• by Karl Greenberg , March 10, 2008

Pony is back. The Brooklyn, N.Y. shoe brand that had its heyday in the '70s and '80s is relaunching this week with a national multilevel marketing push called "Back In the Game."

The company, now based in San Diego, Calif., and which once had Muhammad Ali and Reggie Jackson among its sponsors, will go piede à piede with Nike and Adidas as a fashion, casual play and performance brand.

The company is creating three collections for 2008: Vintage, Performance and Play. Marketing efforts, via San Diego-based independent Fishtank Brand Advertising, will include integrated TV, print, digital and retail ads. The company is also launching a new Web site that includes video, blog commentary, via POD Post-Digital.

The TV spots make light of ultra-serious "sweat" ads from Nike and Adidas ads that extol the virtues of will and triumph, and use professional athletes to apotheosize the brands.

In one of the Pony spots, a guy laboriously draws the word "Determination" on a plate-glass wall with a marker, as a British inflected voiceover says: "Determination. My whole life has been ..." just then a shoe is thrown at the window, shattering it, followed by an avalanche of shoes, burying the guy.

We then see a professional football player pushing himself to the limit on the gridiron, catching balls thrown by a machine. He catches one, turns to catch another and is knocked cold by a Pony sneaker. Another avalanche buries him.

"It's a parody of ads that take things way too seriously; we are making light of all that," says Colin Brickley, Pony's director of sports and entertainment marketing. He says the spots will air on ESPN, ESPNU, ESPN News, MTV, BET, and MSG Network, on which Pony bought some 30 ad spots, per Brickley: "It's a pretty aggressive campaign."

The March product rollout will be at footwear channels such as Foot Locker, Footaction, Champs and Zoomies.

Brickley says the plan is to lead with design and performance as themes, first rolling out cleated football shoes and then basketball shoes.

He says the company has also signed Wilson Chandler, first-draft pick for the New York Knicks, who will wear Ponys. "We wanted to get a young player to grow with," he says, adding that the other endorsee is with the Patriots, at least for a little longer. He wouldn't name names, but it's a good bet Randy Moss is the guy.

The company will also conduct grassroots efforts around sponsorship of AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) programs in New York, Miami and Texas. "We are going to pick AAU programs regionally and support them with product, uniforms, and apparel," says Brickley. The company will roll out a branded apparel line late this year.

The new Pony International organization also sports big guns from rival companies: CEO Kevin Wulff was president and CEO of American Sporting Goods, and former president of Nike Canada and senior vice president/general manager-USA. Lead shoe designer Kyle Pulli was former Creative Director of Basketball at Adidas. And Brickley was entertainment-marketing director at Reebok International.