Jack in the Box pimp their sole for Puma in India

Mumbai-based Jack in the Box Worldwide conceived, executed and produced the extremely successful promotion that featured traveling and point-of-sale interactive events, videos, still photography and social networking components. Jack in the Box were briefed by PUMA India to drive awareness and traffic to the PUMA store in Khar on Independence Day weekend, using a “Freedom of Expression” theme to encourage young shoppers to design their own soles.  Winning designs in The Sole Fight competition would then become part of the PUMA 2011 Spring/Summer Flip Flop Collection with the designers’ names appearing on the shoes.

“The objective for the campaign was to create an awareness for the Linking Road store and to establish a connect with the creative fraternity of Mumbai,” says Rajiv Mehta, Managing Director of PUMA Sport India.  “Working with us on our side rather than just being a partner, Jack in the Box executed our broader theme with a lot of creativity, attention to detail and personal involvement.”

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Jack in the Box, the content-for-brands arm of Bang Bang Films in Mumbai, added value to PUMA’s concept, expanding beyond an in-store event to take the brand to the streets where PUMA consumers hang out.  The company bought a vintage Ambassador car, painted it white, christened it the “Sole Machine” and drove it to the cafes, streets and colleges where Mumbai’s young people were invited to grab a can of spray paint and tag the automobile with colorful graffiti.

Over an eight-day period in early August the Sole Machine traveled to more than 15 venues, updating the brand audience via tweets about the next stop on its tour.

More than 3,000 people painted the car – which had to be repainted white by the fourth day – and thousands of leaflets promoting the Pimp Your Sole contest were distributed.  A Jack in the Box video crew traveling with the automobile captured young consumers tagging the Ambassador and posing with a pair of giant PUMA shoe props.

An editing team cut ten videos of the activities on location and posted them on the PUMA Facebook page and YouTube every day.

Building on the power of social media, young people started tagging themselves on the Facebook pictures and telling their friends to check them out.  Some even made their PUMA pictures their profile shots.

During the Sole Machine’s travels, it made a stop at the MTV office, home of the network, which launched the Pimp Your Ride, vehicle-customization series.  The PUMA campaign intrigued the online media, too with CNNGo.com, GQ and HT Café picking up on the story profiling the campaign on its India website.

The two-day in-store Sole Fight competition was open to consumers and professional graffiti artists.  More than 18 pros showed up to paint 6×3-foot sole-shaped cutouts; consumers were given smaller six-inch soles for their artwork.  Over 150 consumer designs were generated, 34 were shortlisted on the PUMA Facebook page and more than (4000) votes were registered.  Five winners were chosen, and their designs will be part of PUMA’s Spring/Summer Flip-Flop Collection next year.

During the course of the campaign, three million impressions were generated. In fact, India became the #1 fan base for PUMA worldwide on Facebook with a huge jump in registrations.  The campaign rolled out in Bangalore in September.

PUMA Sport India’s Mehta reports that the campaign objectives “were met with great success.  The store visibility has markedly increased as seen from walk-ins as well as sales figures.  Jack in the Box’s innovative use of online social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube gave a great push to the campaign’s voice making it reach the target audience with ease in a language that they understood.”

Prashanth Challapalli, Business Head of Jack in the Box, says the project was “a great example of how to create branded content by fusing an on-the-ground event with video and online seeding resulting in a huge viral wave.  It also created an immense multiplier effect with offline and online publications picking up the story.  But the real success is that the brand has succeeded in inspiring its core audience in ‘co-creating’ not just content, but the product itself.”

PUMA’s Pimp Your Sole “is just one example of the kind of cool stuff we’re able to do as an all-in-one content creation and production outfit,” notes Roopak Saluja, Managing Director of parent company Bang Bang Films and Jack in the Box Worldwide.