Puma and Manchester City launched 'This Is Our City' in July 2019, a Copa90-directed film marking the club's biggest-ever media campaign and Puma's largest
ARCHIVEPuma and Manchester City Claim Their City in Copa90's Launch Film
"This Is Our City" is a 2019 football launch film produced by Copa90 for Puma and Manchester City, released in July 2019 in the United Kingdom to introduce the club's 2019/20 home and away kits — the first designs created by Puma under a partnership the brand publicly described as its largest football deal in company history.
Puma announced its partnership with Manchester City in February 2019, ending the club's long-standing kit arrangement with Nike, according to reporting documented by soccerbible.com. The deal, reported by soccerbible.com as worth more than £650 million over ten years — approximately £50 million per season — represented a significant commercial shift for both parties. Manchester City described the resulting "This Is Our City" campaign as the club's biggest-ever media campaign, per mancity.com. The film's July 2019 release, documented by LBBOnline on 4 July 2019, marked the public beginning of a partnership that also extended across City Football Group's sister clubs including Melbourne City, Girona, Montevideo City Torque, and Sichuan Jiuniu, according to About Puma.
The campaign's objectives are clear and layered. At the product level, the film exists to launch two kits — a home strip referencing Manchester's industrial and textile heritage, and an away kit drawing from the city's Madchester club culture era. At the brand level, the campaign aims to establish Puma as a credible presence in elite club football in the United Kingdom, a market where Nike and Adidas have historically dominated. Copa90, the football-specialist content studio and agency behind the film, brings a specific creative philosophy to the brief: storytelling rooted in supporter culture rather than broadcast-ready athlete spectacle. The result is a campaign that positions Puma and Manchester City not as global commodity partners, but as co-owners of a specific, identifiable city identity.
Puma entered the Manchester City partnership facing a well-established competitive landscape. In the United Kingdom, Nike and Adidas collectively dominate elite club kit supply, with Nike holding agreements with clubs including Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur, and Adidas supplying Manchester United — Manchester City's most symbolically significant local rival. The strategic logic behind a culturally-rooted campaign like "This Is Our City" becomes legible in this context: Puma could not out-spend its competitors on recognition, so Copa90 was engaged to out-authenticate them instead.
The football-sportswear market provides relevant scale. The global football-sportswear market was estimated at $89.505 billion in 2019, with projected growth to $114.414 billion by 2027 at a compound annual growth rate of 5.3 percent, according to openpr.com. Within that market, men's products represented approximately 61.8 percent of total value in 2019, equivalent to roughly $55.33 billion, per openpr.com. Puma's entry into a marquee Premier League partnership was therefore not only a brand move but a direct play for share of a growing global category anchored, in part, by the United Kingdom's position as football's most commercially visible league environment.
The consumer insight driving the campaign is precise. Manchester is not simply a city with a football club — it is a city with an identity forged through music, industry, and subcultural history. Copa90 structured the creative around that identity, connecting the home kit's design language to Manchester's textile and industrial heritage, and the away kit to the Madchester movement associated with The Haçienda and the city's late-1980s and early-1990s club scene. Adam Petrick, Puma's Global Brand Marketing Director, articulated the intent directly in a statement published on puma-catchup.com in July 2019: "We want the club's global fans and local Mancunians to all feel invested in this, and it starts with combining our very creative kit designs with authentic stories from Manchester's history and music scene." That dual audience — the global supporter and the local Mancunian — defines the campaign's strategic ambition.
"This Is Our City" is a single-film campaign, produced in the United Kingdom and published in July 2019. The film was directed by Josh Cohen and produced by India Harris, with representation through OB Management, according to production credits documented on adsoftheworld.com and clapboard.com. Copa90 functioned as the creative agency and production entity, bringing its established approach of embedding football content within wider cultural narratives rather than defaulting to performance-led sports advertising.
