Unofficial Partner Podcast
Unofficial Partner Podcast
UP458 What's Sport Selling? Fitness, Toxicity and the Importance of the ASICS Message
This is episode two of a four part series called What’s Sport Selling, created in partnership with Redtorch, the research and creative agency that’s been at the heart of Olympic Sport for over 20 years.
This conversation builds on the first episode, with guests Celine Del Genes of Decathlon and Emma Mason Zwiebler of the World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry, in which we discussed the bridge between the elite professional performance side of the industry and the participation pyramid, the absence of a coherent sports lobby in to government and the implications of the global inactivity crisis.
Referenced in this conversation was the work of ASICS.
So we invited today’s guest, Gary Raucher, Global Head of Marketing and Executive Board Member at ASICS, to add to the debate.
ASICS is the fourth largest athletic footwear brand in the world, with a share of the running market that sits above Nike and Adidas.
They were praised by Jonny Murch, CEO of Redtorch, for their brand positioning and creative execution, which has played a major role in their recent financial success. The company has announced record sales and growth in every market.
Listen here to Episode 1 of What's Sport Selling?
Visit https://redtorch.sport/
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Hello and welcome to Unofficial Partner, the sports business podcast. I'm Richard Gillis. This is episode two of a four part series called What's Sports Selling that we've created in partnership with Red Torch, the research and creative agency that's been at the heart of Olympic sport for over 20 years. It's a conversation that builds on that first episode with guests Céline of Decathlon and Emma Mason Zwiebler of the World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry, where along with Johnny Merch of Red Torch, we discussed the bridge between the elite professional performance side of the industry and the participation side, the absence of a coherent sports lobby into government and the implications of the global inactivity of sports. One company that was referenced by Johnny Murch in that conversation was Asics.
Jonny Murch, Redtorch:The motivations behind why people participate in sports. And fundamentally, we all start because we enjoy it. You know, it's fun. It's great. And it makes us feel brilliant, doesn't it? And it's tapping into what, what are the motivations? That's different audiences, uh, have to get involved in sport and I want to highlight another brand that I think is doing some great advertising at the moment, which is Asics, sound mind sound body really tapping into the mental health benefits as well as physical health benefits of physical activity. And running, which resonates with so many people these days and, and that's something that international federations need to explore as well as what are the different motivations. That might encourage more people to think about having a go and a lot of it is not down to performance and win.
So what does this conversation look like from the vantage point of today's guest, Gary Raucher, who's global head of marketing and executive board member at Asics, the fourth largest athletic footwear brand in the world, share of the running market that sits above Nike and Adidas. And we talk specifically about that bridge between performance and fun, the Olympics and participation. Is there one? Does it still exist in the same way as it did in the television era? It's a fascinating company and a fascinating conversation. I hope you enjoy it. it. One of the conversations we normally have on this podcast, it skews towards major events, professional elite sport and the sport as entertainment product type part of the ecosystem. And you've got things like the Premier League, the NFL's of this world, the Olympics, obviously. And the incentive on the supply side is to create marketing packages that target people like yourself. And I'm wondering what it looks like from your side. and where that bit of the world fits into your bigger job at A6. So that's the framing that I want to put around the conversation initially. But first of all, I guess the first question is what's the job? What do you do all day?
Gary Raucher, ASICS:Yeah, so I'm the global head of marketing in ASICS, and my job is to make sure that our brand philosophy, Salman and Sambadi, comes to life in everything that we do. Whether that be our event activations, our product communications, how we're trying to engage with communities, but I really just try to make sure that we are building a consistent and strong global brand.
Richard Gillis, UP:And the role of, Let's take an Olympics, major World Athletics Championships, where does that fit in to that job?
