ShowBusinessMan:
Puma

Supply & Demand director Gerard de Thame has wrapped the director’s cut of “Forever Faster” for Puma, work that continues to separate the brand from the sporting pack with an open invitation to join its rebellious cause.

“One of the main things Puma wanted to get across was a different message than the likes of Nike and Adidas whose athletes often tow the line and take themselves far too seriously,” say de Thame on Puma’s new branding platform. “Puma’s whole approach is: ‘we are different, we are individuals’ in work that is told in a very unique way.”

“Forever Faster” sidesteps convention by striking a rebellious pose using the world’s fastest man – all to prove that when you set the pace, you’re the one to chase. Rather than mimic serious-minded pleas we are introduced to the wise cracking persona of Usain Bolt, who instead revels in impatience, hostility and a bevy of impossible odds.

De Thame’s director’s cut sees a more rhythmic spot than the agency’s earlier version, focusing on the world’s fastest man as he speaks of Puma’s primal call. “It was a great collaboration between Gerard and the agency,” explains Tim Case, Supply & Demand’s Founder / Managing Partner. “Matt Anderson and Jeff Benjamin were fantastic, it was fun to be around and watch them develop this with Gerard. Usain Bolt turned out to be a terrific guy.”

The campaign was a competitive pitch, the commercial forming after different machinations of the original idea. “At one point we almost went with Usain hopping fences and jumping into people’s swimming pools,” de Thame reveals. “That was quite interesting, but the idea was eventually dropped.”

A desire to reference branding from the 70s was also examined before production, a move recalling one of Puma’s greatest marketing moments when Pele wore their black and gold Puma King boots, specially-crafted for Pele during the 1970 World Cup. In a beautiful piece of marketing excellence, Pele effortlessly pushed the brand by asking the referee to stop a game moments before the final whistle – just to tie up his Puma laces as everyone watched enthralled.

Shooting on location in Italy with Oscar-winning cinematographer Mauro Fiore (Avatar, Training Day, Smokin’ Aces), de Thame shot most of the football footage on green screen. Additional material was also garnered with supporters at real football games:

“Mauro’s work is phenomenal and we had complicated lighting and green screen work to achieve,” explains de Thame. “As always we were limited to the time the athletes gave us, but that served to keep us on our toes. We managed to capture everything we needed while Usain was a pleasure to work with. He has the perfect persona to encourage the use of rebellion and defy social norms, is such an interesting guy, and definitely breaking barriers like Puma.”

Asked why he finds himself in the US more often than Europe of late, de Thame responds that creativity and budgets are simply more attractive here. “The American market is more vibrant,” he explains. “There’s more going on, the reverse of how it used to be with better creative in England and money to go with it.”

De Thame wraps up by mentioning that post on the spot was also productive, giving props to both The Mill and Final Cut on the look of the final product – The Mill creating full CG stadiums with crowd differentiation between various football players on the pitch, while matte painters also created various custom landscapes.

“The agency really let us get on with it,” says de Thame on wrapping the work. “I supervised both the edit and the post effects. Joe Guest over at Final Cut did an amazing job, flying in from London to give us the right flow.”

Production Company: Supply & Demand Integrated
Executive Producer: Tim Case
Executive Producer: Charles Salice
Executive Producer: Jeff Scruton
Senior Head of Production: Rika Osenberg
Director: Gerard De Thame
Producer: Fabyan Daw
Director of Photography: Mauro Fiore

Editing Company: Final Cut NY
Editor: Joe Guest

Post: The Mill, NY
Exec Producer: Melanie Wickham
Producer: Veronica Ware
Shoot Supervisor: Andrew “Barnsley” Wood
2D Lead Artists: Westley Sarokin
3D Lead Artists: Wyatt Savarese
Colourist: Mick Vincent

In a young city, disparate and sparse, a city ruled by cars and taxis, there is little connection with the streets. The PUMA Fishtail Rides has been born out of a feeling and a need to reconnect with the streets of our city again.

Puma releases a new web intro video promo for their new Run Puma Run website. An old school web based game, really old school.

Are you the type to move better than you speak? Well not to worry, Puma Fragrances has just launched the "Puma Dance Dictionary." Before there were words, texts, twitter...we had body language and Puma is hoping it's new messaging platform and language will have us all stop saying what we want and moving it instead.

Encrypt your messages into dance moves. Top LA choreographer Super Dave works with some of the world's greatest Freestylers including King Charles, Pacman and Storyboard P to create a language of dance. Created to celebrate the launch of the new PUMA Sync fragrances, the PUMA Dance Dictionary is a digital application that encrypts messages into dance moves. Don't say it, move it.

Music credits: First Time from Dre Skull featuring Megan James and Popcaan.

Puma introduces us to it's newest technology in running shoes with the commercial above for PUMA Mobium shoe, the running shoe that was inspired by cats, yes cats, see video below.

