Puma goes mobile for F1 Shanghai

Shanghai - Puma has tapped mobile marketing agency Phonevalley to roll out a mobile campaign during the F1 race in Shanghai in a bid position Puma as China's leading motor sports lifestyle brand.

Phonevalley has partnered with Zenith China to create a comprehensive mobile campaign based on a Puma global mobile internet site featuring Puma's 'F Wan' (wan meaning play in Chinese) operation. The site introduces Puma's brand and culture in an original and fun way.

The campaign uses advergaming by offering mobile users the chance to play a F1 battle car racing game that can be downloaded on the Puma mobile website.

To increase the buzz, a gaming bonus system is built where players who submit their scores via sms or who forward the games to friends will earn new points. Every week, the top 3 players will win Puma F1 shoes, bag and hat.

The mobile site also provide access to a store locator function to identify the closest Puma retailer with in-store promotion details and offers Puma F1 themed mobile screens and wallpapers for users to personalise their phones.

A mobile couponing campaign is also developed so that players who download the mobile game will be sent a Puma MMS coupon that will allow them to redeem a mobile phone toy accessory in any of the Puma stores in China.

The media strategy that Puma used include banners and text links displayed on the top three Chinese mobile portals, QQ, 3g.cn and Kong.net, sms short codes are integrated in all of Puma's OOH and print ads where they receive a clickable sms that links directly to the Puma mobile internet site, WAP push sent to Puma members, sms mobile search and mms couponing.

Alexandre Mars, Phonevalley's CEO and Publicis Groupe's head of mobile said, "With its 600 million mobile subscribers, the Chinese market is undoubtedly a fantastic opportunity for Puma to develop its mobile presence and we are enthusiastic to support them."

Malcom Hanlon, CEO for Zenith China, said Puma and Zenith are always looking for new and engaging ways to conect with the youth target in China while they can't 'outspend' the huge budgets of competitors they could 'outsmart' them.

"By being the first, the most innovative, engaging and unique with our Puma campaigns we continue to ensure Puma's media budget delivers the best ROI compared with the huge budgets thrown around by other sports brands here," he added.