Amber Fredman is Puma's director of North American marketing at the company's North American HQ in Westford, MA, overseeing global ad strategies. She defines Puma's North American market position: "We are not positioned as sportswear, but rather as lifestyle or classics - the original shoes from the 70s. In North America, the brand is still underground, has a lot of credibility on the streets and appeals to people in the creative industries."

Spotty distribution has traditionally made the trainers hard to find, contributing to Puma's appeal to downtown early adopters. Sponsorship of bands like Korn and Skateboard pros like American Kien Lieu or Japan's Keiko Yanagisawa were chosen to further the appeal to 'street' consumers. Internationally however, Puma is in every way a sports brand, focusing on sports like soccer, running, tennis and even cricket - not exactly signposts on the cool continuum.

"As far as our ad strategy goes, we needed a campaign to bridge different brand positions worldwide in one creative execution," explains Fredman. Working with limited production dollars, Puma seeks to address a worldwide audience, presenting both lifestyle and traditional sports brand identities.

So in 1995, Puma chose Gyro, Philadelphia PA, as its global agency and got to work infiltrating the subconscious acquisitive urges of hipsters and jocks alike.

"Gyro is fully involved in the corporate identity of Puma and has grown with us as we have emerged from being a lifestyle brand to being both a sports and lifestyle brand," says Fredman.

Steven Grasse is CEO and creative mastermind of Gyro, an ad shop known for pushing the boundaries of both advertising and good taste. With the help of Cincinnati, OH post and edit house Lightborne, Gyro produced a number of arresting sports-meet-street Puma spots. "Brand Anthem 2000," features a number of Puma-sponsored athletes treated in a visual-overload style; "Yamakasi" focuses on a Paris-based team of urban stunt specialists; while "Soccer" and "Lazio" focus on the action, personalities and drama of the world's most popular sport. All of the spots are scored with music from rockers Korn.

"The same executions had to air worldwide so you will notice that the music is the dominant language being spoken. There is no copy other than the logo and the words 'Make Me Bad' from the [title of] the Korn music in the background," explains Fredman. Grasse served as executive director and producer for "Brand Anthem 2000" (aka "Superlife"), with Gyro in-house filmmaker Joe Frantz and Puma account manager Peter Grasse travelling around Europe, North America, Asia and Australia filming segments of various sponsored athletes on 16mm Bolex for the 60-second spot. Photographer/director Warwick Saint (repped by Creative Exchange Agency, New York) shot action segments of various athletes performing against a solid black background.

"TV is a major part of Puma's advertising, although the TV airs in various markets at different levels. There is a big TV buy in Japan, Germany and France; in the UK we rely more on print, and in the US the spots don't air as much as in other markets," explains Grasse. In other markets like Japan, he says, Puma goes toe to toe with Adidas and Nike, but in North America the brand is being reintroduced.

"Puma is global and youthful, an alternative sports performance brand with the good stuff of Nike or Adidas, but behaving like Airwalk or Etnies," says Grasse. "We have sponsored top athletes from soccer and cricket as well as break dancers and skateboarders."

Fredman admits that production dollars available for TV spots are far from astronomical, with about four executions a year. However, the Web site Puma.com and heavy product placements in films and on celebrities pick up some of the slack in terms of getting Puma in front of the right eyes.

"Product placement is not larger in terms of out of pocket cash, but in the amount of impressions we get, it vastly exceeds what we get from advertising," says Fredman. "If I can get a pair of shoes that cost me $30 placed in Spin magazine, that's the same cost as a $20,000 insertion. Not only is Puma in front of the right people at the right time, but the recommendation comes from a publication the reader is already interested in."

That said, Grasse is planning a second commercial with Puma-sponsored Parisian roof-leapers Yamakasi, falling into the same non-linear action mold as the recent spots.

WEB.FILES

Puma> www.puma.com

Gyro> www.gyromart.com

Lightborne> www.light-borne.com