Gary Raucher, ASICS:Well, I think it's an important part of, as a performance sports brand, I think that major sporting events play a very significant role in our marketing calendar. I think that what we try to do is ensure that ASICS is offering a unique point of view. Uh, in how we approach those events, but also the opportunity to give a unique experience to both our consumers and also the residents of the host city. Um, so if, if we take the example of the last Olympic games, we work closely with the city of Paris. Uh, for a long period of time, not just during the games themselves, but in the lead up to the games and also after the games to make sure that we could work closely with them to get as many people in the city of Paris to move, not just for their physical wellbeing, but also for their mental wellbeing. And I think that's a good example of how we try to bring our brand and our differentiated point of view to life, because it's not just about the peak performance during the weeks of the Olympic Games, but it's actually about the incredible feeling that we wanted all Parisians to experience.
Richard Gillis, UP:So that's an interesting Point do you see those as two worlds in terms of is the Olympics? Let's take the Olympics as an example. The message there is high performance. These people are superhuman beings. They are extraordinary and That's a bit of your story, but you're telling a broader story. Can you build a bridge between the
Gary Raucher, ASICS:Sure I mean, I think that We believe that the extraordinary feeling of being an elite athlete should be open to all people. And so while we might help tell the stories of some of our own elite athletes and the extraordinary performances that they bring to an Olympic Games, we want to encourage all people, regardless of their experience with sport, regardless of their fitness or their ability level. to go out and experience that incredible feeling for themselves. And so I think there is a bridge because we definitely want to inspire people with elite athlete stories, but we also want to actually go out and engage with the community and get people personally involved so that they too can, uh, can feel the power that sport and movement has, not just on their physical bodies, but importantly on their mental well being.
Richard Gillis, UP:And do you think that the, that major event impact is waning? Do you think there's a shift in that? I'm just wondering about how it impacts on your communication strategy, because actually if you're communicating to me to move. And I love the idea of that. I get there's a feeling there that I'm trying to access, you know, maybe occasionally I'll glimpse what it might be like if I was like one of those people. But is that story still holding true? Do you think that we watch and then we go and copy them?
Gary Raucher, ASICS:Well, I think that there is certainly a fine line between when elite athletes are inspiring others to get out and move and be active themselves. and at the same time can be a bit off putting. because people don't feel that they belong to that club. I think what we've seen evolve in the sports industry is that people are looking for more casual participation, they're looking for more social participation, and unfortunately, a lot of the industry has created a little bit of a, of a toxic exercise culture. That if you don't look a certain way, if you don't perform at a certain level, then sport and exercise is not for you. Um, I think that there is the opportunity to combine those two worlds. I think it's incredibly important that we, uh, use these incredible performances to inspire people. But I don't think that we should be adding pressure to an everyday athlete. that they always need to be breaking a record. Um, if you see a lot of the communications in this industry, it is not good enough to be fast or faster, but you need to be the fastest. And once you're the fastest, you can't be the fastest in the world, you have to be the fastest ever, the fastest in history. And for us, we think it's great to see how fast people can race at a big event like the Olympics or the World Championships. But we also want people to realize that just getting up from your couch and walking around the block will also make you feel great. And I think that it's important that we can welcome people into the world of sport as opposed to excluding them from it.
Richard Gillis, UP:Yeah, again, when you get to marketing strategy. How that converts and people quite often go to a sort of binary of of brand and storytelling and performance and data led and direct to consumer and I think it's a false binary, but there is that. difference.
Gary Raucher, ASICS:Yeah, I mean, I, I think that the world of sports tends to fall into one of two categories. There, there are the ruler brands that say winning is the only thing that matters and we need to win at all costs. There are the hero brands that say, well, you may not be a winner yet. But if you work hard enough, you put in the blood, the sweat, and the tears, then one day, you too can transform your body and become a winner. And ASICS is, I believe, unique in being a caregiver brand because we are a performance sports brand. We like to win, but we don't want to win at all costs. And we like to say that the, both the physical and mental health of our athletes, as elite or everyday as they might be, is more important than any trophy or podium position or metal. And so of course we are working with elite athletes to develop the best products in the industry to help them perform, but we will never sacrifice somebody's physical or mental health in the pursuit of that glory, which I think, you know, happens, unfortunately, more often.
