Host Erin Narloch sits down with Tara McRae, the new president and managing director of PUMA North America, to unravel the intricate dance between a brand’s storied past and its vibrant future. McRae, a veteran of iconic brands including Bose and Clarks, champions “true authenticity” as the bedrock of a successful brand.
“I’ve been lucky enough to work at real and authentic brands that really know who they are and don’t deviate from that,” said McRae. “Whether it be my consumer electronics days at Bose or my footwear days at PUMA and Clarks or even my time at TB12 in health and wellness, just knowing the core of who you are and staying true to that, you truly become an authentic brand.”
Show Notes:
Tara McRae is the president and managing director of PUMA North America. Previously, she held leadership roles at Bose, Clarks and TB12.
Transcript:
Erin Narloch 0:11
This week on The History Factory Podcast, we are joined by Tara McRae, the recently appointed president of PUMA, North America.
She brings a wealth of experience in navigating the intersection of heritage and innovation with a distinguished career that includes leadership roles at iconic brands like Clarks and her previous tenure at PUMA, including experience at Bose, Tara has consistently demonstrated a deep understanding of how to harness a brand’s DNA to fuel its future growth and connect with consumers on a deeper level, our conversation with Tara will delve into the strategic importance of brand heritage In today’s fast paced market. We’ll explore the pivotal role that archives play in not just preserving a company’s legacy, but in actively informing and inspiring current marketing campaigns, product development and employees at large, from revitalizing classic designs to communicating a brand’s enduring values. We’ll discuss how to effectively translate the stories of the past into a compelling narrative for the present, ensuring that a brand’s history becomes a powerful asset in an ever changing world. Let’s go ahead and get into this week’s podcast.
Tara, thank you so much for being here on The History Factory Podcast. We’re super excited to have you, you know, reading through your CV and thinking about where you are . One of the questions I wanted to kick kick us off with is, what does true authenticity mean for a brand today? Right? How and how can brands cultivate and communicate it effectively without appearing to be chasing after a trend? I know we’re getting right into it here. Yeah, no warm up at all.
Tara McRae 2:17
Well, first off, Erin, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, there’s nothing I like to talk about more than brands and brand history.
The word authenticity gets thrown around a lot, authentic brand, authentic brand. And you know, for me, at the end, it is about being real. And I’ve been lucky enough to work at real and authentic brands that really know who they are and don’t deviate from that. Whether it be my consumer electronics days at Bose, or my footwear days at PUMA and Clarks, or even my time at TB12 in health and wellness, just knowing the core of who you are and staying true to that you truly become an authentic brand.
Erin Narloch 3:01
Yeah, I mean, I guess we’ll get into it, but I think, right, that’s why archives are so important to have that institutional memory, for sure. Yeah, I absolutely agree. I just have to ask you, out of curiosity, did you always want to go into marketing? Were you always a storyteller? How did you find your career, where you are today?
Tara McRae 3:22
Yeah, well, business, because I’m currently the president, managing director of PUMA, North America. So for me, I was always interested in the retail sector. When I was a kid, my mom owned a small clothing boutique, so that, you know, really understood, I watched her going to shows and buying clothes for it. So that really piqued my interest. When I was in college, I did an internship at Disney the retail track, so understanding that space, so for me, it was always that retail space. And when I was in college, I fell in love with the communication and marketing aspects on the business side. So that’s the path I took. And throughout my career, I’ve been lucky enough to combine my love of marketing and brand with running businesses. Digital technology is a passion of mine, so I started out by running digital and E-commerce businesses, and then eventually grew to running other businesses.
But always, I believe in evolving your business and adjusting business practices, you have to pay attention to the brand.
