To enable its new “Smallest Gym in the World” fitness experience, Puma is teaming with Meta and its Quest 3 mixed reality headset. The physical gym, which launched on January 11 inside the Puma store in Hackesche Höfe, Berlin, attracted 160 booked appointments and long queues of customers eager to experience it. Customers were promised the opportunity to try a virtual workout class using the Meta Quest headset.
The immediate popularity of Puma’s ongoing activation shows interest in VR sports activities, presenting an opportunity for brands. For U.S. customers, Apple opened pre-orders for its next-gen Apple Vision Pro headset on January 19 — the 180,000 available units promptly sold out over the weekend.
Fifteen-minute appointments for Puma’s VR experience were made available starting on January 12. Participating customers have the option to change into the latest Puma sports collection to do the featured workouts, which include HIIT, boxing and dancing, all available in Meta’s app store. The workouts were not developed by Puma — the brand integration comes from the in-store experience and opportunity to wear the Puma collection. The workouts are done in private “pods,” allowing individuals to personalize their experience.
Adidas launched a VR climbing experience in 2017, and Nike has launched a VR experience allowing customers to view products. But neither has worked directly with Meta to leverage its sports apps. Puma began working with Meta in 2022 on the development of virtual clothing for the company’s Avatar store, which launched in May 2023.
The Berlin activation was a natural extension of Puma’s interest in VR. The brand uses VR internally to help design some of its products, and, with the launch, it wanted to harness the popularity of virtual sports. Consultancy company Deloitte estimated that 22 million VR headsets were purchased worldwide last year.
“Working out is one of the best use cases for headsets,” said Ivan Dashkov, head of emerging marketing technology at Puma. For example, “the boxing classes can get super competitive, and it’s really fun to be in those environments.”
“We’ve never done something like this in one of our stores,” said Dashkov. “For [those trying the headset], it was an ‘aha’ moment when they put it on [and realized the possibilities of virtual reality].”
Puma promoted the “Smallest Gym in the World” launch through Instagram, with the initial post receiving 20,000 likes. The brand also worked with celebrities and influencers to build awareness. That included German Raptor basketball player Dennis Schröder, who has 2.5 million Instagram followers, and several German fitness creators, who tried the Meta Quest 3 x Puma experience at home. Among them were Rick Azas (@tricksmitrick; 296,000 Instagram followers), Nogc Tran (@heyxngoc; 31,000 Instagram followers) and Jennifer Lange (@jenniferlange; 300,000 Instagram followers).
Virtual reality is catching on in physical retail. Last year, Coach and Tommy Hilfiger launched virtual try-on mirrors in stores in New York and Milan, respectively. Customers can see how items fit and look, without using a changing room.
“We’re going to see continued demand for new [brand] experiences, some of them in virtual reality, and fitness is one of those experiences that makes sense and has been successful,” said Cathy Hackl, co-CEO of virtual experiences company Spatial Dynamics and an Apple Vision Pro developer. “But going beyond VR, with the [introduction of the advanced] Apple Vision Pro, there will be a surge of brands in the next year wanting fully immersive spatial experiences.”
Puma’s activation comes just months ahead of the Olympics, happening in Paris from July 26 to August 11. It hints that Puma may integrate VR within its planned outpost in Olympic Park.
“There’s been a lot of [internal] conversations about ways we could bring an interesting web3 or metaverse type of experience there,” said Dashkov.
There’s also the opportunity for Puma to expand the experience to its other stores, including its flagship in New York.