The film's talent selection is deliberate and multi-dimensional. Sergio Agüero and Oleksandr Zinchenko represent the on-pitch identity of Manchester City's 2019/20 squad. Pep Guardiola's inclusion frames the campaign at the level of footballing philosophy rather than commercial spectacle — a manager rather than a marketer. Beyond the squad, the film incorporates Manchester-based cultural figures: rapper Bugzy Malone and esports player Shellzz, according to credits and talent documentation on mancity.com and Little Black Book. This combination of footballer, manager, musician, and gamer is not incidental. It maps the contours of a modern Manchester identity that extends well beyond ninety minutes of football, and it reflects Copa90's long-standing editorial instinct that football culture is inseparable from the broader culture surrounding it.
The two kits function as narrative anchors. The home kit's visual language references Manchester's industrial and textile past — the city that built the fabric of a nation. The away kit draws from Madchester, the cultural moment when Manchester exported its music and attitude globally through The Haçienda and the bands associated with it, as documented by lbbonline.com. Director Josh Cohen's treatment honours both references without reducing them to costume. The film reads less like a commercial and more like a short document of place, which is precisely the register Copa90 operates in most effectively. Adam Petrick reinforced this philosophy in a 2019 interview cited in the Puma Annual Report 2019: "We don't make our brand — our consumers do," a principle that Copa90's production approach actively embodies.
ARCHIVENo verified third-party performance data for "This Is Our City" — such as view counts, earned media valuations, or sales attribution figures — is publicly available at the time of writing. Assessment therefore rests on structural and contextual indicators.
The contextual indicators are significant. Manchester City designated the campaign its biggest-ever media campaign at the time of launch, per mancity.com — a framing that signals internal investment at a scale the club considered historically notable. Puma simultaneously characterised its Manchester City partnership as the largest football deal in the company's history in terms of both size and ambition, according to documentation reviewed on soccerbible.com and about.puma.com. A campaign carrying that dual weight of expectation carries structural pressure that Copa90's culturally-grounded approach is well-positioned to absorb: when the commercial stakes are highest, an authenticity-first creative strategy carries lower reputational risk than overt product promotion.
The creative structure is also sound in terms of longevity. By anchoring the film in Manchester's music, industrial, and subcultural history rather than a single season's squad performance, Copa90 produced content with a shelf life that extends beyond the 2019/20 campaign window. In the United Kingdom's Premier League media environment — where kit launches generate significant press and supporter engagement annually — a film that speaks to city identity rather than matchday results retains relevance longer than a highlight reel. The Clapboard Score for "This Is Our City" stands at 63 out of 100, reflecting competent and culturally sincere execution within a category where the creative ceiling is frequently limited by commercial brief constraints.
"This Is Our City" is a 2019 launch film created by Copa90 for Puma and Manchester City. Released in July 2019 in the United Kingdom, it introduced the club's 2019/20 home and away kits — the first designs produced under Puma's partnership with Manchester City, which the club described as its biggest-ever media campaign, per mancity.com.
Josh Cohen directed "This Is Our City." The film was produced by India Harris, with talent representation through OB Management, according to production credits on adsoftheworld.com and clapboard.com. Copa90 served as the creative agency, bringing its football-culture storytelling approach to Puma's first Manchester City kit launch in July 2019.
The film features Sergio Agüero, Oleksandr Zinchenko, and Pep Guardiola from Manchester City, alongside Manchester-based cultural figures rapper Bugzy Malone and esports player Shellzz, according to mancity.com and lbbonline.com. The talent selection deliberately spans football, music, and gaming to reflect Manchester's broader cultural identity beyond the sport.
Puma's ten-year partnership with Manchester City, announced in February 2019, was reported by soccerbible.com as worth more than £650 million — approximately £50 million per season. Puma described the agreement as the largest football deal in its company history in terms of size and ambition, according to documentation on about.puma.com.
Copa90 anchored the two kits in distinct Manchester histories. The home kit referenced the city's industrial and textile heritage. The away kit drew from Manchester's Madchester era — the late-1980s and early-1990s club culture associated with The Haçienda — according to lbbonline.com and puma-catchup.com, grounding a commercial launch in authentic local identity.
"This Is Our City" holds a Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100. The score reflects Copa90's culturally sincere and structurally coherent creative execution — anchoring a major kit launch in Manchester's history and music scene — while acknowledging constraints typical of commercially-driven sports launch campaigns within the United Kingdom football market.
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