And you know, I always talk about managing the brand properly in the marketplace, and then, of course, having, you know, the right aspects of the product and the marketing and the go to market and everything. But that’s the most important thing when evolving a business. So, yeah, I mean, for me, that was the path I took in business was through marketing, and I have always been in love with it for sure. You know, when I was a kid, I used to cut out, you know, this might age me, but in magazines, I used to cut out my favorite ads and hang them up like I always loved and how you would connect and sell products to the consumer through that storytelling.
Erin Narloch 4:58
Thanks for sharing that.
Yeah, how important do you think a brand’s DNA, history heritage are to represent to consumers today? Do you think they really care about who two different brands represent who they are?
Tara McRae 5:17
Yeah. I mean, I think they do, especially we’re going through a time period, obviously, from an economic standpoint, where everybody’s pressed and their wallets are pressed. So when they’re buying things, they want to buy quality brands that they believe in and that they trust. So I do believe the authenticity and the heritage comes through in some of those brands, whether that authenticity and heritage is five years old, 10 years old or I mean, I was lucky enough to be at a brand that was 200 years old. I do think it’s extremely important to the consumer that they know that they’re buying into, especially that younger generation. They are very, very particular into the brands and what they’re buying into and what those brands stand for.
Erin Narloch 6:01
Yeah, what about nostalgia? Do you utilize nostalgia at all in marketing? A kind of brand heritage?
Tara McRae 6:11
Yeah. I mean, I think at, you know, all the brands I’ve been at, we use nostalgia, whether it be direct nostalgia or, you know, inspiration from it. But recently we launched, here at PUMA, a global brand campaign and running. And we used a hip hop artist from my younger generation, an Afroman, and his song in correlation with some insights that we got within runners, and brought those two together and for the older generation. And I can’t believe I’m putting myself in the bucket of the older generation. The older generation who was around as a kid when the song was released. There was nostalgia to like what that song meant then and how it’s tied to something today, and we saw the consumers react really well to that. And then there’s the younger generation that didn’t know that song, obviously, when it was released, but understands the relevance and pop culture and how cool that it was released today. So I think nostalgia can play into not just an older generation, but multiple generations if you execute it properly. Yeah, I agree with you. And I think along with the campaigns, come re-releases, right? And yes, products that you can identify with, like I’m going to age myself.
Erin Narloch 7:19
I distinctly remember the summer of 2004, going to PUMA and getting, you know, I think they’re the Mostro.
Tara McRae 7:29
Yeah, the Mostro, yeah.
Erin Narloch 7:29
The Mostro Periwinkle, like, I specifically hunted those shoes, and now they’re back again, right? And like, and if you’ve ever worked in sneakers. You collect shoes. So, you know, my daughter being able to kind of remix it and make it relevant for her now is really an exciting part of, you know, the cycle of trends and brands and and for me, I get to tap into a little like college nostalgia and forget something totally new.
Tara McRae 8:02
It’s so funny. I was just talking about the fact that most rows like my favorite shoe, because when I was in college, it was the one I grew up on PUMA, but it was the one in college I remember wanting and going and purchasing. And that was like my first love, over at PUMA. And then obviously I joined it the first stint there I did 10 years the most row was a relevant shoe, and then the rerelease of it this year has been really exciting. You know, what makes you really old is when you have the shoes from the first time it dropped the original ones in my class, you want to talk about an archive. I feel like I could be an archivist at PUMA. I still have some of my original Jil Sanders speed cats, all sorts of stuff we did back in the day. So yeah, I mean that part is really exciting. So to see the younger generation, I recently, so we relaunched the speed cat last year, which is another really exciting silhouette for us over here at PUMA. And I was around for the first for the first stint of that, really on the backside of that. But my younger team at PUMA had no clue they were. Some of them weren’t even born, or they were small children. They have no clue. So, the speed cat is new to them. So I brought back our former CMO, who was in the development process, and, you know, Chief Brand Officer and who’s in the development process of that, to come in and educate them on where the concept of the speed cat came from so many years ago, how they launched it, why they launched it? And he came in and educated them, and they were eating it up like you couldn’t believe. And it was helping inform them of how to then launch it to the younger generation today, with some of that history and knowledge, but in a relevant manner to today’s consumer. So I think it all plays together.
