A Bolt for Puma

I am curious.
A minute before the 100m track event was to begin at the Beijing, what was going through the heads of Puma, Nike and Adidas executives? To be more precise, what was going through the minds of those executives who had signed up Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell and Tyson Gay to promote their brands?

But I bet 10.69 seconds later, the Puma executive would have been agape at what had just happened. Bolt, who only began running the 100m about 15 months ago, had run a 9.69 second race to become the world's fastest man. Bolt also gave his shoe company a free advertisement when he took off his golden coloured boots to kiss and wave them around.

Reportedly, however, the company failed to bombard our screens with congratulatory ads. Very unlike Speedo which hosted a congratulatory party for all the swimmers once the events were over.

When asked about the lack of congratulatory ads, Puma's chief marketing officer Antonio Bertone said, "When you do congratulations ads, are you doing it for Wall Street or for the consumer?"

So did Puma lose a market opportunity? Or will Bolt's raw charisma be enough to rev up their market profile and rocket sales?

NB:
Sujoy, this is more up your lane: why not write a guest entry here on this ? :)

Bolt bolts fine enough in 100m

21-year-old Jamaican Usain Bolt is the new 100m sprint world record holder. What a magical night. How freeing to watch this tall sleek man glide through the track at half the effort of the rest of the field. No grimacing, no straining of sinews and wills fighting air resistance in the quest to be known as the fastest human in the world. Bolt only ran. And made sprint look like a jog on the beach. The world agrees that he has to be from another planet. At the least, Bolt did not run like a human. All the more reason to celebrate his naiveity; To celebrate the fact that this young man wanted nothing to do with times and records and aimed only to be champion. For it showed him up to be human after all. Bolt had run his race so effortlessly that he began celebrating his win 20m from the finish. The thump on his Jamaican jersey, the exhortation to the crowd to salute the fastest man in history, the mad jig after his victory – track could not have asked for a better man on its big night on the biggest arena of it all. Hopefully, Bolt’s glee at being champion will do more to inspire thousands of youngsters around the world to feel the wind in their hair. And maybe encourage a lot of us jaded ones to go for a run when life’s weaves get too complicated.

For bringing innocence back to the simplest of all games, for bringing joy to a million hearts watching him that night and later, for making us believe in fallible yet perfect legends and for instilling faith, here’s a salute to Bolt.

One man’s merry flight could yet launch a hundred dreams in my country. For Bolt has shown, faith and hope are not as ephemeral as we sometimes believe.

Oh and bring on the chicken nuggets! Which dolt says I cannot have nuggets and run like Bolt?(Unwittingly, Bolt might just be the new role model for anorexic couch potatoes.)