Marketinganalyse von Puma


Term Paper, 2010

18 Pages, Grade: 2,0


Excerpt


1. Introduction

Puma is a sports lifestyle company that originally started as a German shoe factory that specialized on football shoes and running spikes in the late 40´s. In more than sixty years of existence, Puma has experienced the highest highs as well as the lowest lows. During this time, Puma maintained its expertise in the field of football shoes and now belongs to a small leading group of brands, developing and selling the best football shoes worldwide. This paper focuses on analyzing Puma´s position on the market in the field of football shoes, examining its strengths and weaknesses, while also describing the market in general by using Porter ´ s Five Forces as well as exploring the influences on the market by doing a PEST-Analysis. Taking this into consideration, the paper discusses where Puma Football might achieve a unique selling proposition and how their marketing objective and strategy looks like.

2. Puma - The Sports Lifestyle Company

2.1 History of Puma

In 1948, Rudolf Dassler started WKH ³ PUMA Schuhfabrik Rudolf Dassler ´ and specialized on producing football and running shoes. Dasslers products enjoyed great success thanks to their revolutionary functionality and workmanship. Especially their engagement in football has been a success story, partly because Puma had the world´s most famous football players such as Pelé, Maradona and Matthäus under contract1.

However, between the mid-eighties and mid-nineties Puma´s financial situation was very problematic. Changes were necessary in order for the brand to survive. In 1993, Jochen Zeitz was appointed Chairman and CEO at the age of 30, becoming the youngest Chairman in German history to head a stock corporation. Zeitz managed to turn Puma from a low price brand into a premium sports lifestyle company and one of the top three brands in the sportswear industry2.

Today the PUMA Group owns the brands PUMA, Cobra Golf and Tretorn. The company is one of the world´s leading sports lifestyle companies that designs and develops footwear, apparel and accessories. Puma distributes its products in more than 120 countries, employs more than 9,500 people worldwide and has headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Boston, London and Hong Kong3.

2.2 Product Portfolio of Puma

Puma specializes in the areas Running, Teamsports, S ailing, Motorsports, Golf and Lifestyle. In the Running section Puma develops running gear from running shoes, sprint spikes and jogging suits to running shorts, shirts and jackets4.

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Figure 1: Usain Bolt - One of the Brightest Sports Stars of This Era5

In the area of Teamsports the company mainly focuses on football and equips national football teams like world champion Italy and African teams such as Cameroon, Algeria, Ghana or Ivory Coast. Besides providing regular football wear, Puma takes pride developing state-of-the-art fooWEDOO ERRWV´6.

Puma "set sail" for the first time by entering its own sailing yacht "il mostro" into one of the longest and hardest sailing races in the world - the Volvo Ocean Race. By joining the race in 2008, Puma entered a new premium category and is the first sports lifestyle company to participate in a venture of this kind. With their sailing performance and lifestyle collection, Puma addresses professionals as well as "fun-time sailors´7.

In the field of Motorsports PUMA designs and creates footwear and apparel for top Formula One racing drivers and MotoGP riders. Inspired by their motorsports footwear, Puma also creates lifestyle sports shoes for the wide field of customers.

Puma's Golf category has grown over the last years, whereas the golf industry itself declined. The marketing campaign "Look better. Feel better. Play better" combined with innovative product introductions in apparel and footwear further boosted Puma's position in a sport that had long been perceived as too traditional for colors, style, fashion.

The last field of Puma´s product portfolio is its Lifestyle category. Puma not only takes pride in developing high performance sportswear, it also makes a big effort in addressing fashionconscious people with stylish, colorful, individual apparel and footwear.

3. Marketing Analysis

3.1 Puma´s Strengths and Weaknesses

In order to find out about potential competitive advantages of Puma, an examination of their company is necessary. Such an assessment/interior view of Puma as part of the marketing analysis has the goal to point out competences and skills as well as weaknesses and potential for improvement. In the following, the results of a performed "Strength and Weaknesses Audit" will serve as indicators for how good Puma football is able to position itself in the market.

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Figure 2: Award-winning Campaign "New Stuff" in 20058

Puma is known to make a great effort in becoming an environmentally sound and sustainable company. Long-term climate protection activities and Puma´s CO2-neutral headquarters, which is unique in the sportswear industry, reinforces what the brand of Puma stands for:

innovation, uniqueness and visions. This puts the company ahead of competitors in terms of KDYLQJ D ³FOHDQ´ LPDJH ZKLFK LV EHFRPLQJ PRUH LPSRUtant for customers.

Over the course of their existence, Puma was able to endorse famous and successful athletes. Their latest success came in 2009 at the Athletics World Championships were Usain Bolt, perhaps the biggest current sports star, broke world records and won several gold medals. The achievements of Puma´s athletes increase the brand visibility as well as strengthen the long-term growth potential of the brand.

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Figure 3: Marketing Campaign Prior to the African Cup of Nations in 20069

Being the company of the first hour, Puma has gained an extensive expertise developing and designing football shoes and cooperating with football professionals for over 60 years. The great deal of experience and competences have led to a knowledge advantage over new competitors and enables Puma to continuously create new state-of-the-art football shoes and be successful on the sales market.

[...]


1 Cf. Puma (2010a), http://about.puma.com/?cat=7&lang=en, 13th of June 2010.

2 Cf. Puma (2010a), http://about.puma.com/?cat=7&lang=en, 13th of June 2010.

3 Cf. Puma (2010c), http://about.puma.com/?cat=4, 13th of June 2010.

4 Cf. Puma (2009), p. 57.

5 Cf. Ibid., p. 57.

6 Cf. Ibid., p. 58.

7 Cf. Puma (2010d): http://www.shop.puma.de/sport/men/sailing/51600,default,sc.html?sz=30, 13th of June 2010.

8 Cf. Puma (2005), p. 54.

9 Cf. Puma (2005), p. 62.

Excerpt out of 18 pages

Details

Title
Marketinganalyse von Puma
College
University of applied sciences, Munich
Course
Marketing
Grade
2,0
Author
Year
2010
Pages
18
Catalog Number
V162798
ISBN (eBook)
9783640785063
ISBN (Book)
9783640784752
File size
1048 KB
Language
English
Notes
Keywords
Marketing, PEST-Analysis, Porter´s Five Forces, Puma, Football, Sports, Macro-Environment, Micro-Environment, SWOT, Umweltfaktoren, USP
Quote paper
Diplom-Pädagoge und Master of Business Administration Sean Miller (Author), 2010, Marketinganalyse von Puma, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/162798

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