Erin Narloch 7:29
Yeah, that context is so important. Sometimes we talk about the viewing vacuum in an archive, right? You might look at a shoe or the product, and it’s devoid of all of the context surrounding it, right? That the CMO at the time, or the product developer, all of those decision makers, or what was the go to market plan? How is it introduced? And when you can bring some of that to life for people working on it.
Today, It might not be, you know, in your face, in the marketing campaign, but it’s definitely to your point. It helps inform and create the frame of reference for them to iterate on that that’s really, really cool. You mentioned earlier that you had the opportunity to work at a brand with a 200 year old archive. So Clarks 200, can you, like, take us through and share a little bit about kind of the insights that went into the planning of that incredible milestone?
Tara McRae 10:33
Yeah, a wild 200 years, if you think about it. And I mean, I task the team with this all the time. It’s like, just name me five brands relevant today that have been around for 200 years like it’s a pretty remarkable milestone, something that I don’t think I’ll see again in my career with another brand. So very, very lucky to have worked on it. It reminded me of my first days at PUMA. We would finish an Olympic campaign or a World Cup campaign. We get started on the next one right away. So we started many years ago. I think it was in 2021 we had our first meeting and said, Okay, we hit 2025 that’s our 200 year anniversary. Like, let’s start planning now. So we started early on and talked about an archive. I’ve never seen an archive like the Clarks archive. You know, 200 years worth of everything to do with the Clarks family, to do with marketing, to do with, you know, what’s going on socially in the world, and then, of course, the product, which is amazing, but we started in the archive, we spent hours and hours and hours just educating ourselves in the Clarks 200 archive, and then clearly articulated what our objectives were to, you know, introduce that use this milestone to introduce the brand to consumers that would be new to us, and to really cement our authenticity in quality. Shoe making. Clarks is that, you know, I always like to say the greatest shoemaker in the world, and they still today, have practices and shoe making that other brands don’t, which produces that quality and that comfort that has given them the lasting power for 200 years. So we wanted to very clearly meet our objectives, so we started that process and we engaged with everybody. It wasn’t just about marketing. We had the product team there. We worked with our innovation team. We worked with our distribution channels. We worked with everybody, throughout the whole company, on the development of that program.
Erin Narloch 12:26
Yeah, it was awesome. And one of the outputs, one of the ways you activated, was the documentary, yeah, from Somerset to the world. Can you talk a bit about why you chose that format? Like the people involved in it, who was featured, why, and did you meet your objectives? How was it received?
Yeah, if you haven’t watched it, you all should. You can find it online. It was definitely something I shared far and wide with my network.
Tara McRae 12:56
Yeah, it was, it was a wild ride. So that actually was the last chapter in multiple chapters of brand storytelling. So the team and myself set out on a multi year journey on the brand storytelling. Everybody knows Clarks through, okay? They put the shoes on their feet and they’re like, these are the best shoes. They last forever, super comfortable. They didn’t really know a lot about the history and the brand and the moments that really made it such a cultural, relevant brand. So we started in 2021 we started through the first chapter of Clarkson Jamaica, and told that story of, you know, the desert boot icon, how it became a symbol within Jamaican culture. Then the next chapter, we came to Clarkson New York, and we told that story of the rise of the Wallaby through hip hop culture and where that came from. Then we went to Clarkson, Tokyo, and the rise of the style culture and the Japanese influence. Then we went up to Clarkson, Manchester, and that scene, all of that culminated with the 200th anniversary documentary, which is what you’re referencing in 2025
We had done some different styles throughout, and we had found that documentary style, which I was very hesitant about, and the team will tell you, in the beginning, I was like, I don’t know. We live in this short form of content. You look around, nobody’s producing 11, 15, 20 minute pieces of content. This is wild. And we went out, we did it. And it was unbelievable. It blew through every KPI, every metric we had out there, blew through. It won awards like you can’t believe. And people were clamoring, wanting to know more and more about that story. So when we got to the 200 year, we decided to, you know, extend that, that documentary. So for me, really exciting, of course. Then I left and went back over to PUMA, so the team did an amazing job finishing that and who we selected. We wanted different people throughout the history of Clarks to be able to tell that story, whether it’s family employees, you know, people that have worked collaborative partners, that have come in and worked on the brand. We wanted them to be.
