Run Puma Run
- Brand
- PUMA
- Year
- 2012
- Objective
- Engagement
- Industry
- Fashion & Beauty
- Mechanic
- Arcade & Action
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- Viget
Objective
Olympic sponsorship rules meant PUMA couldn't reference the London Games or name its own Olympic athletes on puma.com, yet it wanted to ride the summer's biggest sporting conversation and drive traffic to its own site rather than paid media. The evoSPEED line needed a way to make that same promise of speed and competition without ever saying the forbidden words.
Solution
Landing on puma.com, the visitor picks a hero from PUMA's evoSPEED roster spanning five sports — running, football, cricket, golf and motorsport — each redrawn as an 8-bit sprite. The chosen character takes off on an endless side-scrolling track, and the player jumps hurdles and grabs medals to push their score higher, all to a chiptune soundtrack. The game fills the browser window while PUMA's normal site menus stay visible above it, so it plays like part of the store rather than a separate campaign page, and it runs equally well with taps on a phone or keystrokes at a desktop — no download, no plugin. A run ends when the player finally clips a hurdle, leaving a score to beat on the next attempt.
Results
More than 120,000 total plays, with visitors spending an average of 17 minutes 6 seconds on the site during the first five days after launch.
- 1
The player first meets the game through a teaser film on PUMA's YouTube channel, then plays it directly on puma.com, where it takes over the full browser window while PUMA's regular site navigation stays pinned on top.
- 2
Before racing, the player picks a runner from PUMA's evoSPEED ambassadors across five sports — running, football, cricket, golf and motorsport — each redrawn as an 8-bit sprite.
- 3
The chosen athlete then races automatically down an endless side-scrolling 8-bit track with chiptune music playing, and the player's core input is timing jumps over the hurdles that keep coming.
- 4
Olympic-style medals scattered along the track can be picked up as the runner passes them, building the player's score.
- 5
Beyond jumping, the player can switch lanes and steer the athlete while airborne, dodging obstacles as well as hopping them.
- 6
The run keeps accelerating and obstacles grow harder the farther the player survives.
- 7
Hitting an obstacle ends the run: the athlete drops into a knocked-out pose, and the player is prompted to try again for a better score.
- 8
The same game runs unchanged in mobile browsers on phones and tablets, with touch controls replacing keyboard input and no app or plugin needed.
