Sport shoe brand and retailer PUMA India has launched a new advertising campaign featuring 40 Buddhist monks from Thiksey Monastery in Ladakh wearing the company’s running shoes, ahead of the Ladakh Marathon, which takes place from 10–13 September.

Titled “Meditation in Motion,” the campaign was photographed at the 15th-century Tibetan Buddhist monastery near Leh, Ladakh’s capital. The images show monks dressed in traditional maroon robes and wearing PUMA Deviate PURE NITRO running shoes while walking through the monastery and gathering against Ladakh’s mountainous landscape. (Branding in Asia)

The campaign accompanies PUMA’s third year as exclusive sportswear partner of the Ladakh Marathon, a high-altitude event in northern India. The six-image series was intended to emphasize focus rather than speed, drawing a parallel between the concentration cultivated in Buddhist meditation and that required by endurance runners.

“As a sports brand, we have seen that movement and meditation may take different forms- but they can often lead to the same place: a state of complete focus and presence,” said Ramprasad Sridharan, managing director of PUMA India. (Branding in Asia)

Sridharan said that PUMA’s experience with the Ladakh Marathon had highlighted the psychological demands placed on runners and prompted the company to focus on what he described as the “less visible side of running.” (Branding in Asia)

“‘Meditation in Motion’ was born from this thought. Working closely with the Ladakh Marathon team and the Buddhist Monks of Leh, our team conceived and shot the campaign entirely in-house, resulting in one of the most evocative and meaningful pieces of work we have created at Puma India.” (Branding in Asia)

The founder and race director of the Ladakh Marathon, Chewang Motup Goba, also drew parallels between endurance running and meditation.

“Running in Ladakh teaches you that you cannot fight the mountain, you have to understand it and embrace it. The altitude, the cold, the wind, the terrain, they all become part of the experience,” Goba said. “That is where the connection with meditation becomes so interesting. You learn to quiet the mind, stay present and keep moving, one step at a time. The Ladakh Marathon has always been about bracing yourself for the elements, but also learning to embrace them.” (Branding in Asia)

The Ladakh Marathon includes the 122-kilometer Silk Route Ultra, which begins in Nubra Valley at an elevation of 3,260 meters before climbing toward Khardung La Pass at 5,370 meters—higher than Everest Base Camp.

The campaign by PUMA has prompted discussion about the use of Buddhist monks and religious symbolism in commercial advertising.

Writing in Open Magazine, Rajiv Singh observed a tension between Buddhist monastic teachings on desire and an advertising campaign intended to promote a premium consumer product. The Deviate PURE NITRO shoes featured in the photographs retail for 14,999 rupees in India (US$158).

“The photographs are arresting because they force two worlds into the same frame. Buddhist monastic life is associated with loosening attachment. Advertising survives by intensifying it,” Singh wrote. (Open Magazine)

Professor of marketing at SP Jain Institute of Management and Research, Ashita Aggarwal, said that religious imagery could transfer cultural associations to the product being advertised: “Symbols transfer meaning faster than product claims can.” (Open Magazine)

She added that the question was whether PUMA’s existing relationship with Ladakh and the marathon made the association appear appropriate or whether consumers would see “sacred imagery being used as premium packaging.” (Open Magazine)

At the same time, Open Magazine noted that PUMA had an established relationship with the Ladakh Marathon and that Thiksey Monastery and its monks belonged to the cultural and religious landscape in which the race takes place. The campaign therefore brings together a genuine local Buddhist institution, an established sporting event, and a global commercial brand, while raising broader questions about the use of Buddhist individuals and imagery in contemporary marketing.

See more

Puma puts Buddhist monks in trail shoes for campaign (Famous Campaigns)
Sole Searching: Why PUMA Put 40 Buddhist Monks in Running Shoes (Open Magazine)
PUMA puts meditation in motion at a Himalayan monastery (SGI Europe)
‘Meditation in Motion’ – Puma India Puts Buddhist Monks in Running Shoes (Branding in Asia)

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