Asics America Corp.’s marketing campaign reflects the brand’s “Better Your Best” tagline.
So does its budget.
“Every year we’ve been fortunate to have our budgets increase, which is great,” said Shannon Scott, director of marketing communications for the Irvine-based athletic shoe and apparel brand, which racked up about $650 million in sales last year. “We can safely say this is our largest marketing budget to date.”
Scott did not disclose the exact amount Asics will spend, but the past year’s allocations have been sizable. New York-based Kantar Media pegged the brand’s budget for media buys at $15 million as recently as 2012. And the tracking firm’s data on media spending is just one part of the “puzzle” these days, according to Scott, who said athlete and event sponsorships also make up significant portions of the overall picture.
The campaign will include traditional media, such as print, TV and outdoor, along with various digital components and efforts to engage fans during events. It was created by 180 Amsterdam, an ad shop in the Netherlands retained by Japan-based parent Asics Corp. San Diego-based Vitro, Asics America’s advertising agency of record, will assist in customizing the campaign to the U.S. market.
“Gotta Run”
The first leg of the campaign—a TV spot titled “Gotta Run”—kicked off this month and will run throughout the year. The ad features a day in an athlete’s life as he rushes to join tennis, volleyball and cross-country running teams.
“The spot centers on the idea of true love of sport, his ultimate day, the Saturday he looks forward to,” Scott said. “The focus is on [Gel-equipped shoes], which provide cushioning throughout the day.”
The ads target audiences who are “sports enthusiasts,” she said, audiences Asics plans to reach via a “nice mix of college basketball, college football, tennis, Major League Soccer, NBA, women’s tennis, wrestling,” programming. The TV spot will be “freshened up” in the second quarter, with a rollout of the shoe Gel-Nimbus 16, she said.
A second phase will launch this week in the runup to the Asics LA Marathon, scheduled for March 9. Several vignettes done for the brand’s YouTube channel are called “We are Marathoners” and target the runners due to set out on the 26.2-mile “Stadium to the Sea” course. They showcase footage from previous marathons with subtitles such as “we love carbs,” “we move in herds” and “we hate hills”—the insights that “marathoners know and trust and kind of chuckle about,” Scott said.
The marathon campaign also includes print and outdoor ads, along with event-branded products, such as shoes with L.A.-themed designs.
The brand also aims to engage fans with the “Treadmill Challenge,” which is intended to give race enthusiasts a chance to experience what it feels like to run at a marathon pace. The “Support Your Marathoner” program uses chips attached to runners’ shoes to trigger video messages from friends or family members that will pop up at three locations throughout the course.
“It’s a really nice way to show support,” Scott said. “It’s all tied in with the ‘We are Marathoners’ idea, under the bigger campaign umbrella of continuous improvement.”
Asics’ new campaign takes similar, nontraditional approaches in a bid to engage tennis and triathlon fans.
The brand’s film vignette—“Advantage, You”—focuses on its tennis ambassadors, Gael Monfils and Samantha Stosur, as the professionals share insider knowledge about the sport while playing a virtual match against each other. Statistics about the game flash on the screen along with subtle images of the Gel Resolution 5 tennis shoe.
The vignette will be shown on tennischannel.com and other online “sports buys where we know tennis consumers are going,” Scott said.
Asics’ triathlon consumers will get to know 2012 Ironman World Champion Pete Jacobs, who stars in a vignette for YouTube about what it takes to be a competitive triathlete.
“With the digital age it’s more about nontraditional ways of engaging people, short films or out” in the market, Scott said. “Our consumers are getting savvier; they are not necessarily gravitating toward brands that are hard-sell brands.
“Our job from the branding side is really engaging consumers and sharing their passion, branding ourselves as the brand (that) understands them and their sport, giving them the motivation to participate. And the subtle back-in is letting them know that [we’ve] got all the products that will help them continuously improve in whatever sport they choose.”