A cat's paws contract to provide propulsion and expand to provide cushioning. PUMA Mobium Elite's Expansion Pods, inspired by a cat's paw, adapt to your foot with every step. Welcome to Adaptive Running.

Press:
PUMA Launches The Nature of Performance in 2013.
PUMA Celebrates A Year Of Innovation With Groundbreaking Performance Product Introductions & New Campaign Launch 2013 signals a pioneering year for PUMA, as the global sportlifestyle brand re-energizes its performance positioning through the introduction of a new cross-category performance platform — The Nature of Performance. The Nature of Performance underpins a new creative and marketing campaign, in addition to serving as the inspiration for a collection of innovative new products in the Football, Running, Training and Fitness categories.

PUMA's Nature of Performance platform is a red thread that unifies all of PUMA's performance categories with a consistent voice, look and feel. Grounded in nature and the athlete's innate desire to perform at their best level, The Nature of Performance takes us on a journey that is at once personal and universal. Through it, we come to understand certain campaign insights:

• The Nature of PUMA Football: Whether it's in your nature to be power hungry, a glutton for speed or a control freak, PUMA builds inspired products to amplify you and your team's instincts.
• The Nature of PUMA Running: It's in our nature to disrupt the monotony of running. It's making a routine run feel fresh again, and it's in our nature to get you out the door.

PUMA also partnered with video production house Juliet Zulu to develop a series of technical films and TVCs for The Nature of Performance that will roll out online, by category, beginning in February 2013.

"With The Nature of Performance, we've found our own unique voice within the performance space," said Filip Trulsson, Director of International Marketing at PUMA SE. "The platform works across all of our sport categories and offers a compelling and effective way to convey pinnacle performance PUMA products and the user experiences at its most natural state."

The Nature of Performance platform launch coincides with a series of innovative new product introductions in Spring/Summer 2013, including ground-breaking footwear and apparel styles for Running and Training.

PUMA Mobium Elite is a first generation PUMA Adaptive Running™ shoe that's built on a system of interdependent technologies that are proprietary to PUMA. The patent-pending technologies of the Mobium Bands, the Windlass Chassis and the Expansion Pods work together allowing the shoe to expand and contract as the foot naturally does through the gait cycle. PUMA has identified this new category of running — Adaptive Running — after two years of intense biomechanical research, development and testing. PUMA Mobium Elite encourages a more natural movement and efficient stride.

In addition to innovative new product introductions, PUMA is also introducing for 2013 a unique naming and labeling concept designed to make it easy for consumers to identify which products best fit their performance needs. The PUMA CELL system consists of 14 CELL names, each of which corresponds to a specific key performance benefit — dryCELL for moisture management, visiCELL for increased visibility and powerCELL for compression, to name a few. PUMA CELL is a proprietary system the brand has developed to ensure product benefits are clearly communicated and identifiable to the consumer.

I love everything about this campaign, especially Puma Designer Raymond Horacek (video below) who quotes the great architect Antoni Gaudi, "...man does not create, he discovers" in his design process. Raymond and the PUMA Innovation Team studied the way big cats move and how the human foot changes in length, height and proportion during the running step that gave birth to Adaptive Running.

Credits:
Creative Advertising Agency: Droga5
Video Production House: Juliet Zulu

Advertiser: PUMA
Product/Service: PUMA FAAS
Entrant CIRCUS DF Mexico City, MEXICO
Type of Entry: Use of Promo & Activation
Title: THE WORLD´S FASTEST PURCHASE
Entrant Company: CIRCUS DF Mexico City, MEXICO
DM/Advertising Agency: CIRCUS DF Mexico City, MEXICO
Executive Creative Director: Facundo Romero (Circus)
Creative Director: Alejandro Stea (Circus)
Creative Director: Javier de la Fuente (Circus)
Copywriter: Ignacio Rozental (Circus)
Art Director: Ezequiel Chareca (Circus)

• Puma has the fastest sneakers in the world: the Faas500.
• This is why we created the fastest purchase.
• A promotion with one rule: the faster you buy your Faas500, the less you pay.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.
How did it work?

At the press of a button, the customer received a ticket with their exact time of entrance. The faster they bought their Faas500, the higher the discount they received. Another button marked the completion of their purchase and the discount earned.

Describe the results in as much detail as possible. 118 people saved 63,720 pesos in 372 minutes. The fastest sneakers are meant for the fastest people.

It uses point of purchase + brand + public interaction under de concept of the campaign and generated both key message, and product selling.

Football players have accepted characteristic football "pleasure poses": Buffon shouts "yeah!", rejoicing to a victory, Heinze is proud of the won cup, and excentric Trochowski rejoices to the hammered goal.

Celebrate. Anytime. Anywhere.

Here only surroundings around absolutely not football so habitual gestures are looked, to put it mildly, ridiculously. Slogan Puma: "Celebrate. Anytime. Anywhere." It urged to reflect advertising idea of "an eternal holiday", a condition of soul which does not depend on time and circumstances around.