Richard Gillis, UP:It's quite interesting when you look at sort of Instagram culture around sport. Is that what you're looking at in terms of that? You mentioned toxicity is a. As a red flag, I see quite a lot of that in terms of that, just the atmosphere around that and the sort of peculiar aspirational thing around the body could be body shape, It could be winning.
Gary Raucher, ASICS:I mean, we've, we've seen that in a few different ways. Um, uh, one, one of the best examples is I think we all have seen in our social media feeds, these, um, exercise transformation images where you will show before and an after where it's entirely focused on focus. physical transformation. Uh, what we have discovered through our own research is that it only takes 15 minutes and nine seconds for people to mentally feel better. After exercising, and so we did a campaign which we called dramatic transformations where we invited influencers into a studio, we took their before picture, we got them up on a treadmill, jogging or running for 15 minutes and 9 seconds, and then we took the after picture. And we posted those pictures, um, by, with the headline that not all transformations are visible, and the most dramatic transformations are the ones that actually happen in the mind. Because we believe that's the way that we should be looking at sport and exercise is that just getting up and moving, even for short amounts of time, can have a profound impact on how we feel. And you don't have to have a six pack or a twelve pack to feel as if you have transformed your body, um, or that you have benefited from sport and exercise, but actually anybody can. Another, another good example of sort of the challenge that we're facing is that, of course, everybody now is looking at, you know, what can you do with AI? And one of the interesting things that we did was we asked generative AI to show us an image of a woman who had been exercising. And as you can imagine, uh, it was a very chiseled, uh, very, very elite looking woman. When we don't believe that should be the definition of a woman who has been exercising. So what we did was we set out to train AI. Uh, we released thousands of our own images and then we reached out to our own communities to upload their images of people who've been exercising. And then we were able to re ask. AI to generate an image of a woman who'd been exercising, and the contrast was really night and day, and I think that it just shows that in society we've become too obsessed with physical perfection and the pursuit of physical perfection, and we need to focus much more on how sport and exercise makes us feel.
Yeah, it's a fascinating area this because I was when I was thinking of things to talk to you about one of the questions, uh, was about a Zempic type weight loss drugs and sport quite often either directly or implied is obesity is its problem to solve. And I'm wondering what the longer term impacts of weight loss drugs if they become central to our culture and we, obesity goes away as a major societal issue, which is what the promise of the drugs is at the moment. And it's a real, uh, thing that's happening where that leaves sports messaging. Because what you're saying, and I can see a root here, you're looking at the mental side of sport, which again is not one that I hear very often, quite often, both, you know, obesity, let's be frank, untaps a lot of money, both from a marketing perspective, directly or indirectly, but also from a government perspective in terms of major events. So in terms of, you know, sports going to solve, do more sports, solve obesity, that hasn't worked over a period, you know, the last decade. 30 years. And I wonder where that's going to go as an issue.
Gary Raucher, ASICS:Well, I, I think that whereas maybe other people define the enemy as obesity, uh, we would say the enemy is stress and anxiety. I think what's interesting is that in 2019, the World Health Organization was already talking about a global pandemic, and this was before COVID even arrived. And the global pandemic they were referring to was the fact that stress and anxiety around the world were at record levels and increasing at an alarming rate. Then COVID came and made things significantly worse. And unfortunately, our data shows that it's still headed in the wrong direction. It's probably not surprising that at the same time that we see stress and anxiety levels rising, we see physical activity levels falling. And we know that there is a direct connection between the two. So as a brand that stands for Sound Mind, Sound Body, it's literally in our name. ASICS is an acronym for Anima Sana and Corpora Sana, or Sound Mind and a Sound Body. As a brand that believes that it is our mission to get as many people moving as possible for not just their physical well being, but also their mental well being. We think that our clear enemy is stress and anxiety, and we want people to get up to move. for the mental benefits of movement.
