- July 23, 2021
- Posted by: Stratford Team
- Category: Business
Sprinters line up to run the women’s 100-meter final. Screaming fans cheer them on amid a packed stadium. At the same time, fans squeeze into another packed arena to watch Paralympic basketball.
That’s how Samsung’s Olympic commercial starts, but it’s far from the reality of what we can expect at the Tokyo Games. And Samsung’s not alone. In fact there are plenty of brands rolling out ads for the Olympics as if this were any other Games, despite the fact that much of the world is still fighting a pandemic. The disconnect is jarring.
On Tuesday, three days before the opening ceremony, the chief of the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee didn’t rule out canceling the Games if COVID-19 cases spiked. The COVID-19 situation in the host city, and Japan overall, has been as much a focus of local and international attention as any sport.
Japan has only about a 23% vaccination rate, and over the course of the pandemic has seen more than 840,000 cases and…
