Friday, November 14, 2008

Sneaker wars jump to a new level

What makes you better at what you do? How do you best get up for a challenge?

Do you follow the Bobby Knight bejeezus-scaring school of motivational theory? WARNING: THIS IS EXTREMELY EXTREMELY EXPLETIVE LADEN.



Or are you a joyful follower of the Dick Vermeil school, sponsored by Kleenex®, (where your coach is your friend, mentor, and hugbuddy all wrapped into one)? Either way, there’ll be tears.

Maybe it’s simply good enough to look across the battlefield and stare into the eyes of a fierce opponent.

If you believe that stiffer competition makes you do better work, then there’s good news for Nike, Adidas and Reebok.

Puma has hooked up with Droga 5.

Given their history for creating ideas that make people notice, there’s no doubt they’ll do the same for Puma. It's generating much discussion and healthy debate. Big question is, what kind of a brand Puma will be?

They do sports ads now.



Nothing to write home about. Not even done all that well. Although the shoes seem pretty damn cool.

They also have seemingly endless styles of cool looking shoes in wonderfully crazy colors and designs.

So what do they focus on? Sports? Fashion? Both? Youngsters? Hipsters? Chicks? Dudes? US? Europe? Asia?

My bet is, all of the above. Can’t wait to see it.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

sorry, puma. you're sol. the commercial looks like the long-dead soccer video games that failed to break into competition with PES and FIFA because they were too unrealistically fantastical to capture soccer fans' attentions.

you'll notice that the best nike and adidas soccer commercials had two central elements that this puma one lacks: (1) the best players in the world. puma tried to do this a few years back when they had pele endorse them, but that didn't work, and they don't have the rolodex nike and adidas do; and (2) REALITY. the whole coolness of nike and adidas commercials comes from the fact that they ACTUALLY do those ridiculous tricks.

puma has a long way to go.

Danny Schuman said...

They may continue to not be the most authentic in the world, but they will certainly make noise. So the question may be, will the quality of the ideas and the surprising nature the work--the sheer coolness of it--be good enough for people, or not? We'll see.