"Rosé's shoes sold out too"... The Real Reason Puma Has Its Sights Set on Seoul

Global sportswear brand Puma is turning Seoul into a launchpad for its newest products and marketing campaigns. Instead of importing hits proven overseas, the company is now testing ideas in South Korea first, then rolling them out to the rest of the world. The pull of K-POP, the wider reach of Korean culture, the speed at which local shoppers pick up new trends have all made Seoul a strategic base for the brand.

In 2024, Puma Korea became home to the company's third Global Entertainment Hub, following Los Angeles and London. It is the first such hub in Asia. The Seoul team works with headquarters on everything from scouting global ambassadors to planning campaigns aimed at markets far beyond South Korea.

The clearest example is BLACKPINK's Rosé and the low-profile "Speedcat" sneaker. Puma named Rosé a global brand ambassador in June 2024, four months before her worldwide hit "APT." arrived. After the song took off on global charts that October, the Speedcat and Palermo sneakers she wore in Puma campaigns sold out almost everywhere. Industry watchers point to it as a case of Puma reading the K-POP market early and turning that insight into a global marketing win.

Puma also sensed that low-profile sneakers were about to trend again, and pushed its Speedcat campaign in Seoul before other markets in the first half of 2024. According to the company, key styles like the "Speedcat OG Sparco" and the "Speedcat LS" sold out in 40 minutes on Puma's official online store and in 15 minutes on the local platform Musinsa.

After confirming the response in South Korea, Puma headquarters expanded the Speedcat campaign worldwide. The "Speedcat Ballet," released last year, brought in 600 million won in sales within 10 minutes of going live on Musinsa. The "H-Street," picked as the next low-profile sneaker to carry the trend, held its first launch event in Seoul's Seongsu neighborhood in May of last year.

Puma is also using more Korean figures and athletes in its global marketing. In the past, K-pop stars or domestic athletes were often signed only as regional ambassadors for Asia. Now the company is building partnerships aimed at the world market from day one.

Puma named Hong Beom-seok, who rose to fame on the Netflix series "Physical: 100," as a global training ambassador. He leads "Hyrox Puma FAM," a training program run jointly by Puma and the global fitness competition Hyrox. National high jumper Woo Sang-hyeok is also a global ambassador.

Puma Korea's proposal to sponsor Jens Castrop, a Korean-heritage player in Germany's Bundesliga, grew into a group-wide investment. That shift shows the local office moving past domestic campaigns and into scouting global sports properties.

Puma's investment in South Korea extends to physical retail. In April, the brand opened "Sneaker Box," a store dedicated to sneakers, in Seoul's Seongsu neighborhood. It is the second such store in the world, after Shanghai. Designed to look like a shoebox, the space is built not just for sales but for showing off Puma's sports heritage and letting shoppers try new products. Placing it in Seongsu, a district known for trend-driven shoppers, is part of an effort to test new retail ideas.

Puma also opened "Man City House," a pop-up modeled on the clubhouse of English Premier League partner Manchester City. On opening day, visitors lined up as early as 7 a.m. According to the company, more than 165 people were in the queue within 90 minutes of the 10 a.m. opening, and 700 had registered to enter before general admission started at 1 p.m. The space blended traditional Korean culture and the visual style of Hangul, and featured collaboration products and hands-on content built for the Korean market.

The pop-up also unveiled a special package for Manchester City's 2026–2027 away kit, produced with the Korea Craft & Design Foundation. The project combined Puma's global sports IP with the Korea office's local planning.

Fashion industry watchers say South Korea is moving beyond being a sales market for global brands and into a strategic base where products and marketing plans are built together. Product trends move quickly, consumer reactions spread fast on social media, and the reach of K-pop stars has grown across the global consumer market. "In the past, the standard was to take a success formula built by overseas headquarters and apply it to the Korean market," one industry official said. "These days, expanding products and content proven in South Korea to other countries has become a strategy that lifts both brand value and growth."