Branding

Branding..

In 2009, Puma continued to strengthen their sportlifestyle brand through unique events and marketing campaigns from Puma city in Boston during the Volve Ocean Race North American stopover to Usain Bolt’s “Who’s faster?” campaign in /berlin during the World Championships.They also refined their brand manual.”10” is the very first brand manual to incorporate the four keys to success of the global PUMAVision- fair,honest, positive and creative. Their brand mission is to be the most desirable sportslifestyle in the wolrd has not changed yet.

They have bought back the spirit of the DJ in our Brand promise to joyfully mix the influence of sport and Lifestyle with the desire to contribute to a better world. “Joy” is what we will bring to our consumers and is what will differentiate us from our competition- it’s their point of view. While others talk about blood, sweat and tears of sport, we recognize that they cannot be the only rewards.

Puma is the brand that remembers what it was like to play the game- and to play it with joy. It’s what they have always done best and now the time is right to bring the joy back again. So when they think about product, about marketing, retail or anything in our business, the first question they ask is: Where is the Joy?

STP & Marketing Strategies

Marketing strategies...

1.  Core strategies: promoting design improvement.

Puma will be the focus of the further transfers of the brand design, after the Men’s Puma tone Cat shoes took the market position in 2002, it want to build the world’s most desired sports lifestyle brand.

Puma started concentrating on collaboration and cooperation with world’s topmost great designers. It now has more than 50 designer names associated with its name including Barrett. Puma is creating some of the leading shoe and apparel by applying the advanced science and technology and fusion creation.

Puma is expanding its marketing space by enriching cheap Puma Speed Cat. The product catalogue of Puma have enriched many of its Puma products such as football boots, running boots, apparels, sports bags and handbags to greatly expand market coverage, improving grade of Puma products and price points. Puma launches a series of men and women of leisure fashion, garments because customers are part of the cheap Puma shoes is wearing Puma products when in motion and the other part is not interested in sports, just love the design of Puma brand.

Puma also strategies to make good use limited edition to lure customers. For example Thrift Puma sneakers made by old shirts, pants, ties and wallets as the raw material to produce the series, calling it “soul of the sneakers:, but produced only 510 pairs. Another example is Puma Ferrari shoes series high-end stores can buy in some big cities only.

In-depth analysis of Puma brand re-engineering of this series, you can find, whether it is to open stores, sports marketing, or promoting the design, are in use in Europe channel, Mont Blanc and other luxury way to run the Puma, which Puma sporting goods in order to become the top brand.

2.   Re-branding its image- sponsored a series of unique sports events. For instance, an effect across all of the hottest Korean Puma Wold cup 2002, south Korean playes make the uncexpected results popularity soared, and Ahn quickly printed a number of contract with cheap Puma shoes named after the clothing and shoes, Puma World Cup in south korea during the hot. Design new shoes for the team against Cameroon. Tailor-made for the Cameroon national team shoes, against the 2004 African Nations Cup. The shoes was inspired by the king of the forest - lion, through shoes to further reflect the lion of invincible. The team from La Liga Mallorca Samuel Eto'o and currently plays for English Premier League Manchester United Jie Muba become the spokesman for this new look.

Promotional activities.

Promotional Activities..

The difference between promotional activities and advertising is that sales promotion offers an incentive to buy whereas advertising offers a reason to buy. Sales promotion includes tools for consumer promotion, trade promotion, business and sales-force promotion.

Jochen Zeitz carried out guerrilla marketing when he took over Puma in 1993, when Puma was facing biggest financial loss which helped Puma to make a surprising investment return.

Puma put limited marketing funds into low cost promotional activities instead of putting heavy funds in advertising and publicizing as its competitors do. Few examples of the promotional activities of Puma are presented.

Cardboard shoe made in "Thrift"

In the fall of 2002, Puma sponsored a sports shoes design contest named “Thrift”, participants of which are some avant-grade designers. Designers must use the old shirts, pants, ties and wallets and other raw materials to design sports shoes. The company will produce 510 pairs of shoes called “sports shoes with spirit”. These limited edition products were sought by many collectors. The price of each pair of shoes was as high as $250, and some were even collected by the London Art Museum.

