Mumbai: Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma took the city by surprise with a one-of-a-kind and spontaneous consumer-facing event organised by sports brand PUMA India as part of its Let There Be Sport platform. The brand ambassadors made an unannounced visit to a co-working space and a residential complex to promote the adoption of sports and fitness culture into everyday lives, creating a buzz in the city.
At the co-working space, Kohli and Sharma entered a meeting in progress and motivated employees with on-the-spot fitness challenges.
They visited Mantri Espana, a premium residential space in Bengaluru, and spontaneously teamed up to play a friendly mixed doubles badminton match against two lucky residents from the society.
The entire gamut of action was set in motion earlier in the day, when Kohli and Sharma dropped in at the PUMA head office to interact with its employees. A host of activities were organised including rapid-fire questions and games.
Kohli and Sharma also spoke at length about the role of sports and fitness and its necessity to be a life routine in an in-depth tete-a-tete with Abhishek Ganguly, Managing Director of PUMA India and Southeast Asia.
“Sports and fitness must be integrated into our culture, curriculum and everyday lives as a valuable and critical life skill. As a brand, PUMA constantly creates fresh and offbeat ways to connect, engage and inspire audiences in a deeper way. Our event today brought Kohli and Sharma and consumers up, close and personal. Kohli and Sharma are youth icons and their on-the-spur interactions today will create awareness and encourage people of all ages to take up sports and fitness,” PUMA India and Southeast Asia managing director Abhishek Ganguly said.
“As a leading sports brand in the country, it is our responsibility to create a purpose-driven platform such as Let There Be Sport to further the development of sports and fitness culture that India has witnessed in the last 5-10 years. We have received a great response for the initiative so far and we hope to achieve our goal of building a fit India,” Ganguly added.
Commenting on the occasion, Kohli said, “Sports has to be an integral part of everyone’s life. I’m glad that PUMA recognised the need and came forward wholeheartedly to highlight the importance of making it an essential just like other necessities. It was great fun taking time out from our schedules to interact with locals and crashing a meeting at the co-working space to get employees to do fitness challenges. I hope many will be motivated and inspired today and take up sports and fitness as a life skill.”
“PUMA’s Let There Be Sport campaign was the need of the hour. There should be equal importance given to sports in schools and colleges because pursuing sports at a young age will keep you fit in the longer run. It was wonderful taking up these fitness challenges and interacting with the people of Bengaluru where I have spent a significant amount of my growing years. I also thoroughly enjoyed playing a spontaneous badminton match with Kohli and the residents today,” Sharma commented.
PUMA India launched the platform Let There Be Sport, after an exclusive study conducted with Nielsen Sports revealed India’s lack of inspiration and participation in sports and fitness. Questioning the conventional mindset that sports is a digression from academics, Let There Be Sport promotes adoption of sports in everyday life and as a valuable skill in the main educational curriculum rather than just an extra activity.
Under this initiative, Kohli had also recently taken part in PUMA’s ‘Let There Be Sport’ Conclave along with ace footballer Sunil Chhetri as the duo spoke about the need for sports and fitness while sharing inspirational stories from their respective journeys. The conclave streamed the latest 90-second digital film by PUMA which features its brand ambassadors Kohli, MC Mary Kom, Sunil, Avani Lekhara and Bhagwani Devi alongside everyday athletes.
Reinforcing that only sports hold the power to transcend socio-economic and gender barriers to unite people on a single platform, PUMA has begun a much-needed movement with #LetThereBeSport campaign to motivate people to take up sports and physical activities.
