Sports company PUMA has appointed advertising agency JWT New York as its lead creative agency. Effective immediately, JWT will assume a leadership position over all PUMA advertising and creative on a global basis, with reach across North America, Europe, Latin America, APAC and Middle East/Africa.
Over the last three months PUMA’s new management team has created a unified brand platform and simplified mission: Forever Faster. The statement, a new tag line that will launch to consumers in 2014, reflects a 65-year history of making fast product designs for the fastest athletes on the planet.
JWT will work with PUMA to develop and define a fast-moving creative process poised to capitalize on culturally relevant sporting moments. The agency will immediately begin working on a project to re-ignite the brand heat, working with PUMA to define its new Forever Faster brand messaging before rolling out a new global brand campaign in the second half of 2014.
“In JWT, we have found an agile agency with a global reach that understands the PUMA brand and culture,” said Björn Gulden, CEO of PUMA. “The team quickly proved that they could deliver on our new mission to become the Fastest Sports Brand in the World. Together we’ll craft a more nimble creative structure that will allow us to support all of the company’s sporting and lifestyle categories with a single consumer message and streamlined creative concept across territories.”
The PUMA account will be led out of JWT’s flagship headquarters in New York, with offices across the agency’s network contributing regional insight and localization of the global brand campaign.
“PUMA is more than an advertising relationship for us; it’s a true brand and business partnership,” said Peter Sherman, CEO, JWT New York. “It will be a privilege to work with this team.”
PUMA is the latest in a string of new business wins for JWT New York in the last three months, which includes a consolidation of Energizer brands and a creative assignment from Google.