Puma’s new promotion with Usain Bolt

Puma as of 2014, is in third place for the sporting goods industry. They have however decided to have a change in direction of goals of the business which abandons its effort over the last two decades which focuses on fashion led consumers, this change i believe is greatly affected by its change in CEO from Jochen Zitz to Bjoern Gulde.  Gulde now wants to attempt to combat head to head with the industry giants Nike and Adidas. Does this sound like a feasible change in market goal? I believe due to Puma’s current positioning as well as their change in  market focuses should allow the business to grow faster than being a fashion led sporting goods business.

The first reason being Puma’s change in missions statement and business’s goals. From 2013’s “Puma has the long-term mission of becoming the most desirable and sustainable sports lifestyle company” to 2014’s “Puma has the long-term mission of becoming the fastest brand in the world”. This is an important directional change in the business because Puma can now utilize its assets to promote its marketing strategies. Instead of deciding to chase the football and basketball industry, they have decided to utilize their celebrity Usain Bolt, and have decided to focus on the track and field segment instead. This is a good directional change for Puma as it allows them to position themselves as a competitor for performance sporting goods, however they’re target market group would be more focused on enhancing the performances of athletes on the track, which can be considered as a market which is not currently  saturated. I believe we will see an increase in Puma sales over the next few years due to the change in market objectives for Puma, which will allow for its stocks to increase in the near future.