Competition

Competition...

The two biggest competitors of Puma are Adidas and Nike. Talking about their strategies, strengths and weaknesses.

Puma

In recent years , the Puma brand has become synonymous with fashion, style, and sport. Through fresh designs, co-branding and partnerships with celebrities and famous designers, Puma has elevated their brand image so that it now competes with fashion brands as well as their traditional rivals in the sporting footwear industry. The Puma brand communication strategy is flexible across multiple categories, yet communicates innovation for an “active lifestyle”. Puma communicates with each category in a unique manner, but the tone is tied back to the overall brand through the overarching brand personality and identity. To extend their brand Puma has created concept retail stores that enable people to experience the brand in engaging and compelling ways. Puma also engages customers through their Mongolian barbeque concept that enables customers to design and build their own footwear from scratch. Further differentiating the brand from traditional rivals, Puma frequently hosts promotional events that are based around “active lifestyle” themes based on dining, entertainment, fashion, and music.

Reason for being	Mixing the influence of sports, lifestyle and fashion.
Value Proposition	Fits your active lifestyle.
Reasons to believe	-distinctive trend setting styles -branded retail experiences -co-branding partnerships(Ferrari) -promotional events.
Persona	Elegant, colourful, fresh, metropolitan, individual.
Associations	Fashion brands(Gucci, Armani), extreme sports, music artists & stars.
Range of Authority	Performance & casual footwear, apparel & accessories.
Audience	Anyone who leads an active lifestyle.

Adidas

Adidas’ mission is to improve every athlete’s performance through innovation. The overall Adidas brand communicates the company’s goal of fusing sportsman performance and style competing very closely with Nike’s value proposition. To compete with the value propositions of their traditional competitors, Adidas has focused their brand communications in three different areas: “sport performance”, “sport heritage” and “sport style”. Brand communications are tailored to the specific market segments within each unit. Leveraging its cutting edge innovations in footwear, Adidas spends the majority of its effort communicating to the sport performance segment. In response to the “sport lifestyle” trend being led by Puma, Adidas has recently co developed product lines with famous designers and has focused on the timeless and classic nature of their brand.

Reason for being	Improving every athlete’s performance through innovation.
Value Proposition	Perform at the highest level.
Reasons to believe	-footwear technology innovations. -automatic customization -mass customization -classic styles, tradition
Persona	Clear, orderly, practical, hi tech, classic, sincere.
Associations	Elite soccer players, soccer teams, NBA stars, hip hop artists.
Range of Authority	Main performance footwear, performance & casual apparel.
Audience	Anyone who play sports.

Nike

Nike has developed a brand that has global reach striving to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world. Over the years Nike has partnered with the world’s greatest athletes to build their brand recognition and reach, masterfully demonstrating the power of image marketing. Nike communicates to a wide variety of sporting and lifestyle segments while retaining its focus on high performance athletes. Like Puma, Nike has extended their brand through concept retail stores, event sponsorships, online customization services, and co branding with design savvy companies. The Nike brand differentiates itself from Puma by focussing on “performance driven style”, whereas Puma communicates “lifestyle driven style”. The Nike brand goes head to head with the Adidas brand on the “sports performance” front competing to improve performance through technological innovation.

Reason for being	To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.
Value Propostion	Just do it.
Reasons to believe	-footwear tech. Platforms. -event sponsorships. -cutting edge performance. -branded retail experiences. -social responsibility.
Persona	Athletic, influential, outgoing, fresh, aggressive, hi tech.
Associations	Athletes at the top of their respective sport.
Range of Authority	Footwear, apparel, equipment in multiple categories.
Audience	All athletes- anyone with a body.