You Could Lose Your (Puma) Pants in This Market.

In today’s marketing world, using as many “touchpoints” as possible to reach your consumer is the ideal. A popular “touchpoint” these days is the iPhone. There are apps for almost everything imaginable, and this has made the iPhone something way beyond a communication tool. The holy grail for marketers when it comes to the iPhone is developing an app that has desirable, sticky content and is entertaining.

Puma Index screen shot

A promising example of this is the free app that Puma recently released. Known as The Puma Index, the app keeps you up to date on the state of the financial markets (the Dow, German (DAX) and Australian (ASX) markets are covered). If your particular market is up, the attractive models (both male and female) in the app dress in layers. If the market starts spinning down, you get to see the models strip right down to their Puma Bodywear, the brand’s latest line.

This is how Puma describes it:

“Index is a cheeky web and iPhone application that tracks global stocks, but with a twist. As stocks go down, PUMA Index models shed layers of clothing, undressing all the way down to their PUMA Bodywear…and as stocks go up, the clothing comes back on. Think of it as an entertaining antidote to Wall Street woes. So now if you lose shirt, at least our models do too.”

The content is important to a lot of people on a daily basis and the entertainment value has the potential of being very viral. To tie it back to sales, Puma will give you a 20% discount on a purchase if you show the app in a Puma store. Obviously, any sales they get from this are gravy, as this play is about buzz and branding. Well done.