Are they highly “crunchable”?
Excuse me? What would you like to know? I am going to spill my guts here only because you asked?
LOL
Anyway…I was wrong. It is exactly how Dazed claims it to be…the Chinese are deceiving people and hard negotiators. I never had anything to do with them.
Happy? I am over this discussion. Do not bother responding because I certainly won’t.
I never said they were a “deceiving” [sic] people, clearly you have no problem however with misrepresentation.
I’m sure you got over this thread when you realised how stupid a $55m advancement on the contract sounded.
Oh, low blows…editing your own msg after I replied to it…just to look “pretty” in front of other members…
Grow up.
I’m sorry about that Sev, I was actually editing it when I went to dinner as I realised I had misinterpreted what you had said, in the mean time you posted. Sorry for the confusion.
probably doesn’t fit their marketing strategy. Tthey don’t perceive themselves as a sporting good company more a luxury leisure goods one. This is explained in this book
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Puma-Story-remarkable-turnaround-sportlifestyle/dp/1905736401
That sure would explain why they came out with numerous running shoes the last year to a year and a half…
http://www.pumarunning.com/featured-product
sigh…
PUMA’s marketing strategy seeks to establish the brand as an icon that
extends its lead in the Sportlifestyle market.The key to achieving this
position is to maintain a culturally relevant message that connects with
our consumers despite a cluttered media environment.
from http://about.puma.com/downloads/figdtoveh5dmtpkr.pdf
and it appears the email address of the guy that wrote that book is r.peters@petersmedia.de so you can email him and let him know he was wrong
I’m not saying he is wrong or you’re wrong, just commenting on the fact that they’ve released numerous products in the running shoe market recently with essentially 0 advertising (in comparison to competitors within the same market) in major markets. Maybe you should read what I wrote instead of acting like a dick.
They did increase marketing spend by 20% (~80m) to coincide with the games last year - killed their margins - suggesting they are still emphasising sporting goods to some degree.
In part this is true but also part of the benefit as well. it is supportive of traditional ads but also benefits are accrued by exposure for other reasons or advertisers in a piggy-back fashion.
if that was truly your intention then I apologise.
From what I understand while they produce sports goods (obvious) they aren’t interested in being the market leader in volume. That doesn’t mean they wont develop new products
Brand Strategy
[i]
2005 was a milestone year in the company’s evolution, marking the end of Phase III and the transition to Phase IV of PUMA’s corporate
development plan. Phase III saw the PUMA brand emerge as one of the most influential in the world, transforming from an alternative brand to a global icon with broader desirability. The brand’s message was refined and its voice was clarified. In the process, PUMA created a new market segment in Sportlifestyle.
Phase IV now brings an evolved strategy: To be the most desirable Sportlifestyle company in the world. Maintaining desirability as our number one priority, we will use design, innovation and imagination to further extend the PUMA brand and select new areas of Sportlifestyle, developing into one of the very few true multi-category companies.[/i]
From 2003
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_27/b3840608.htm
[i]Jochen Zeitz
Chief Executive, Puma, Germany
Puma is purring again. Under 40-year-old CEO Jochen Zeitz, the German athletic shoemaker has become one of the world’s hottest fashion brands. From casual and sports apparel to roller skates and sunglasses, Puma’s leaping-cat logo suddenly seems to be everywhere. Sales soared 52% last year, to $1.1 billion, even as much larger rivals Nike, Adidas, and Reebok battled lackluster growth.
It’s a remarkable turnaround. Puma, which once vied with Adidas as the leading global seller of sports footwear, had faded from view by the 1980s after failing to update its product line. By 1993, the company was $100 million in debt. Enter Zeitz, a German-born dynamo who is fluent in six languages and an avid amateur pilot. A former marketing executive at Colgate-Palmolive Co., he was recruited as Puma’s marketing chief in 1991. He moved into the top job two years later, becoming the youngest CEO of any publicly listed German company at the time. “I’m not a fashionista,” Zeitz says. “But I could see the Puma brand had tremendous potential.”
Zeitz’s boldest stroke was to reposition the brand, stressing fashion over sports performance. He brought in designer Jil Sander and model Christy Turlington to design and promote new products, including a $195 sneaker. To lure young shoppers, he introduced items such as roller skates with fluorescent wheels. “We realized that to appeal to a young lifestyle, we needed to get away from traditional athletic looks,” Zeitz says.
Zeitz scored big on celebrity endorsements, too, signing Serena Williams to a five-year contract, just as she was beginning her ascent to the No. 1 spot in women’s tennis. The contract expired early this year, and Puma is in talks for a possible renewal. But the company looks robust enough to keep growing without her. Zeitz is forecasting 50% pretax profit growth this year, with sales up 30%. Not bad for a company that was on the endangered-species list.
[/i]
John, are you that dense? Really? Copying and pasting irrelevant stuff? T
I understand their goal is to appear upscale and as a “luxury” sports/athletic brand. I know they aren’t trying to max out volumes. That is nothing new and their style has always had that going for it for well over a decade now and have always tried to appear more “European” in their designs compared to many of their competitors. What doesn’t make sense is that they have released about 6-8 pairs of shoes in <18 months, almost all of which are specifically running shoes (ie cross country shoes, track flats, etc.) that are not for fashion or street wear (unless you are comfortable wearing a track flat walking around the street) and they have done very very little to advertise those. Compare that to Nike, Adidas, Brooks, Saucony… all of which do substantial advertising towards the running shoe buying and wearing population and you can see the issue.
Sportime - Great Quality Australian Made Speed Ball by Jim Bradely.
If your speedballs are made in australia what do the the chinese make for you.
Sady, Dazed, etc
As the quote goes - “He that knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool, shun him.”
“He that knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool, shun him.”
He that follows an outdated program of an uneducated “master” and he who denies that his “master” knew very little about it and yet he that advocates it as a superior method is a bigger fool than the “master” himself, pity him."
- A traditional Chinese proverb
