German sportswear brand Puma will use this year’s Olympic Games and its partnership with sprint champions Jamaica to focus on speed, as it jostles with Adidas and Nike to carve out space in an increasingly competitive running and lifestyle market.
This was among messages conveyed at Puma’s “forever faster” brand campaign launch in Paris……host of the upcoming 2024 Olympic Games.
The campaign which is Puma’s first in a decade features top athletes, including pole-vault record holder Armand Duplantis and 400-metre hurdles champion Karsten Warholm.
Like other sportswear retailers that sponsor Olympians and pour marketing money into the ‘Games’, the bet is that athletes breaking records in Puma gear will nudge spectators towards its whole range of products, creating a potential “halo effect” for everything from marathon shoes to everyday sneakers.
The campaign also saw Puma CEO Arne Freundt visiting Jamaica at the end of March where he attended the ISSA Boys and Girls Athletics Championships to launch the Jamaican Olympic Kit at the event seen as a testing ground for young athletic talent.
Meanwhile, in other news, brands will be allowed to celebrate medals won at the Olympics by their athletes on social media during the games.
The move which is a first comes in light of the International Olympic committee plans to relax rules governing online marketing in a “pilot project” with the World Federation of the sporting goods industry.