To tell the story through their voices and their engagement. And we brought on this director Set Free Richardson from the compound, who we had worked with on Clarks in New York. And he just had a deep love, admiration, understanding of the brand, which is key. And again, he spent many, many, many hours in the Clarks archive in Somerset, which was brilliant. So yeah, I was super pleased, you know, a tear in my eye as I had left and the team had finished the documentary, but so pleased with it. I thought they did a fantastic job.
Erin Narloch 15:29
Yeah, I agree. It was just so captivating, so many, you know, threads of that story that you got to follow and learn about as, you know, a consumer and a fan of the brand, I just think it’s a beautiful, beautiful documentary.
Tara McRae 15:42
Oh, thank you.
Erin Narloch 15:43
Yeah. So, you know, just thinking about brands, you know, like PUMA and Clarks, how do you use brand heritage, not only in marketing, but, you know, in overall brand strategy or product innovation? Do you ever see the influence of where you’ve kind of come into where you’re going?
Tara McRae 16:03
Yeah, absolutely. I think most people think of it in a direct correlation, like, Oh, you’re rereleasing a classic. So you take the old style and you make it better, new materials, you evolve it, style, all that. So that one is kind of easy to follow. But I think what’s even tougher is taking, you know, something archival, or something from the history, and then using that for the innovation of something new in the future. And brands, I think that do that really, really well succeed, because that’s the red thread throughout the brand’s journey. Like, if you were to look at even, I mean, even the PUMA archive is pretty amazing. You and I were talking about, we have the best archivist at PUMA. He’s an icon in the industry. But you look at some of those silhouettes there the product team, when they’re innovating new product and new technologies, whether it’s in the sports style side or basketball or running or soccer, they’re always going back to the archives because there’s always that little red thread or something that makes PUMA, PUMA, and they’ll want to be able to inform that. But I think, you know, innovation by definition, is newness, and you utilize history and utilize what’s going on today to really push the boundaries of the future. So I think history and looking back and combined with what’s happening today, absolutely is pivotal in driving innovation and brand consistency. So how are you going to innovate something and push the boundaries of something new with the brand that you’re in, but being consistent that you’re not a different brand by bringing that to market? So brand consistency and that red thread is extremely important. So the history and the heritage helps with that.
Erin Narloch 17:40
Definitely can reinforce and fuel some of that future. Yeah, so thinking of where we are today, right? It’s, I don’t know, we’re in June 2025, and it feels like so many different platforms are alive and well, right? Be that Instagram, Tiktok, just all of these different platforms. How do you continue to tell a brand story, kind of across all of these channels and and and continue to evolve and make it mean something? How do you cut through the noise? How do you captivate?
Tara McRae 18:15
Yeah, it’s hard, it’s hard. It’s such a cluttered environment. I think people like to talk about consumer centricity. And all you know, focusing on the consumer, there’s not a more important time than to be laser focused on the consumer, understanding the consumer you’re going after, what story you’re trying to deliver to them and where, and then that’ll drive the content that you put there. I think gone are the days of like, I’m going to develop a campaign, and it’s going to have a 62nd video, and then I’ll cut and slice it for Tiktok and TV and this, and then I’ll do a print ad that doesn’t work anymore. You really have to understand the consumer you’re going after, what product and marketing story are you going to tell them? Then where are you going to tell that story? And then the content that’s needed for that. We have a live campaign right now, and there’s different creative concepts in different channels, completely different because of the consumers we’re going after need different ones. So I think there’s not a more important time to truly be consumer centric and understand what you’re trying to achieve
Erin Narloch 19:19
That’s wild thinking of different creative concepts and markets at the same time, because the consumer is so distinct.
