Creating the perfect canvas for pushing boundaries
Over the last few years, PUMA’s growing presence—and success—within Foot Locker has led to more opportunities for the international brand. With this came a more focused, long-term approach to elevating the brand’s presence within Foot Locker’s family of brands—including Kids Foot Locker, Champs, Eastbay, and Foot Action—that connects with their highly sought-after target audience.
When developing a progressive, over-arching strategy for PUMA’s Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter collections, The Martin Group was tasked with providing creative concepts and visual direction, and adapting the initiative to speak directly to Foot Locker’s customer muses.
One of PUMA’s defining qualities is their ability to use color in unique ways. This core trait ultimately led to the development of the “Color Outside the Lines” thematic concept centered around new seasonal product drops. And while colors—and the inspirations behind them—are what would bring these product stories to life, there was much more to the thematic than the shoes and apparel themselves. Through the initial brief, our client was able to provide detail into the role color plays in their overall brand story. Mainly, how it is a connective thread that brings together cultural moments and causes, reflects emotion and self-expression, and is never static as it continues to evolve.
The Martin Group worked to clearly articulate how the concept “Color Outside the Lines” would manifest itself tactically and connect emotionally to the specific audiences Foot Locker’s brands are looking to attract.
After thoroughly digesting the brand values, tone, and personality, we explored each customer muse—their interests, tastes, and desires—and generated both an overarching manifesto along with individual messaging that authentically connected the celebration of color to the muses.
Through that exploration, we developed visual concepts that captured the campaign positioning and personality, but would also provide space to explore the many unique product drops throughout each season and align with PUMA’s team of brand ambassadors.
While presenting several on-strategy creative concepts, the PUMA team felt that multiple options could be executed over the lifespan of “Color Outside the Lines.” Our team handled production of product photography, multiple still and video shoots with national ambassadors Cordae, ZaZa, and Young Dylan, and an in-store activation at a Champs location in Miami, Florida. The final deliverables were visible within Foot Locker stores around the country and across their social media platforms.