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Puma’s love affair with African football deepens

Written by: G Kofi Annan

Article Overview: Being the No. 4 sporting-goods brand is tough. But Puma is betting that backing African football (soccer to Americans) will differentiate the brand and win it a significant increase in market share.

Puma’s love affair with African football deepens

Being the No. 4 sporting-goods brand is tough. But Puma is betting that backing African football (soccer to Americans) will differentiate the brand and win it a significant increase in market share. Continuing with the company’s commitment to African football made during the 2006 World Cup Games, Puma put some serious resources together for product and marketing efforts behind the 2008 African Cup of Nations held recently in Ghana. As a sponsor for 9 out of the 16 African teams, including tournament hosts Ghana and champions Egypt, Puma worked hard to make the brand synonymous with African football, even going so far as buying the Ghana team a top-of-the-line Mercedes-Benz bus for transport between matches. The company began it’s Cup of Nations efforts with a sponsorship deal for Eurosport’s live coverage of the games and then a press conference at the brand new Puma store in Ghana’s Accra Mall. The press conference was held to announce several activities on the ground during the tournament, including a youth exhibition game co-hosted by the Peace One Day charity and edun Live and featuring African football legends Roger Milla and Anthony Yeboah. With a Puma sponsored team win at the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations, the company is now launching the celebratory ‘African Cup of Nations pack’, a limited collection of sneakers based on one of Puma’s staple silhouettes, the Puma Argentina. The ‘African Cup of Nations pack’ features shoes representing four African teams - Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Senegal. The ‘African Cup of Nations pack’ along with the Peace One Day/edun Live collection and accessories will be available this spring.

With French multinational holding company PPR, parent company to luxury brands such as Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Alexander McQueen, Bottega Venata, and Balenciaga, spending $7.1 billion last year for a 27 percent stake in the Puma brand, Puma is gearing up to cash in big as African football takes center stage during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. In a recent interview Puma CEO Jochen Zeitz expanded,


For us it is just part of who we are and what we do. We are about innovation and we want to look at new ways of moving the brand and our product forward and we believe there is tremendous excitement in Africa we want to use that as part of our self-expression. It’s about passion, colorfulness and diversity. To bring Africa to the rest of the world or innovation through Africa is an approach that no one has ever selected before. And that’s why we got so heavily involved.

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Article Tags: africa cup of nations, african cup of nations, african football, alexander mcqueen, anthony yeboah, bottega venata, exhibition game, football legends, ivory coast, luxury brands, mercedes benz, pack features, peace one, puma brand, puma store, roger milla, sponsorship deal, tournament hosts, world cup games, yves saint laurent



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