Puma'S Rebirth

What Chanson Setez (Jochen Zeitz) has done is to be unique and show his style in the market of strong sports shoes such as Lin.

But unlike the sometimes gorgeous Kaiser Karl Lagerfeld, the Kaiser CEO's style is more straightforward.

If you ask him whether he is a designer or a designer, he will say "no" definitely.

Since taking over the 58 year old Puma in 1993, he was only 30 years old, the youngest chairman of the German Stock Exchange.

"Instead of Lagrange, a famous designer, sometimes called Kaiser," I am more suitable for simple design.

Said teutzi, with a teat accent.

When he took over the company, Puma was suffering eight consecutive years of losses, and Puma North America was on the verge of bankruptcy.

In this industry such as Nike, Adidas, Reebok and so on, Puma has neither money nor fame.

Like a car that is already crowded with racing cars, shifting gears or stepping on the accelerator will not work.

Setez did not take the usual way to improve the quality of products. Instead, he paid more attention to the design and emphasized the fashion in color, line and style. He redefined the whole sportswear industry.

Facts prove Setez's foresight and courage to take the lead.

Today, Puma has become the fourth largest sportswear company in the world.

It takes years to eliminate the malpractice of the company, such as reducing production costs and controlling the channel of the US market.

One of his most important decisions is to let a 21 year old skateboard skater, Antonio Bertone, head the new Department of "sports life", to hatch experimental fashion projects.

In 1998, Puma worked with Jil, a famous clothing and automotive design brand, to work with Berton. The designer extracted visual elements from the Puma classic 60s soccer player's protective board, reorganized them with elements such as sheepskin and concept car appearance, creating a symbolic turning point in the course of cooperation between Puma and fashion design brand Sander.

The move of the company has aroused much doubt in the industry.

The dealer mocked him for losing his brand. Besides the famous sneakers of Bailey, consumers could not imagine what Puma could represent.

For Hull zorgan, which was once the birthplace of Puma and brotherhood Adidas, and now they are enemies, the employees of the shoe factories on the tiny island have become the track and runway which they do not share with their running shoes become the last thing they want to see.

However, when fashion enthusiasts compete to book Kyle Sander shoes, he finally laughs.

"I personally think that protecting Puma's newborn (sports lifestyle team) from premature death takes a lot of time and energy," Setez said. "But it's still worth it. Ultimately, it has made the whole company."

In the past, sports shoes that can only be seen in sportswear stores such as Foot Locker have become some of the high-end customers such as New York Barneys department store.

In Manhattan's Fashion District, MPD, which is full of designers, photographers, artists and salons, set up Puma's charismatic studio and built 74 stores around the world.

Today, Puma has taken up 6% of the global sports apparel market, and has achieved two digit revenue in 9 consecutive years. This year's annual revenue is $2 billion 300 million - the highest profit margin among competitors.

In order to make Puma jump out of the box, the company became an open source design site.

Puma has introduced a diversified recruitment mechanism from its design to recruit designers from outside. Shelly Bate, from France, and Miwara Yasuhiro from Japan, have also expanded the product category while advocating a new sports lifestyle with both fashion and performance.

"Many people think we are crazy," Setez said.

"If you want to change the industry, you have to do something new and innovative. Market research is not advisable, because research can only get consumers' impression of the product at present, but can not predict the future."

While redesigning the industry through design, he did not forget his mission.

"We are not museums. Our aim is to sell products."

He insisted that the brand designers of the company try different styles, forcing Puma and its interior designers to rethink their works from different angles.

"Sometimes you may not always like it - Philip Stark (Philippe Starck) is stark, McQueen is McQueen," said she, referring to the two senior designers in Puma.

"They come from a very different field, and I think that can help Puma keep thinking open."

Puma continues to push the company to new fields.

Puma and BMW's Mini brand have jointly designed driving shoes and brand new Mostro running shoes, which has been one of Puma's most popular products for seven years.

In the fall of 2002, Puma sponsored a sports shoe design competition sponsored by avant-garde designers, called Thrift.

Antonio Burton, the newly appointed brand director, struggled to collect 600 pounds of old shirts, trousers, ties and wallets to design sneakers.

Limited production products are sought after by many collectors.

The idea was also incorporated into Puma's latest initiative, the Mongolia shoe BBQ released a few months ago, an interesting customized sneaker on the Internet.

"I often describe the job in Puma as" I'm going to give you enough rope to hang you up, "Burton laughs." and my job is not to hang up. "

Today, the field of the industry is far from limited to footwear.

In 2006, Puma introduced a cubist style aluminum case wardrobe for business travelers. In 2005, Puma joined a Danish bicycle company Biomega and a London design team called "angry generation" to develop a city bike.

Team members have said that if they can invent something that others have never done before, it is worth developing.

Later, they designed the first bicycle that could not be stolen. The car lock was part of the body, and the body was damaged when the lock was broken.

Puma says such folding bicycles are very popular.

The Museum of modern art in New York also embodied this feature in the 2005 exhibition entitled "safety".

"I have seen many brands working together, but fundamentally, they have not jumped out of the Gucci brand."

"It will only derogate the brand, but Puma will help shape the designer," said Jens Martin Skibsted, founder of Biomega.

The company redefined the industry, but it did not mean that he could guarantee the status of the industry leader.

Seeking strategic cooperation has become the common practice of all sports brands. CONVERSE and John Varvatos have formed an alliance with Vans to join Marc Jacobs. Adidas has just extended its contract with Stella McCartney to 2010.

Only Nike's response to this game is relatively slow, perhaps because its Nike iD product line is popular among the public.

"The first entrant is not always able to carry it to the end," Marshall Cohen, chief fashion footwear analyst at NPD group, said (Marshal Cohen).

"Competition with Kenneth Cole is one thing. Competing with Nike is another matter."