Puma’s #DoYou Movement Culminates with 1623 Women Holding the Abdominal Plank for 60 Seconds

by  EVENTFAQS Bureau Marketing | November 7, 2016 | News

Puma DoYou Toast Events Reliance Jio

It all began with PUMA aiming to enter the Guinness Book of World Records by inviting the largest number of women to hold the longest plank and create a new world record. This was achieved yesterday with 1623 women participating and holding the abdominal plank for 60 seconds at Reliance Jio Park, BKC. On the occasion of International Girl Child Day, PUMA launched DO YOU, a movement with women at the core of it. Launched internationally in Septeber, the campaign aims to inspire confidence in women across the globe to do what they want to do. All on-ground aspects of the campaign were managed by Toast Events.

In order to train women and to help them build their core strength, PUMA organised a series of regular ‘planking events’ in Mumbai. From October 15 to 23, these events took place at various malls which witness high footfalls from customers, especially women, including High Street Phoenix (Lower Parel), R City (Ghatkopar), Phoenix Market City (Kurla), Viviana Mall (Thane) and Infiniti II (Malad).

Following the mall activations, from October 17 to 28, these planking events were also held at popular corporate parks to target the growing female workforce of Mumbai like India Bulls (Lower Parel), Westin Woods (Goregaon), Equinox (Kurla) Capital (BKC), Trade Centre (BKC), Platina (BKC) and Ashar IT park (Thane). These ‘planking activations’ aimed to keep the spirit of the ‘#DoYou’ movement alive by creating a community of strong women who can find their inner strength to build their core each day.

Talking to EVENTFAQS about how the movement came about, Debosmita Majumder, Senior Marketing Manager, PUMA said “We announced the campaign on October 11th – International Girl Child Day – as we wanted to make a statement. We associated with women achievers like Sakshi Malik, Lisa Haydon, Sucheta Pal, Jacqueline Fernandez and many more to share videos of their story and thus encouraging women to embrace their own stories. This created a ripple effect as many women started talking about their stories and how they are bracing themselves to do what they want to do.”

On the response to the movement, Abhishek Ganguly, MD, PUMA India added, “As a brand we have a strong focus in the women's category. With DO YOU we wanted to provide women a platform to express their individuality and demonstrate their inner strength. We are extremely thrilled to see the campaign succeed and snowball into a massive movement. What's extremely encouraging has been that we could bring together women from all walks of life and the girl next door could relate to the movement. Breaking the Guinness World Record has been an icing in the cake by giving women a feeling of community achievement.”

PUMA, as a brand has always been focused on the journey, and not the summit, and the belief that the core is the most important part through this journey. A metaphor for core strength, ‘the plank’ works on the core muscles. As a part of the Indian leg of the campaign, PUMA brought together passionate women to be a part of this movement, by inviting all of them to perform ‘the plank’ together in the biggest demonstration of planking ever seen.

"We've had a long association with Puma and our objective with each event is to do something different which creates its own landmark. With the Do You movement, it had to be something that spoke the essence of the global campaign and that's where Toast Events came up with the concept of the Guinness World Record. Instantly synergies were met with the brand and 3 months of work, laying each brick piece by piece, showed the world the tremendous power that Indian women have and what the world needs to look out for. Toast Events is proud to have been part of an initiative that has created history,” said Nilesh Gurav, Director, Toast Events Pvt Ltd.

“Experiential marketing is extremely important to us. We want out consumers to experience the brand and not just buy it or wear it. There’s a lot of heart and soul that goes into PUMA and we want to communicate that,” added Majumder.

With acclaimed actress Cara Delevingne helming the movement globally, PUMA got fitness addict Jacqueline Fernandez, avid marathoner Lisa Haydon, Olympic wrestling maven Sakshi Malik, and a host of other women achievers to lend their voices and their stories for the Indian leg of the campaign. Some of the other incredible women involved were the Everest sisters Tashi and Nungshi Malik, musician Anushka Manchanda, international Zumba education specialist Sucheta Pal, supermodel Ujwalla Raut, actress Kalki Koechlin, fitness and nutrition specialist Nidhi Kamal Mohan, and professional golfer Sharmila Nicollet.