On July 25, 1996, the athletics world came to a standstill when Linford Christie, the Olympic 100-meter champion in Barcelona 1992, took off his sunglasses during a Puma press conference and revealed black contact lenses with the brand’s white logo, “Puma Eyes” that went viral and that the International Olympic Committee ended up banning from competition.
The idea, as Christie himself confirmed years later, came from him and his agent, and Puma made them as part of a disruptive advertising strategy to compete with Reebok, which had invested 40 million dollars in advertising at the Games, and the result was so striking that the images went around the world and became a topic of conversation for days.
Puma spokesman Dave Williams explained that it was a very risky move but that it was worth it because that kind of publicity can’t be bought, and Christie once again demonstrated his passion for innovation, because he had already had similar precedents the previous year when he posed with a Puma logo tattoo on his chest, and his legacy as one of the most creative athletes in history was sealed forever.