Richard Gillis, UP:Let's talk about the audience. Who, who is, or how do you define The audience for your communications.
Gary Raucher, ASICS:Well, I mean, it's interesting because of course, there's always a bullseye target where we can talk about an age group and we can talk about a certain demographic, but actually the red thread through everybody that we are trying to appeal to are people that want to be more, um, Uh, want to take care of their well being, uh, and are looking to become more physically active to do so. And that actually spans a large target audience. Uh, so we definitely are, our bullseye would probably be someone who is in their late twenties, early thirties. Um, but of course this is a message that we think appeals to younger audiences and older audiences as well.
Richard Gillis, UP:And how do you go about identifying those people and just that process?
Gary Raucher, ASICS:Yeah, I think that what we are trying to do is be very inclusive. I think that we are, uh, we recognize that there are segments of the population that are under indexing when it comes to participation in sport and exercise. And we feel like those are things that we can actually take concrete actions on. So, for example, we publish every year State of Mind Index, and, uh, we do it because it helps identify the people and places that are in most need of a mental uplift. And so, in, uh, a couple of years ago, we identified, uh, the, the market town of Redford in the UK as the town in the UK that had the lowest. of Mind Index score. And so we worked together with the municipality to transform the streets into a movement inspired gym. Um, and we, uh, encourage as many people to come out to move with ASICs as they possibly could. And at the time we were using, uh, an app, which we called the Mind Uplifter app, which was able to visualize, uh, how people were feeling both before and after exercise. So it was a combination of, uh, facial scanning technology as well as self reported data. Basically, people would come, uh, come down to the event, uh, they would use the app and, uh, register how they were feeling. We would then take them through a circuit of different physical activities within the village, and then they'd measure again. And we saw that there was a very significant increase in how people felt as a result of that physical movement. And those are the types of things that we try to do is that we identify what are the segments of the population that aren't running as much. We were talking about the Olympics before. We had a partnership. We still have a partnership with the city of Paris. Um, it's called Paris Move Your Mind. And, uh, one of the goals of the city of Paris was to get Parisians, uh, more physically active. In fact, that was part of their bid to host the Olympic Games, uh, in, in the first place. And we identified that women, uh, were a target audience that were not participating as much as men. So we specifically created a weekly women's run, uh, created a community of women, uh, created a safe environment, a non judgmental environment to encourage women who maybe were not exercising as much as they wish that they were to come out and actually start enjoy, uh, running together with other people. And of course we provided, you know, product advice and we gave the opportunity to try, um, and, uh, hopefully at the end they will end up running. With ASICS, uh, but the fact that they are moving at all is a win for us as a brand.
Richard Gillis, UP:where is Redford?
Gary Raucher, ASICS:as an American, you're going to test my UK, uh, geography.
Richard Gillis, UP:I've never heard of it. I'm going to look it up.
Gary Raucher, ASICS:map
I've become, I've become slightly obsessed with Redford now. Um, okay. So. There's a, there's an idea behind the brand. There's a purpose to it. It's about movement. There's a question, and this might be a UK focused question, but I suspect not, which is about lobbying. And in the previous podcast we did, we talked about this quite a lot in terms of the sports lobby, if there is such a thing, because I would put a brand like Asics and the big product manufacturers, um, You've also got the retailers. Then you've got the IOC, Premier Leagues of this world. you know, they're enormously high profile, these organizations. And you mentioned there about We talked about a Zempik as an example, about the drugs lobby or, you know, the other industry sectors that have an impact and have a route into government. And I wonder how that works, whether you define yourself, ever see yourself as part of the sports industry in that way, as a way of lobbying government to, on these bigger issues that join up with your brand purpose.
