Case Study: Puma ft. Sergio Agüero – Enter the Arena
The campaign that lit the fuse.
The campaign that lit the fuse.
Before rebel proving ground became a cinematic franchise, before international athletes lined up to be part of the story, there was one breakthrough moment: Sergio Agüero, stepping out of the darkness, into the arena.
Partnering with Puma, I developed and directed a high-stakes, high-style campaign starring one of football’s most lethal strikers. At the time, global talent was off-limits—Nike and Adidas wouldn’t entertain lending top-tier athletes to Australian retail. This campaign was designed not just to promote a product, but to provoke a reaction: to force the hand of competitors by creating something so ambitious, so undeniable, they couldn’t afford to sit out the next one.
The result? A tension-soaked, stylised short film featuring Agüero in a dramatic underground pitch—part stage, part battleground. Lights stutter on in sequence, illuminating the pitch line by line, drawing us toward the goal. Agüero steps forward, composed. But just as the path seems clear, masked defenders—stylised as modern-day ninjas—emerge from the shadows to shut him down.
What follows is a dance of agility and anticipation: Agüero slicing through pressure, defying gravity, and—ultimately—scoring on his own terms.
Behind the scenes, we engineered the shoot around an ultra-tight athlete window. To ensure cinematic fidelity, we used body doubles for specific sequences, and relied on stylised lighting and motion blur to conceal transitions. Every production choice served both story and logistics—creating theatre while maintaining credibility.
More importantly, this wasn’t just a successful launch—it was a behavioural intervention. The campaign leveraged competitive priming and scarcity cues at the brand level: by visibly collaborating with a global star, we reframed what was possible for retail campaigns in the region. Sure enough, within months, Adidas and Nike were proactively offering top-tier talent for the next campaign. Mission accomplished.
Results:
31% uplift in Puma boot sales across rebel channels during campaign period
2.1M views across YouTube, in-store, and social media in the first two weeks
44% increase in brand favourability for Puma in key football segments
Secured buy-in from Adidas and Nike for international athlete participation in subsequent rebel campaigns
Cited internally at rebel as the turning point for category leadership in football
Why it worked:
This campaign didn’t just move product—it moved the market. By pairing strategic theatre with behavioural foresight, we changed the rules of engagement and raised the creative bar for an entire category.