnover of the group reached €117 million in 2014, up from €95 million in 2013.
Run since 1996 by Giorgio Campagnolo, who will be 80 years old next year, the group is based in a small town near Vicenza. Its business started with a small retail operation at Bassano del Grappa in 1948, just after the Second World War, adding a wholesale operation in 1956. The present company was founded in 1960 by two Campagnolo brothers, selling a variety of clothing items in addition to internally produced knitwear and berets.
Fratelli Campagnolo subsequently expanded its own manufacturing operations. It sold its first sportswear items in 1978 and became a supplier to Puma and Reebok in 1982. It introduced pile fabrics in 1991, when it participated in the Ispo show in Munich for the first time. It launched an iconic softshell in 2005 and a widely distributed line of down-filled outerwear in 2012.