Puma has come up with a remarkably funny campaign after the launch of their latest football boots became a marketing disaster.
“Puma Future 8 Launch Edition” boots, the latest edition of football boots were first introduced in a football game when the Chelsea player Marc Cucurella Chelsea wore it during the game against Tottenham FC in the Premier League on Sunday, December 8.
Puma claimed the Future 8 series would offer the players improved grip and agility, owing to the new stud shape and a redesigned cleats positioning.
But Cucurella’s outing with the pairs, with him being the first player to wear it in a football game, turned out to be a marketing disaster for the sportswear manufacturer when Cucurella slipped twice mid-game.
Future 8 slips; Cucurella bins inaugural pairs
The first half of the game that was played at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium proved disastrous for both Cucurella and Puma when the player slipped twice on the pitch, which led Chelsea to go behind.
The player, marking his disapproval of the new boots, changed to a pair of older versions of the boots mid-game.
For Cucurella and Chelsea, the game got better after he changed the boots, and Chelsea made a remarkable comeback and won the game with a final score of four goals against three from Tottenham.
Marc Cucurella even posted a picture of the boots after throwing the brand-new boots in a bin, which made things even worse for Puma.
Memes and tweets stormed over the Puma slip, which put the sports manufacturer in a spot. The events of Cucurella slipping into the new boots and him binning it went viral.
Puma’s ‘Wet Floor’ Campaign
With the launch of the new pair of boots literally ‘slipped’ out of Puma’s hands, the company came back with a rather creative move, as they acknowledged the slip, and made it funny with a set of pictures featuring a “Caution: Wet Floor” board, with Marc Cucurella himself featuring in them.
The pictures posted on Instagram captioned “It’s not how you slip, it’s how you bounce back,” riding on Marc Cucurella’s better performance and Chelsea’s comeback against Tottenham to win the game from behind.
In a video posted as Puma’s continuation of the new damage control campaign, Marc Cucurella ‘mops’ a football turf wearing the new Future 8 boots. The wet floor sign is featured in this video as well.
Puma’s witty marketing campaign is receiving applause from the footballing community, with high-profile football transfer guru Fabrizio Romano, and football players including Thiago Silva and Marc Guiu, joining the comments section.
Meanwhile, Marc Cucurella, who slipped and led to Chelsea conceding against Tottenham, scored his first Premier goal in Chelsea colours, in the game against Brentford on Monday. He also received a red card and was sent off in the dying minutes of the game.
