The first week of May saw Puma mark the anniversary of Usain Bolt’s record-breaking 9.58-second 100m sprint with a celebratory biographical book tribute that includes a hidden flipbook style sprint animation.
The sportswear brand’s athlete ambassador was presented with’The 9’58 Biography’ – a physical memento of the race that saw him become the fastest person of all time – as a surprise gift at a São Paulo event Bolt attended to promote Puma’s new Hybrid NX shoe.
Usain Bolt é de casa!
https://t.co/DCYCStCOVd#AvantiPalestra pic.twitter.com/nsliGxXKpr— SE Palmeiras (@Palmeiras) April 5, 2019
The initiative, created by Havas agency BETC-Sao Paulo in harness with Puma, revolved around a 224-page book recounting the most memorable events in Bolt’s life – from his childhood and training through to his Olympic medals – that led him to break the world record in 2009.
As well as including interesting facts from his athletics career based on research conducted by the agency, an innovative hidden element is a flipbook style animation reproducing Bolt’s 9.58-second run in 224 frames of comparative real-time.
This sees an animated Bolt run the race again starting crouched, then running with a slight hunch before straightening near the end before and then turning his head to watch the clock as he crosses the line.
Each page is also marked with the exact time at that point in the race.
The book based tribute stunt promoted by the brand with a video of the stunt.
The 70-odd other athletes and influencers present at the Brazilian shoe launch event also all received a copy of the book in a move aimed at encouraging them to share images of the gift stunt on their own social networks.
Comment:
This is a fun way of showing that behind each step towards sporting immortality, there is a behind-the-scenes story of effort, dedication, training and sweat.
Another book-based Puma activation of Bolt’s 2009 world record came in the form of the sportswear company’s 2017/18 ‘Fastest Annual Report In The World’ (see case study).
Indeed there is something of an emerging retro trend for physical book based sports marketing stunts: another recent example of this form a core thread of the recent New balance/Proteas ICC Cricket World Cup shirt launch campaign (see case study).
It’s been 10 years since Usain Bolt broke the 100 meter world record – which at 9.58 still stands today – and the achievement is still amazing to appreciate.
Bolt’s feat in Berlin, at the very same stadium where Jesse Owens’ own world record in the 100 meters shamed Hitler and his Nazi Olympians in 1936, beat his own previous world record which he set a year earlier by more than a tenth of a second.
Links:
Puma
https://www.instagram.com/puma/
Puma Brazil
https://www.instagram.com/pumabrasil
BETC São Paulo / Havas
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