PUMA Marketing Mix

Puma: A short introduction.

 The Puma brand came into being in 1948. The company was founded by Rudolf Dassler and registered on October 01, 1948. During its 71 years of existence, it has seen a lot of growth and expansion. At the core of the Puma brand is fast sports. The company makes and sells footwear, apparel, and accessories. Puma is headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Germany. The company has partnered several football clubs for the marketing and promotion of its brand and products. Apart from the core brand Puma, the group also owns Stichd and Cobra Puma Golf.  During the past several years, Puma has experienced consistent financial growth. In 2018, the net revenue of Puma grew to €4.6 billion. Puma also invests in research and development as well as marketing to bring innovative products for athletes and acquire faster growth. It is among the leading shoe brands in the global market and also one of the biggest competitors of Nike. Its focus on product quality, process efficiency, and marketing have led to a stronger market presence and sales growth. Read more about the Puma brand in this marketing mix, explaining the 7P’s.

Product:

Puma makes and sells sports shoes, apparel, and equipment. It has brought products for men, women as well as kids. The company makes products focused on different sports categories including basketball, football, running, cricket, badminton, motorsport, running, and gym. Several of the shoes made by Puma have been highly popular. Throughout its history, the focus of Puma has remained on making great quality shoes that help athletes improve their performance. Back in 1952, just 4 years later than the launch of the Puma brand, the company made and released the Super Atom shoes, which were the world’s first sports shoes with screw-in studs. The product successfully created a stir when it was launched. This was also the start of Puma’s football legacy. In its existence of over 70 years, the company has released several mindblowing models. While football shoes are the main attraction of Puma’s portfolio, its product range is much larger including accessories and apparel as well as equipment. Footwear is the largest product category of Puma based upon net sales followed by apparel and accessories. 

Puma has also partnered several other brands and licensed them to use the Puma trademark. One of these partners is the watch brand Fossil. As a part of the agreement, Puma has licensed Fossil to make and sell Puma brand watches. The partnership between Kerin eyewear and Puma started in 2015 and since then Kering has kept releasing two seasonal Puma collections each year.  Kering has an extensive global distribution system that spans around 100 countries. Such partnerships with other market-leading fashion and accessory brands strengthen Puma’s appeal and market position in the global market. Some of the other licensed partners of Puma include Watex, ISM and L’oreal. WATEX has designed a special workwear range of apparel ‘Puma workwear’. ISM, a German manufacturer, and distributor of safety shoes, makes and distributes Puma safety shoes across more than 35 countries. Its partnership with Puma is more than 10 years old. L’oreal is also a licensed partner of Puma which has launched nine deodorants and fragrances under the Puma brand name.

Place:

Puma has its headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany. 

It has four central hubs: Herzogenaurach, Boston, Hong Kong, and Ho Chi Minh city.

Other corporate offices of Puma Inc. are located at the following locations:

North America: Carlsbad, California. Westford, Massachusetts.

Middle and South America: Buenos Aires, Argentina. Santiago, Chile. Santa Fe, Mexico, Lima, Peru.

Asia: Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou – China (one of Puma’s leading three markets); Bangalore; India; Japan. 

Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore; Seoul, South Korea.

Europe: Austria (the regional hub for markets including Eastern Europe, the Middle East, India, and Africa); The Benelux countries:  Belgium, Netherlands & Luxembourg; DACH region: Germany, Austria, and Switzerland; Assago, Italy; Nordics: Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark; Poland, Lithuania, and Estonia; Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom.

Africa/Middle East: South Africa, United Arab Emirates.

& Melbourne, Australia. 

Puma’s markets:

Puma has divided its business operations into three major geographic regions. EMEA (Europe, Middle East & Africa) Americas and Asia-Pacific. The leading market of Puma based on net sales is EMEA (accounting for 38.7% of Puma’s sales in 2018), followed by the Americas and Asia-Pacific. In 2018, Puma experienced rising sales across all three market regions. Asia Pacific region experienced the highest percentage growth in sales followed by Europe. The countries that account for Puma’s highest sales in EMEA include France, Spain, UK, Russia, Turkey, and the UAE. Greater China, Korea, and Japan are the leading markets of Puma in the Asia Pacific. 

