A quick search on Puma on this site will deliver over 122 posts. I’ve been discussing the recent success of Puma, but I’ve also been explaining that the brand has to find a way to endear men to the brand in at least a fraction of the way that women have gravitated to Fenty. Fenty will eventually flatline and the brand will have to find growth opportunities beyond fashion and women’s footwear.
Puma Breaks the 4.8 Billion Dollar Mark for the First Time in 2017
In the video below I discuss the fact that Vince Carter was the last endorser of Puma basketball. Vince left the brand and had to pay them 13 million to break the contract. To me that should have been a warning sign to Marvin Bagley, but when you can earn more on a shoe endorsement than you can playing professional basketball, I can’t blame him for taking the money.
The problem comes in the inherent conflict around being a brand endorser without any real options for off the court wear. A kid who grew up as a Nike player and played for Duke and was able to get player exclusives and dope kicks from Jordan Brand and Nike has to be a truly dedicated endorser to refrain from rocking a collection of kicks attained over the years of being a Nike kid.
Millions of dollars will get you to say I don’t need to wear Nike, but will the Puma Tsugi and Parallel be enough to keep Bagley from pulling a Meek Mill and rocking throwback Jordans and Nikes? I guess the bigger issue is how will Puma utilize and work with Bagley to generate interest. The brand does have a number of strategies that they can utilize, but I won’t get into that here. Check out this video:
Puma has an incredible basketball history. They also have a few shoes that can easily be redesigned for basketball creating some dope footwear options for Bagley. One of those shoes is the Tsugi Kori:
The issue won’t be on the court however… it will be off the court and how Puma decides to build the apparel and footwear story around Bagley. That is the main issue. I really do think there is opportunity in a similar way to how I thought Under Armour had a great opportunity with UAS (which they really squandered in my opinion). This will be an interesting thing to follow.