Gary Raucher, ASICS:me go back to the first one about being purpose driven because I think that helps answer some of the following questions Um, I always say that a brand needs to find its fruits and its roots You can't just sit in the boardroom and say this is what we are trying to stand for, shouldn't this be our purpose? Um, ASICS was founded in 1949 in Japan, and it was just after the Second World War had ended. Uh, the country was in despair. People, and especially young people, had lost hope. And our founder realized the power of sport to not just to not just uplift bodies, but to also uplift minds and spirits. And that's why he named us ASICS. Anima Sama Incorpora Sama, a sound mind and a sound body. And ever since then, that has been our guiding philosophy, and it has been our brand purpose. And I think ever since 2021, we really have doubled down on that and have used that as the strategic filter through which we are viewing everything. So for us, not only do we have a purpose, it's a very authentic purpose. authentic purpose. It's a very credible purpose and it's something that really is at the heart of everything that we do at ASICS. We take that philosophy into every discussion, into every sponsorship, into every body that we work with. So, you mentioned sort of the sports lobby and the sports industry. We are an active member of the WFSGI. We are a partner, a long term partner of World Athletics. Um, these are two very influential organizations. We sponsor, uh, national committees. Uh, we are the sponsor of Olympic, uh, national teams. Um, and we do all of that, uh, because we believe that we have a responsibility. to get more people moving for not just their physical well being, but also their mental well being. So, one of the big things that we're working with the WFSGI on now, and this isn't specific to ASICS, but actually the consortium of different brands, uh, working together, is how can we address the fact that, um, there is an activity level challenge, maybe even crisis at the moment, that we know that people are not moving enough. And we know that unfortunately that statistic is trending in the wrong direction. So how can we as a sports industry come together and really make sure that we are encouraging more people to move? And this is why I think we're the ones that are specifically championing the idea of moving for mental well being. Other people might take another angle for why it's important to move. But what unites us is that we're trying to get more people to move. And some of the difficult conversations that we're having is around, uh, or are around, um, the fact that we need to make sure that sport is inclusive instead of exclusive. And we need to make sure that we are moving away from this toxic culture of telling people that they don't belong. In the world of sports to one that is much more welcoming to all people. And then yes, of course, your final question is at the end of the day, we're trying to sell product. Absolutely. We are. Um, but we believe that we have a bigger purpose and that is to help people achieve a sound mind and a sound body. And that goes beyond our specific brand sales. how
How does the ownership of the company impact that? Because quite often you've got the purpose, you've got the, it stands for, which is very strong and profound in this case, based in post war Japan, but you then get into, okay, it's, it's talking about toxic environments. You've got a shareholder environment, it's a publicly traded organization and the temptation or the, the incentive is to. Drive to shorter term decisions that please the marketplace, rather than the longer term. You've got difficult decisions to make that sometimes the commercial and that sort of purpose come into conflict. And I wonder how you manage through that is it possible to keep those roots in, you know, post war Japan?
Gary Raucher, ASICS:it's a publicly owned company It's traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Um, in fact, it's one of the fastest growing stocks in, in the industry at the moment because we have performed incredibly well, both from a sales perspective and a profitability perspective over the last few years, uh, which obviously isn't entirely because of this focus on our brand positioning. But I think this brand focus on the brand positioning has certainly contributed to that. And I think what's important is that we don't view brand as something that is just owned by the marketing department or the marketing communications team. But brand is really a strategic filter for how we approach every aspect, uh, of the business. So it is, uh, a guiding principle in, in taking those tough decisions. And we always are asking if something is on brand or off brand, and that is big and small, uh, acquisition strategies, uh, whether or not we're going to work with certain events or certain athletes, uh, to what type of campaigns that we're doing, to what type of people we're recruiting, uh, via the HR function. So brand, we really try to ensure lives throughout the whole company and is really used as a strategic filter in all of those decision making.