Price:

Puma offers a large range of products in the footwear category. There are two main factors that affect pricing in the shoe industry. They are the level of demand and competition. Competition in the shoe industry is high and companies invest in product innovation as well as marketing to maintain demand. Accordingly, they set the prices of their products. Puma’s pricing strategy is a competitive pricing strategy. It offers premium-priced products as well as a large range of products priced more affordably compared to the competitors. This pricing strategy helps Puma sustain demand and drive sales higher. Compared to the two leading brands in the shoe industry, Nike and Adidas, Puma prices products more affordably. However, it still focuses on quality and also offers seasonal discounts on products to grow its sales. This pricing strategy has proved favorable for Puma which shows in its revenue graph for the last several years.  

Promotion:

Digital marketing has become the main marketing channel for most sports shoe brands including Puma and the other leading players like Nike and Adidas. Puma uses several digital channels like its own website, e-commerce websites, social media and paid online advertising to promote its products throughout the world. The company has dedicated separate shopping websites to its local audiences in regional markets like the US, UK, and India. These websites are the main sales and promotion channels for the company. However, e-commerce websites like Amazon, eBay, Flipkart, and Alibaba also sell Puma products. Another important promotional channel for Puma is social media. The company has a large network of followers on all the leading social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. It has more than 20 million followers on Facebook, more than 10.7 million on Instagram and more than 1.6 million on Twitter.

Puma uses its digital promotion strategy in combination with other innovative marketing techniques including outdoor promotions and sponsorships as well as strategic partnerships with football clubs. Puma’s appeal mainly lies in its products’ quality and design. However, overall the brand’s main focus is fast sports and to provide athletes the shoes and accessories they need for better performance. Puma calls itself a fast sports brand. It has opened stores worldwide in exciting locations. These stores are both sales and promotion channels for the company. Inside these stores, Puma showcases and promotes new arrivals and engages its customers.  The company promotes a strong brand image by investing in the community. It has also established a work culture that focuses on promoting maximum worker satisfaction. HR Asia nominated Puma Malaysia and Singapore as the best companies to work for two consecutive years. Puma has signed its biggest football deal of all times in 2019 with the City Football Group, laying the foundation of a long term partnership. In February 2019, the company also announced its long term partnership with National Basketball Association. The company had partnered Selena Gomez in 2017, who is an American singer and actress. She is Puma’s brand ambassador and helps the company improves the products it makes for women. In 2017, Lewis Hamilton became the ambassador for Puma Men’s Training business and the face of 24/7 marketing campaign. 

People:

People play a very important role in the marketing mix of a brand. The organizational culture of a business and how it manages its people affect its brand image. Puma employed 12,192 people in 2018 (yearly average). At the end of 2018, there were 12,894 people working for Puma (Annual Report, 2018). The company offers its employees competitive salary packages. It has implemented several training and development programs to help its employees find career growth. Apart from that, there is a performance management system that focuses on continuous personal and professional development of the employees. Employees play a central role in maximizing customer satisfaction and help the company find faster growth. 

Processes:

Puma has outsourced most of its production to external supply chain partners. They manufacture around 80% of Puma products. There are 126 core supplier factories of Puma that make most of its products. 121 of these factories are in Asia and the rest in America and Europe. Asia is the main sourcing region of Puma where China and Vietnam have most of its production facilities. Other leading supplier countries include Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, and Taiwan. 

Puma also has an extensive global distribution network. It has opened stores in exciting locations in various markets that attract the highest number of customers. Moreover, the company is continuously modernizing its distribution network to maximize sales and drive higher customer satisfaction. Puma sells its products mainly through three channels including wholesale stores, Puma owned retail stores and e-commerce networks. The e-commerce sales of Puma have continued to strengthen every year. The company is also investing in digitalization to speed up its processes and grow its international presence as well as the efficiency of its distribution network. 

Physical evidence:

Puma has maintained a strong physical presence globally through a large retail store network. These stores are designed to promote higher customer satisfaction. In recent years, Puma has continued to improve the look and feel of its stores for better customer experience. However, customers also purchase Puma products from online channels apart from its retail stores. The staff at Puma stores also focus on providing better service to the customers. 

PUMA’s retail stores are the main touchpoints that work as both sales and marketing channels. However, the size of growing e-commerce sales of Puma shows that online channels are driving higher sales. Puma’s strategic partners also help it grow its physical presence around the world. 

Cite this resource:

MLA:

Pratap, Abhijeet. “PUMA Marketing Mix.” Cheshnotes, Dec. 2019, cheshnotes.com/2019/12/puma-marketing-mix/.

APA:

Pratap, A. (2019, December 4). PUMA Marketing Mix. In Cheshnotes. Retrieved from https://cheshnotes.com/puma-marketing-mix/