Tara McRae 19:24
Yes, yes. This remains, remaining relevant to them. So thinking about where we are today.
Erin Narloch 19:32
Right back to what I just mentioned. Mentioned what’s happening today at PUMA that you think 10-15, years into the future, you’ll look back, the company, the next generation will look back and say, Okay, these are some defining choices, milestones, campaigns like, what do you think?
Tara McRae 19:53
Yeah, yeah, there’s so well, you’re catching me. Literally the day after, I don’t know if you follow us.
This basketball but you’re catching me the day after we had our new athlete in Tyrese Haliburton of the Indiana Pacers debut his signature shoe, designed by Salehe Bembury in game one, and hit what is every kid’s dream as growing up a basketball player, hit the final shot to win the game game one in the NBA Finals, you couldn’t write a better script. So I think right now, for us, you know, basketball is one of our core sports here in the US for PUMA, and we’ve have an amazing roster of partners that we work with, whether it be lamella ball, whether it be Breanna Stewart, you know, one of the greatest of all time in women’s basketball, or our newest with Tyrese and designed by Salehe, there’s so much excitement happening in basketball. So I think that is a very exciting, pivotal thing. And we talk about, you know, the difference in the consumers that we go after and the ambassadors that we partner with, and how we bring those to life are all very different. But that’s probably a big, exciting thing. And I also think right now we’re a year away from having the greatest global sport, the World Cup in soccer on US soil. Next summer, we have the Club World Cup this summer, which is a really exciting time for us. We have a lot of teams in that. We have really exciting things happening around the Club World Cup, but the World Cup next year is going to be an amazing brand story, and it’s not just for soccer fans. It’s for sports fans. It’s for culture fans. It’s going to be a very exciting time period. Nobody better than the PUMA brand to bring that to life in the US both on the sport and sports House side of the business, so internally, we’re very excited about it. Our retailer partners are very excited about it. So we’ve got a lot of exciting stuff planned. So I think we’ve got some really, you know, exciting things happening. Yes, we’re dealing with a tough time in the marketplace right now. We know what’s going on with the economy, with some of the other things that are happening around the world, but we have a very, very very strong, powerful brand that, and a lot of stuff going on that we feel, we feel confident and excited for things as we go ahead into next year.
Erin Narloch 22:09
Yeah, that’s great. Thank you for sharing that. Just so happens that I’m in London at the moment, and I was just at Trafalgar Square, and there’s a big expo of the Junior NBA three on three tournament, and it’s just crowds of young people. And I think talking about the importance of, you know, basketball as being one of those sports that moves hearts and minds and is so impressionable for those you know, young kids like learning to play or what, becoming a sports fans, so being there at that moment, for me, I can see you’re really, you know, you’re making those moments for future generations to remain. Yes, I forgot that that was happening over in London, and which is really exciting. And we just launched and announced that we are now the ball sponsor for the English Premier League. So, yeah, the EPL ball, PUMA balls. It’s actually quite beautiful as well. So that just launched over there too. So you have to check that out. I will. I will, congratulations. So thinking about, you know, kind of what we’ve been talking about today, history and heritage. How can brands continue to leverage their heritage while innovating and connecting with this next generation of consumers we’ve been talking about,
Tara McRae 23:25
Yeah, I always say that every brand has a story. We’ve talked about the fact that I’m lucky enough to work for a 200 year old brand, but I also work for a brand that was a couple years old, and I’m on the board of a startup kegg that’s only a couple years old when I was a TV 12 startup, only a couple years old. Alex Guerrero and Tom Brady’s health and wellness brand and kegg, which is a fertility technology brand, both of those are only a couple years old, but they both have amazing, rich heritage and stories to tell, even though they’re younger on why they started. So every brand and company, there’s a reason why somebody starts a brand in a company, and usually they’re amazing stories, and how those come to life, like why Tom and Alex started TB12? Where did that come from? Did the world need another health and wellness brand? And so you know, the story of how they came together, and why they did and the longevity of Tom’s career, and everything was pretty remarkable in telling that story. So all brands have that storytelling. It’s finding the relevant pieces of that to connect with the consumer and give them the lasting power. But I think there’s great, like not in our sector, like something way outside of our sector, like I always think Ben and Jerry’s is one of my favorite brands. They do an amazing job at brand management and their brand and who they stand for, what they believe in comes through the concepting, the product, the innovation, the storytelling, the go to market. It’s always exciting to see what those guys come up with. So, you know, you can learn from brands and other sectors. We’re always everybody loves to talk about the brilliance of Apple, and I do too, don’t get me wrong, and others.
