Puma Leverages Social Graph to Promote Spring-Summer Collection

While it’s not new to launch a Facebook app these days, the challenge is how to ensure top of mind awareness for your brand and drive consumers to generate sales in-store.

German sports brand Puma decided to do just that as part of its Spring-Summer 2012 social campaign in selected Asian cities – Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, The Philippines, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, targeting 18- to 24-year-old trendsters.

The Puma Dream Team App rolled out in May and will run through July by generating an individual’s social infographic based on one’s activities on Facebook to determine social traits that are then shared to their social networks.

“What makes this app unique is it’s a fun new way for people to find out the ‘Teammate’ role they play in their team through the social activities they’ve logged for the last three months,” Teresa Liwanag, Puma’s Asia Pacific marketing PR manager said.

For instance, if your friend likes to take photos of food and instantly uploads them on Facebook they become a “Food Snapper,” if someone likes music pages they become a “Rockstar,” or when your friend logs in between midnight to 4 a.m., they become the “Midnight Cat.”

She explained there are several teammate roles to match everyone’s personality in different social situations.

Participants will then receive shopping vouchers that may be redeemed in Puma stores for every team they create.

Once you have logged into the Puma social app, you’re prompted to select your location. Puma Asia has localized for Hong Kong and Taiwan by allowing users in those cities to log in their local languages – traditional Chinese.

You can choose to let the app analyze your role first before creating your dream team.

And this is where Puma promotes its latest products, the Bolt Lite Lo and classic Puma Suede sneakers, depending on gender.

As captain of the team,  you get to choose one of six social activities that will generate and automatically select and tag your Facebook friends under various social traits such as “celebrity,” “socialite,” or “blah blah blah” with a call to action tagline – “I’ve created my Puma Social Dream Team! Come and create yours too!”

Unlike spammy apps, Puma’s app actually allows the user to find out which of their Facebook friends’ checks-in, were being tagged and likes their photos and posts the most. Under the fun social facts category, you can also track social traits by cities of people that use the app.

Liwanag said the campaign aims to engage consumers in a fun platform to create awareness and present its latest seasonal collection of apparel, footwear, and accessories that would encourage them to check out the products at Puma stores and eventually purchase them.

The challenge was how to strike a balance in optimizing user experience, creating brand association, driving users to stores, and purchase consideration.

A month since its launch, more than 3,000 profiles and activities have been analyzed and installed with 300 shopping vouchers and coupons claimed within three weeks.

She added that the regional execution involved ads on Facebook, local portals, and vertical sites of the five cities, supported in print and outdoor with a call-to-action message to drive traffic back to the Facebook app.