Puma puts Buddhist monks in trail shoes for campaign

Puma India has dressed 40 Buddhist monks in running shoes for a brand campaign shot at Ladakh’s 15th-century Thiksey Monastery, drawing a direct line between meditation and marathon running just as the region’s biggest sporting event returns.

The image series, titled Meditation in Motion, pairs monks in traditional robes with the brand’s new Deviate PURE NITRO trail shoe, timed to land ahead of the Ladakh Marathon’s 13th edition, which opens on 10 September.

The pitch is simple: both disciplines demand total concentration, and the Ladakh Marathon, the world’s highest AIMS-certified race, tests composure as much as endurance.

Its ultra category climbs from 10,700 feet in Nubra Valley to 17,618 feet at Khardung La Pass, higher than Everest Base Camp.

“Movement and meditation may take different forms but lead to a state of complete focus,” said Ramprasad Sridharan, managing director of Puma India. Chewang Motup Goba, the marathon’s founder, offered a blunter read on the terrain: “You cannot fight the mountain—understand and embrace it.”

Puma is now in its third year as the marathon’s official sportswear partner, a run that has coincided with the event growing to more than 6,600 entrants from 30 countries.

It follows the brand’s smallest gym stunt with Meta, and joins a wider trend of brands treating marathons as genuine creative territory rather than logo placement, as Nike proved in Chicago.

What sets this one apart is specificity: it’s a campaign that could only exist in Ladakh, built around one route and one monastery rather than a generic running narrative.

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