PARIS — Puma SE is betting big on a new image.
The German sporting goods maker launched a multi-media marketing campaign on Thursday aimed at turning around the ailing company’s fortunes and making the brand “cool” again vis-à-vis its consumers and retailers who have lost confidence in the brand.
“Forever Faster” is the largest marketing offensive in Puma’s history. The first TV spot, thought up by advertising agency JWT, will air today across North and South America as well as the Asia-Pacific region, before rolling out to Europe and the rest of the world in the weeks to come, timed to coincide with the back-to-school season.
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It can also be viewed on YouTube.
Featuring a host of the brand’s top athletes and testimonials, the spot kicks off with Usain Bolt resting in a hot tub flanked by two female models. The world’s fastest man exhorts viewers to take risks through confidence and disobedience and to believe in their instincts. Golfer Lexi Thompson strikes a similar tune splashing around the water with male company.
Football icons Mario Balotelli and Marta Vieira da Silva, as well as the Ferrari Formula One team, are also part of the advertisement.
Adam Petrick, global marketing director at Puma, said: “We’ve always been known as a brand that takes risks and that’s not going to change, Forever Faster clearly represents that. This is going to change the way we approach product design and innovation as well as how we market our brand.”
In a conference call with journalists last week, Puma chief executive officer Björn Gulden had explained the campaign was a 360-degrees concept spanning retail, social media, digital and print. “And it’s just the beginning,” he noted, adding that the campaign was a “long-term project with continuous investment up to the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.”
A spokesman for the company said the initial phase made up of “an aggressive TV and print campaign” was devised to raise brand awareness. The second phase, slated to kick off in January, will be about product communication, introducing the brand’s novelties for spring-summer 2015, while another major campaign is to follow for fall-winter 2015.
Although Gulden would not disclose the company’s marketing expenditures for this undertaking, he said they were going to be “considerable” and “much more” than what Puma had spent in the past.
Puma has been struggling after an unsuccessful attempt to turn the sporting goods maker into a global lifestyle brand. As the company extended its product portfolio, confusing customers about its identity, interest slipped away and so did the company’s profits.
For the full year of 2013, net earnings dropped 92.4 percent to 5.3 million euros, or $7 million. And last week, Puma reported net earnings plummeted 41.3 percent to 39.8 million euros, or $54.6 million, in the six months ending June 30.
By way of comparison, in the wake of the 2010 soccer World Cup, first-half net earnings were up 190.4 percent to 127.9 million euros, or $170.1 million, and by year-end they stood at 202.2 million euros, or $268.5 million.
Gulden, who took over the reins at Puma in 2013, warned repeatedly that it would take time to reposition the sporting goods maker and turn it around financially. But, pointing to “Forever Faster,” he projected: “If successful, we will hopefully see a bigger improvement in 2015.”