ASICS: Colour Injection Collection

The Brief:

ASICS have long been the sneakers loved for their technical qualities by athletes, but over the past five years the firm has transformed its position in the lifestyle and fashion markets.

Our work was at the heart of this pivot: delivering one of the brand’s first ever TikTok campaigns, and its first ever paid campaign on the platform — helping the brand authentically connect with a Gen Z consumer base, and engage with both athletes and fashion-conscious individuals through the platform.

Our brief was to create product-focused, paid ad content for ASICS Running’s Colour Injection collection, with the three-fold goals of establishing the brand’s TikTok presence from scratch; delivering TikTok impressions; and driving website traffic to generate sales conversions on-site.

Strategy and Implementation:

Brands that think community-first, get results. Our team’s objective was to tap in to TikTok culture; working with engaged creators, to place ASICS in the exercise-enthusiast community in a credible and authentic way.

We explored where and how running audiences genuinely engaged on TikTok.

1. Running enthusiasts were clearly key – we identified nearly 1bn views of #RunTok content, driven by a 360% increase in active influencers, 303% increase in posts, 93% increase in engagements, and 171% increase in video views in 2021/22.
2. But what was also notable was the related trends – ranging from tips and inspiration, to mental health and wellbeing, and body positivity when running (Gen Z in particular feel insecure when running outdoors).
3. The Sportswear community, blending the love of sport apparel with trial blazing fashion – were the perfect combination for the Colour Injection collection, and a key part of broadening the brand’s appeal beyond athletic specialists.

We used these insights to inform our creator selection, content strategy and purpose-driven creative executions.

We combined running tips, tricks, goal setting and inspiration, with contributions to the broader fitness conversations identified developing 6 creative routes, for specific #RunTok audiences – from TikTok-tastic energetic content, to more traditional unboxing videos, and combining brand-led, educational, and ad posts.

• Colour Injection
• Colour Run
• Educational
• TikTok Dancing
• Trendy Transition
• Unboxing
• What Kind of Runner Are You?

Content was genuinely creator-led. Creators were given ‘tasks’ to interrupt, and a list of what they’d need. However style, location and creative license was left to them.

Each creator posted their content on their own TikTok channel, as well as executive a paid ad campaign (targeted to the running community, key competitor brands and those who had engaged with brand’s social media accounts in the last 365 days).

Results:

The combination of clear targeting, authentically co-created content, and continual optimisation came together to deliver a sell-out success:

But we had to stop after just two months – because we had ** sold out ** all of ASICS’ stock.

That’s quite a claim for any campaign, but a spectacular result for the brand’s first ever Tiktok paid ad campaign.

The campaign delivered brand visibility, social engagement, and sales.

Our co-creation philosophy supported the reach of the campaign – by investing in and prioritising collaboration, we produced content that the creators were happy to share personally on their own channels, even though this was not part of our contract.

Influencer Marketing Awards:

Best Sport, Health & Fitness Campaign

Our work for ASICS was recognised as 2023's best sport, health and fitness campaign at the Influencer Marketing Awards.