You know, major brands in Starbucks and whatnot. But I think, you know, a smaller brand like Ben and Jerry’s is a remarkable one to study as well.
Erin Narloch 25:06
Yeah, thank you for that. Yeah, and I agree. And if you ever have the opportunity to go to their experience in Vermont and see, right, like, the the flavor graveyard, that they even
the levity and, like, really intelligent kind of experience to consumers there,
Tara McRae 25:22
Yeah, agree.
Erin Narloch 25:25
So any, any parting thoughts, anything that you want to share?
Tara McRae 25:31
I, the only thing I will say is, I know you and I have talked about this. How fun archives are, I say to people, you know, every brand has an archive, but if you are lucky enough to work at a brand like you’ve worked at, or I currently work at, or have worked at, get time in the archive. You can, I don’t care what part of the function, what, what function or part of the company you’re in, go into the archive, understand your brand and business history, because you have no idea what it can do in your current day to day, and understanding some of that, and it’s just really fun and exciting, just to see where the company’s been. I learned, and I thought I knew everything there was to know, but I learned. And same thing at PUMA, like I’d been there 10 years, and then when I got back, I went in, did an archive tour, and learned more than I even knew the first time around. So I would say, anybody that has one takes advantage of it. Yeah, I agree with you. I think they’re so important for galvanizing culture, for giving an idea of what a brand can do, the confidence you can have in going into a pitch or understanding a market or a consumer, having a look through your archive in a very kind of systematic way, to find examples from the past. I think access is just future fuel. It gives you kind of that perspective, and it allows you to speak with authority, I think, on a brand, yeah, and with authenticity, you know, to get to the point that great. And Erin, you are welcome to come to see the PUMA archive. It’s pretty amazing. And I’ve still got a few friends over at Clarks, if you want a connection over there, Tim, who runs the archives, remarkable. You should check them out. They’re two amazing ones. Oh, I will take you up on that. Well, thank you so much for your time. Thank you.
Erin Narloch 27:14
Great conversation, right? Big. Thank you to Tara. I think it’s clear from our conversation that the power of a brand’s heritage is more potent than ever. To see other great examples of heritage in action. Here are some of the things we chatted about. One you can check out from Somerset to the world is the Clarks 200 documentary. Find it online. I think it’s a beautiful story and really captures what makes that iconic brand, 200 years old.
Also, I think it was really clear that history is in the making in real time, as Tara mentioned, just look at all the buzz around Tyrese Haliburton crediting PUMA shoes for his incredible performance in the NBA Finals. Also, as we look ahead with excitement to the upcoming FIFA World Cup, I’m sure you’ll join me and really watch to see how PUMA continues to weave its rich heritage into the biggest moments in sports and culture. Really, it was a pleasure, and I hope you enjoyed today’s podcast as much as I did.