Richard Gillis, UP:What do you make of the sort of war on DEI in the States and that, the ripple effects of that and people talking about sort of anti woke positions and going after corporates for social positions and brand purpose?
Gary Raucher, ASICS:I mean, obviously I have my, my personal opinion, but, uh, I, I'd rather, uh, stay to, you know, what, what we as a company believe. And we believe that all people, uh, should be encouraged to participate in sport and be able to achieve a sound mind and a sound body.
Richard Gillis, UP:it's coming across sport, I mean, it's a question I'm asking lots of people in sport because people are over the last few years have adopted brand purpose strategies. and those are going to be tested in the next. Five years in a way they weren't in the last five years.
Gary Raucher, ASICS:Well, I think the interesting thing is that the the trend is actually at the moment moving away from brand purpose. Brand purpose was something that maybe, I don't know, five years ago every brand was jumping on the bandwagon. We need a clearly defined purpose. We need to be purpose driven. I think a lot of brands have moved away from that, maybe to your earlier point of, you know, was it delivering a strong enough shareholder return? Do we need to focus on something else instead? I think for us, uh, because it's at the heart of who we are, it really is in our DNA. I mean, it's literally in our net, in our name, it's not something that we're going to deviate from. Um, and so when a company has a clearly defined purpose and has clearly defined values. then that helps steer the ship through the night and regardless of what external factors might come up if you Truly know who you are and what you believe in it makes it much easier to stay on course
Richard Gillis, UP:And does that in terms of the level of so big creative advertising which catches people's attention, That is sometimes the flag for people who want to go out, you know, that's does that and again It's this is an ASICS question But it's also a much broader question in terms of the way in which there's a sort of chilling effect on people making, Well, just using brand storytelling in that way That get, you know, there's a sort of stay in your lane, sell product, be all about performance. because that's a safe area for sport to play in as it goes wider than that. people, that's the risk.
Gary Raucher, ASICS:I think that category conventions exist for a reason. Um, you know, it makes sense that almost all sports brands talk about winning or they talk about body transformation. Uh, because as you say, that's probably the safer thing and that's what you come to expect within the industry. But I also believe that you need to differentiate yourself as a brand. You need to be able to stand out in a very cluttered world with lots of content. You need to create communications that people will engage with emotionally and maybe be pleasantly surprised by, uh, because those are the ones that they actually will talk to their friends and their family about. I think that's why our, our most recent campaign, which was for World Mental Health Day last year with Brian Cox, we called it a desk break, was one that I think, uh, garnered so much attention. I mean, with almost no media spend at all, uh, we know that it has reached more than 3 billion people around the world. And I think it was something that was just very surprising, uh, for a sports brand to be doing. It was, you know, wasn't showing an elite athlete, wasn't even showing someone exercising. Uh was barely showing the product, uh, and yet it had a very powerful message that I think really resonated with people
Richard Gillis, UP:There's a, Again, if we work it back to the core audience of this podcast One of the questions has been well the the partnerships question in terms of, you know, who you align with both as a transactional thing that you're in a deal with and, but also there's a, the broader. How do you view questions like the governance questions in relation to sport? Because quite often the criticism from major corporates is that it's difficult sometimes because the behaviors of sports governing bodies, whether it's, uh, executive level or whatever, or just decisions that they're making, make it difficult. to align your brand purpose with the governing body.
Gary Raucher, ASICS:It is difficult at times, but I think that the same way whether we're talking about a governing body and an event owner or an individual athlete, we're looking for partners that share our values. And I do think that we are certainly over the last year starting to see more and more interest, uh, in trying to encourage more people to move more often. I think that we are starting to see more and more interest and openness to talk about mental health issues than we've seen in the past. And so I think it's becoming an easier conversation to have and an easier way for us to align with others.