Another out of box thinking and creative promotion campaign of Puma is during the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea when other sports brands spent millions of money to obtain the official sponsorship and sign a contract with stars. Puma signed a sponsorship contract with Jamaica, Tunisia and some other African football teams. On one hand, these African teams performed excellently and caught much attention from audience and media. Zeitz said that Jamaica’s and Tunisia’s athletes characters are in accordance with Puma’s brand image.

Puma Shudoh soccer ball

Puma has also organized a PR activity entitled “Shudoh”( means the ways to be the owner of the football). Besides Puma invited famous Japanese chef Masaharu Morimoto to specifically design a sushi roll for the World cup, which can be supplied in major cities of the world and regard as the most common foods during the World cup.

Through the above strategies, Puma not only solve its financial problem, but also succeed in the fierce competition.

Pricing

Pricing...

Puma’s pricing is designed to be competitive to the other fashion shoe retailers. The pricing is based on the basis of premium segment as target customers. Puma as a brand commands high premium.

Puma sets the price of its products keeping in mind the every sector of earning people, from elite class to middle-class. But usually the buyers are only elite class peoples only. Its footwear ranges from Rs.500 to Rs.7000.

Puma also became the world’s first major corporation to publish details of the cost of its impact on the environment. The sports and leisure group said the combined cost of the carbon it emitted and water it used in 2010 was 94.4m Euros. The figure includes the company itself and its suppliers.

Holistic Marketing

Holistic Marketing..

Holistic marketing for services requires Integrated, internal, performance and relationship marketing.

Integrated Marketing describes the normal work of preparing, pricing, distributing, and promoting the services to customers. Puma develop and implement strategies to get their clients’ messages across to target audiences and enhance their profiles. That means developing strategy and messaging, then using tactics such as speech writing, media training, brochures, press kits, presentations and developing an internet marketing strategy. They prepare materials in multiple languages as needed incl. English, French and Mandarin Chinese.

Internal Marketing describes training and motivating employees to serve consumers well. Puma believes that if you enjoy helping others, being pushy and competing with others for the highest sales numbers as a team and for yourself, then you are right at home. Its fast paced and management usually has a personal connection with their sales associates, making the work environment friendly. Puma only hires friendly people, its a sales business after all. Puma keeps a track of sales numbers for each associate, and they are mostly for performance reports but they create more problems due to the fact that sales are not based on commission. However, this goes along with the fact that they promote pushiness in their employees.

Relationship Marketing describes the connectivity of the brand with its partners and customers. Puma partnered with Alexander McQueen to successfully combine different trends in sports, fashion as well as sport history and technology into unique collections which convince through their distinctive style. The partnership of Puma with its manufacturers are based on mutual cooperation- in turn they expect them to pass on this cooperative stance to their employees. The most important principle of Puma’s social policy is substantial instrument of control : The Code on Conduct.

Performance Marketing includes the stress on areas concerning sakes revenue, brand & customer equity, community, environment & legal policy. To implement the ethical and environmental values into their business strategy they have developed the Social Accountability and Fundamental Environmental Standards (S.A.F.E.) Concept. This concept is based on the pillars of transparency, sustainability, social accountability and evaluation. Every supplier is legally bound to follow the strict social and environment standards details in S.A.F.E manual.

Financially the years 2002 and 2003(so far) have been outstanding for Puma when Puma’s share price increased by 91%.

Services and Services Marketing

Services and Services Marketing..

Services have four distinctive characteristics that greatly affect the design of marketing programs. We will take these four characteristics one by one with respect to brand Puma.

1.  Intangibility- Services cannot be seen, tasted, felt, heard or smelled before they are bought to the customers. Puma try to demonstrate their service quality through physical evidence and presentation.

·        Place: The interior of any Puma store is very fascinating and eye-catching. Every category of product does have different sections in the store, so that the customers do not get addled while searching for anything.

·        People: You will always find sufficient number of attendees inside the store to answer your questions and help you out in anything. They will also inform you about their new upcoming collections.

