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‘We played along with the speculation and it worked’ – Sundowns on their Usian Bolt PR stunt

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PHOTO: Gallo images/ Getty images
PHOTO: Gallo images/ Getty images

Sky Sports, ESPN, and Fox, were amongst international agencies that speculated Usain Bolt was set to join Mamelodi Sundowns.

This came after the site tweeted pictures of Bolt at the Chloorkop training ground in Midrand. Sundowns’ captioned the tweet, “Football will never be the same. Find out tomorrow 8am GMT! ???? #Sundowns,” after the fastest man in the world announced that he had signed for a soccer team on Sunday.

And kudos to The Brazilians, who, in doing so, got the world talking about Sundowns, with the tweeted pictures from when the 31-year-old trained with the team in January.

But rather, it was announced on Tuesday morning that the legendary sprinter had signed for a charity match at Old Trafford.

“We didn’t say he signed for us,” Thulani Thuswa, communications and brand manager for Sundowns told DRUM, “We just played along with the speculation and it worked.”

“We got international news agencies talking about Sundowns,” he continued.  

And for Sundowns, creating speculation made perfect sense, with both Bolt and Sundowns having Puma as their sponsor.

“Puma sponsors both Usain Bolt and Sundowns,” says Thuswa, “We already have an association with Bolt, with him having been at Sundown and trained with us.

“We decided to exercise that association, and it was beneficial to both brands. It will remian forever in the history books, whenever you Google Usain Bolt, Sundowns will come up,” he says.

Thulani says that Sundowns is growing as a brand internationally, and it is important for big brands to be noticed globally. 

“As a brand we are growing, we are improving, we are getting lots of international recognition because of the football we play. We are seven time PSL champions.  

“We are improving our brand from all works of life, we’ve signed Columbians, Liberians, and such things allow you to expand your brand reach.

“It’s important for big brands to have their roots throughout the world, we are a humble brand that aspires to do great things.”

How do you feel about Sundowns’ Twitter move? Let us know on our Facebook page.

 

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