For more than two years, the best brass of Puma if they talked that they “raise” the German brand and make its most aspirational sneakers and clothing. Since he arrived last month, the CEO Arthur Haeld has issued a fairly frank verdict: Puma, if nothing else, is now perceived cheap.Haeld, a ten-year veteran of the rival Cross-Town Adidas Ag, has the task of transforming Puma and tracing a return to profit and growth. It is not the first time that the 77-year-old brand needs a restyling and former bosses like Jochen Zeitz, now head of Harley-Davidson, and Bjorn Gulden, who became CEO of Adidas in 2023, both found the way to revitalize the cat who jumped Puma.
But Haeld has significant obstacles to free. Quick -growing brands such as in Holding AG, New Balance and Hoka are winning customers and take more space on the shelves at retailers. Adidas is still high with its retro sambas, while the leader of the Nike sector bounces under the veteran of the Elliott Hill company with products such as the racing shoe Vomero 18, after a rare rough patch for the Swoosh.Then there are challenges that Puma can do very little for control: the commercial tariffs of euros and the USA that increase in rapid learning that increase the costs of the sector. Haeld took the first step towards what looks like a restoration of a textbook on July 24, offering a brutal financial revaluation that sees a dip in 20% of sales in the coming months and Puma loses money this year.
“This tells you that something is really wrong enough,” said Piral Dadhania, an analyst of the RBC Capital Markets. “This is a sort of reversal of trend quite at high risk. Execution becomes much more relevant in that situation.”Haeld must first stop bleeding. He is inheriting a growing battery of invented sneakers and clothing in warehouses all over the world who may require Puma more than a year to work and to convince retailers to buy again from the brand, said the Deutsche Bank ADAM Cochrane analyst.
“He is quite toxic,” said Speich, a portfolio manager with Deka Investment in Frankfurt, an important shareholder of Puma. “If you produce more and more shoes and expand your range of products – at the same time get less commercial space because other brands are much stronger – then it becomes difficult.”
After the warning on Puma’s profit, Haeld connected the adventure challenge to great image questions that may take months to answer and even more time to perform. “Do we have the right products for our consumers and wholesale partners?” he asked. “In this case, why does not our brand reaches the visibility and involvement required?” He promised to reveal his strategy in late October.
The collapse is seriously timed. The world of sneakers has turned in the last ten years while Adidas and Nike have retired from many retail partners, giving priority to direct sales channels to the consumer in the hope of increasing profits. This approach has failed, with consumers embracing smaller brands such as on, Hoka and New Balance who have obtained their products more space on the shelves of retailers.
Puma, however, was unable to capitalize on Nike’s stumbles, while Adidas quickly reversed the course under Gulden, winning retailers who could not have enough sambas with three strips and similar models. Since Hill returned to Nike last autumn, she has repaired relationships with retail sales partners including Amazon.com and the company appears ready for a new era of growth.
Brazen
For decades, Puma has occupied a difficult place in the world of sports goods. Even if it competes in everything, from football and basketball to running, it is much smaller than the main Adidas and Nike rivals in that multi-Sport game. Its products generally command lower prices, although it has been successful when it carves out a niche, often as a losing brand.
When Gulden arrived in Puma in 2013, he refocalized the company on performance for performance and has been heavily leaning on the only authentic superstar of the brand: Sprinter Usain Bolt.
Fast progress just over a decade and there was little of that rebellious spirit in the “Go Wild” announcement in Puma this spring, which was aimed at everyday runners looking for well -being vibrations. The campaign has struggled to stand out against Adidas’ “You Got This” push, or the video of On with the video of Sesame Street.