·        Equipments: There are minimum of one or two computers in every Puma store. Also, credit card swiping machine is available in every store.

2.  Inseparability- Services are typically produced and consumed simultaneously. Provider-client interaction is a special feature of services marketing. Puma believe in community relations and they do this by:

-      Creating awareness of their clients’ organizations.

-      Modifying the opinion and behaviour of target communities through tailored activities.

-      Meeting with the public to promote, educate, inform or secure feedback on issues.

-      Serving as a liaison between client and the target community to address any issue.

3.  Variability- Puma never miss out on recruiting the right employees and providing them with excellent training, regardless of whether employees are highly-skilled professionals or low-skilled workers. They always try to understand the customer and communicate clearly.

They also don’t forget to make a service blueprint for the customers which help them in maintaining a “zero defects” culture and devising service recovery strategies. They also keep the record for employee suggestion and complaint systems, customer surveys, and comparison shopping.

4.  Perishability-

Marketing strategies of Puma for improving Services

1.  Reliability- It is the single most important dimension of service quality and must be a service priority.

2.  Basic Service- Puma deliver the basics and do what they are supposed to do- keep promises, use common sense, listen to customers, keep customers informed, and be determined to deliver value to customers.

3.  Teamwork- This enables the company to deliver services with care and attentiveness by improving employee motivation and capabilities.

4.  Surprising Customers- Process dimensions such as assurance, responsiveness, and empathy are most important in exceeding customer expectations.

5.  Service Design- Develop a holistic view of the service while managing its many details.

Product Life Cycle

Product Life Cycle...

Introduction- Rudolf Dassler introduced Puma Atom, Puma’s first football shoe in 1949 the year when the company was established. In 1970, Brazilian football star Pele helped Brazil to win World Cup in Mexico wearing Puma football boots. The next major sporting success came in 1985 when Germany’s Boris Becker won Wimbledon wearing Puma shoes and playing with a Puma racket.

Growth- In order to attain a unreachable position in the sports accessories market, Puma emphasises its distinctiveness, individualism, spontaneity, internationalism and sporting heritage. A very important strategy that Puma followed is ny keeping a close eye on the distribution channels so that the products remain desirable and do not become mass products in order to reassure sustainable growth.

Maturity- There is a slowdown in sales growth of Puma at this stage. But it focused more on acquisitions with other major brand so just not to stick with the sports brand. Puma merges sports and fashion. Becomes an official on-field supplier of the U.S National Football League(NFL).

 Decline- In 1993, Puma lost $32million on sales of $190 million, the same year when Jochen Zeitz was named chairman and CEO of Puma. Zeitz was striving to return the 45 year old sports apparel company to profitability by cutting costs by 40%. And then after, Puma had never turned its back and kept on growing and is one of the topmost leading brands in world.

Product Mix

Product Mix..

The brand Puma has three main sub categories of sub brands under it: Masterbrand, Sub-brands, Co-brands which further consists of various brands line and partnerships. The product mix width and product mix line for the brand is shown under.

Product-Mix Width
Apparels	Shoes	Accessories	Sports(shoes, apparels)	Bicycles
Masterbrand- Lifestyle “Classic”	Masterbrand-Lifestyle ”classic”	Masterbrand- Lifestyle “Classic”	Masterbrand Sports		Puma    + Biomega
	Starck Puma Line
Masterbrand- Co-branding “Ferrari” “Mini Cooper”	Masterbrand- Co-branding “Ferrari” “Mini Cooper”	Masterbrand- Co-branding “Ferrari” “Mini Cooper”	Masterbrand Motorsports
	Masterbrand- BMX
Sub-brand “Nuala”	Sub-brand “Nuala”	Masterbrand- BMX	Sub-brand “Rudolf Dassler”
Sub-brand “96 Hours”	Sub-brand   “96 Hours”
Mihara Yasuhiro	Sub-brand “Platinum”	Sub-brand “Nuala”
	Sub-brand “Mongolian Shoe BBQ”	Sub-brand “96 Hours”
Numostro	Mihara Yasuhiro, The Black Label	Mihara Yasuhiro

Customer Value

Customer Value...

