BENGALURU:  Sports lifestyle brand Puma India is targeting about 10000 participants in this year’s edition of Urban Stampede from eight cities in the country. Last year’s edition of the event saw 3000 participants.

With the philosophy of introducing running to people who were fitness-focused but leading busy lifestyles, the idea of a corporate relay race ‘Puma Urban Stampede’ was born.  Started in Bengaluru in 2008, Puma Urban Stampede has enjoyed unprecedented growth – prompting Runners for Life and Puma to take it to other cities says the company.

Flipkart has come on board as an associate sponsor, thereby increasing the scale and reach of the event. This year the event will travel to Pune, Chandigarh, Kolkata and Chennai in addition to the existing races in Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi and Hyderabad.

Puma India MD Raji Mehta says, “Starting June 2014, the first Sunday of almost every month will see a Puma Urban Stampede taking place in one part of the country. This is the only national running event in India, and we’ve opened up the categories to allow more runners to participate – with the 4x5k Corporate Relay still taking pride of place in the overall event. This year, Puma will also fly down the national corporate relay winners to South Africa to participate in the renowned Safari Half-Marathon”.

Further, The Puma Urban Stampede will now feature a 2x10k Open Challenge as well as an individual 5k competition in addition to the 4X5k Corporate Relay.

Also, this year, Puma India has roped in Fortis as Medical Partners; Ginger as Hospitality Partners; Red FM as Radio Partners and Give India as Charity Partners.

“Our media plans for promotion of the event include online, social media as well radio through our radio partners Red FM. We will be doing outdoor and are planning to work out a media plan with a print partner across the 8 cities in which the event will be held. Creative work as well as media buying will be in-house,” revealed Mehta to www.indiantelevision.com.