Strategically, Puma in 2011 was in a bit of an identity crisis in China. Should it see itself as a sports brand? Or was it more of a fashion brand? 'Somewhere in between Nike/Adidas on one end of the spectrum, and Vans/Converse/Diesel on the other' would probably have been the honest answer. A position conveniently coined as "Sports Lifestyle". In the US and western markets, this positioning was manifested in the 'After-Hours Athletes' campaign, but to Chinese consumers this barely made any sense. So the purpose of this campaign was to carve out a positioning that encapsulated both the brand's sporting heritage and its fashion credentials:
Natural Born Players.
It made sense in this market because although the vast majority of young Chinese aren't that serious about sport, the idea of playing anywhere has its appeal - if you can frame it in a way that's fun, quirky and local. 'Natural Born Players' allowed us to convey this message, and maintain a consistent attitude for future campaigns - be it the next winter/summer collections or the new lightweight range of shoes and apparel.
ATL work ran across 4 cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guanzhou and Harbin) inviting people online to engage with the brand by unlocking their own natural born player.
Unlike previous Puma campaigns, we chose not to use celebrities in ATL work, but instead featured them in the digital work including interactive videos, games, a lookbook, and promtional offers to drive to store - all of which sat off Puma's China website and its renren.com page.