A marketing concept that analyses the satisfaction received by a customer from the purchase of a product. 

The customer value of brand PUMA has kept changing from year to year. The duration of those years is termed as different eras. 

Era 1 :

 From the year 1948-1960.PUMA was considered as “The best in football” during this era.

Reason for being	Outfitting world’s best soccer players.
Value Proposition	Best in class performance.
Differentiation	Innovative features.
Persona	Elite,exclusive,personal,masculine
Associations	German professional soccer team
Range of authority	Soccer boots
Audience	Professional soccer players, experts, trainers, coaches.
Relationship	New player in the field.

Era 2:

This era covers the duration from the year 1960-1970.

Reason for being	Equipping the World’s best athletes.
Value Proposition	Enhances your performance in style.
Differentiation	Celebrity athlete endorsements. Clandestine advertising
Persona	Exuberant, elitist, colourful, energetic.
Associations	Charismatic pions(Pele) Gold medal athletes.
Range of authority	Soccer boots, track shoes, football shoes
Audience	World class athletes
Relationship	Trusted Partner.

Era 3:

From year 1970-1986. People started considering the brand as “Beyond the playing field”.

Reason for being	Targeting the sports lifestyle.
Value Proposition	Play in style & comfort.
Differentiation	Comfort & style. Consistent brand message.
Persona	Casual, laidback, cool, minimal
Associations	Soccer players at all levels. Champion athletes
Range of authority	Clothing, street footwear.
Audience	People who play sports.
Relationship	Familiar friend.

Era 4:

Includes the period from 1986-1997.

Reason for being	Business survival.
Value Proposition	High performance with personalized fit.
Differentiation	Innovative footwear systems.
Persona	Hi tech, advanced, not relevant, Classic, cheap, low quality, dated.
Associations	Professional soccer, tennis, track athletes.
Range of authority	Running shoes, kids shoes, apparel, Cross trainers, gear.
Audience	Young athletes, soccer athletes.
Relationship	A old friend you lost touch with.

Era 5:

The current era that is continuing from year 1997. People started considering brand as Hip, cool, and leading the way.

Reason for being	Mixing the influences of sports, lifestyle, and fashion.
Value Proposition	Fits your active lifestyle.
Differentiation	Distinctive lifestyles, branded experiences. Co-developed celebrity lines, partnership with famous designers.
Persona	Elegant, colourful, fresh, spontaneous, individual, urban, metropolitan, international.
Associations	Multiple sports lifestyle segments.
Range of authority	Performance/ casual footwear, apparel, gear, accessories.
Audience	Anyone who leads an active lifestyle

Consumer Buying Decisions

Consumer Buying Decisions...

1. Problem Recognition— difference between the desired state and the actual condition.Deficit in assortment of products. You see a commercial of a new pair of shoes, that stimulates your recognition that you need a new pair of shoes.

2.Information search- 

• Personal- Friend bought a new pair of PUMA shoes or any other PUMA product. You will get attracted for it and try to fetch more information about the brand.
• Commercial- Any fancy advertisement or hoarding of PUMA may also attract you towards the brand. The red box packaging of PUMA is also eye-catching.
• Public- Mass media and consumer-rating organizations are the two sources for any customer to get to know about PUMA.
• Experimental- You may use any of the PUMA product by buying it from any of your friend or relative for a day or two. After using the product and examining it you may like it and fall for it.

3.Evaluation of Alternatives- need to establish criteria for evaluation, features the buyer wants or does not want the product. Rank/weight alternatives or resume search. May decide that you want to buy or wear. If not satisfied with your choices then return to the search phase. Can you think of any other brand? Look in the yellow pages etc. Information from different sources may be treated differently.

4.Purchase decision-  After total evaluation and information searching about the product, the customer looks at his priority needs from the product. Does he want the shoes to be fancy looking? or Comfort ability is the main requirement or the purpose of buying it? or even both. He then evaluates the product from buying point of view and makes the final decision.

5.Post purchase behavior -  It is the outcome of the customer behavior towards the product after purchasing it. Is he satisfied or dissatisfied? Have he made the right decision. This can be reduced by warranties, after sales communication etc.