A new multi-phase campaign for Puma|One8 sees national cricket team captain and icon Virat Kohli promote a message encouraging youngsters in India to incorporate more sport, exercise and play into their daily lives.
The digital #ComeOutandPlay campaign for One8, an athleisure brand created as a partnership between Kohli himself and the sports lifestyle brand Puma, was developed in harness with creative agency DDB Mudra
It is primarily focused on a seven-strong online video series of hard-hitting, 15-second films featuring Kohli urging viewers to adopt an active, healthy lifestyle and asking them to #ComeOutandPlay.
Each spot is themed around challenges to contemporary trends and habits ranging from video games and high scores to ad skipping, replays and box sets.
The commercials include:
The messages and media plan have been customised to target people on the channels they spend most time on.
The brand’s objective is to connect with consumers where they naturally spend their time: for example, across social media channels and OTT (Over The Top) platforms such as InMobi, Hotstar, Voot, and Sony Liv.
Thus each contextual video was strategically aired during prime shows and other properties and content that generate strong audience traction.
The campaign was launched with a live event at which Kohli promoted the brand’s umbrella message and also highlighted the simpler joys of playing sport, exercising outdoors and taking time away from mobile phones and tech devices.
The Indian captain spoke at length about how active lifestyles can be easily and simply integrated into everyday home and work life.
#ComeOutandPlay was developed after some original brand research by Kantar IMRB, commissioned by Kohli and Puma India, that produced an interesting set of insights into on physical activity and sports participation in India.
The study found that 57% of respondents haven’t played any sport even once in the last one year (with 58% of them saying that this was because of a ‘lack of time’).
And yet the same research showed the same segment of people spent between four and five hours each day on social media, watching television and using a mobile phone.
“Sports has been replaced by digital entertainment and games, especially amongst the millennial. We have also seen a decline in people playing sports as they grow older,” said Puma India marketing head Debosmita Majumder.
“PUMA and Virat have come together to encourage people to play sport, not only to stay fit or to pursue it professionally but just for the love of it. Through this campaign, we are looking at bringing back the joy of playing sport and making India a more active nation.”
Vishnu Srivastav, Creative Head, DDB Mudra South, added: “The brief was straightforward – make India play more. The campaign was created to specifically tackle that. We wanted to use Virat in a new light, where he provokes the audience to start looking at sports and play with far greater interest. The reason we didn’t go with conventional media, and opted to do contextual videos was to interrupt the virtual lives our audiences are so caught up in, and tell them that there is a world outside that is exciting and fun..”
The creative team included Vishnu Srivastav, Sooraj Pillai, Neha Sathe, Sudhira Mendon, Jonah Costa and Sajni Masturlal, while the account team consisted of Pritika Gupta, Bilal Hasan and Yash Dabi. Planning was handled by Mehak Jaini and Ketan Rambhi, production came from Like Minded People Productions and the director was Piyush Raghani.
Comment:
#ComeOutandPlay is the first full marketing campaign from Puma|One8 sincce the co-owned brand’s launch event back in November 2017.
This is a challenge to a set of contemporary young Indian trends and its approach reminds us a little of Nike Running’s entirely text-based ‘Get Out And Run’ campaign from late 2016 (see case study).
The choice of theme dovetails neatly with Kohli’s own story: it plays not only on his iconic status as the captain of the country’s biggest sports team, but also works because he has worked hard in the gym to turn transform himself from a player who was once considered talented but a touch workshy into an incredibly fit athlete.
This transformation has won him praise and admiration in the cricket world, the media and among fans too.
Links:
Puma|One8
https://in.puma.com/men/featured/one-8.html
https://www.instagram.com/puma/#
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/puma/
https://www.youtube.com/user/puma
DDB Mudra