Richard Gillis, UP:It's all about marketing then, just as your category. You've got these, you've got the Adidas Nike dynamic. And again, It's almost become a cliche, but the reading is that Nike went too far towards the performance marketing and away from their brand storytelling. people will say, Oh, look, they've done a Superbowl ad. and then adidas doing something different. What's your I know? It's a false binary and you're going to do both of these things. But how do you be that Relationship between those two key
Gary Raucher, ASICS:I think that, uh, we've seen time and time again that performance marketing on its own is not going to work. So there always needs to be a component of brand marketing. And then depending upon the brand, depending upon the industry, depending upon, you know, we even, we talk about product market combinations. You might be in a different situation for our tennis business in the U. S. than we are for our basketball business in Japan. And depending upon where you are, you have to find that right balance between brand and performance, but there definitely needs to be a combination of the two. Uh, it's just a question of how much you push in one area or another. And so we look at things like brand tracking and the strength of our brand position in a particular market and in a particular category in a market to help determine where on that scale we should be. I think the other thing is that we need to, and that's maybe the other lesson that some of the other brands have, have learned perhaps the hard way over the last few years, is that you need to have the right combination of both a wholesale distribution and a direct to consumer distribution. Uh, I think in the sports world, uh, wholesale is incredibly important, and Essex has always been very clear that, uh, we are not going to abandon our wholesale partners. Um, so I think that it's also really important that you find that right balance because at the end of the day. Um, yes, more and more purchases are being made online, but there still are communities of runners, there are communities of tennis players, there are communities of, you know, uh, of, of sport participants, and you need to engage with those communities, and very often that is with your local bricks and mortar, uh, you know, specialty store, and so therefore it's important that you find the right balance also in distribution.
I sometimes wonder how tempting or realistic it is to bypass those and let's buy into the dream of D2C. And we talk about this a lot on this podcast in lots of different forms of the dream of direct relationships, the Apple model, if you like, must be tempting, but I'm wondering what, because there's a lot of people selling that as a proposition, both in terms of, you know, from your side, but also the people in the middle are selling solutions and direct to market solutions. What do you, what's your view on that?
Gary Raucher, ASICS:I mean, I'm not sure if it's tempting because I think that we have seen the success model of working through wholesale partners. We've also watched as other brands have tried to pursue what you would call the dream of going direct.
Richard Gillis, UP:or the nightmare. depending on who you are
Gary Raucher, ASICS:It's, you know, it's, it's backfired. And so I think that. For us, it, it, it again is something that we're just trying to find the healthy balance. I mean, obviously we want to have direct relationships with consumers. Uh, we want to build loyal relationships with consumers. We really have been focusing on our One Assets program, which is our loyalty, uh, membership program. So of course we want to create communities of people that are more loyal to asset. Uh, but at the same time, we think as the, as the category lead, we also have a responsibility to work with our wholesale partners to help people find the best product for them. And I think that again comes back to us being a caregiver brand as opposed to a hero or ruler brand is that we really want to make sure that people are exercising in the best product for them, the one that is going to not only help them perform, but help them avoid injury. And if I just take the running category as an example. You know, we have found that well more than 80 percent of runners have no idea if they are an overpronator or not. They have no idea if they should be running in a stability shoe or a neutral shoe. In fact, many of our competitors have stopped talking about the stability category. They only focus on neutral shoes. But we genuinely believe it doesn't matter if I'm launching a new neutral shoe. If someone is an overpronator, they shouldn't be running in that neutral shoe. I want them to run in one of our stability shoes. So we encourage people to actually go to a physical store, whether that be an ASIC store or one of our wholesale partner stores. Uh, do a gait analysis. Get professional advice because we want people to select product, not just on price, not just on color or design. But what functionality is best for you and your running style or your playing style? And in the area of tennis, we're the only brand that is developing our footwear. based upon the type of tennis player you are. Are you someone that hangs around the baseline and needs to move laterally from side to side? Are you somebody that approaches the net or plays doubles and so you have a lot of forward and backward movement? And we're developing technologies and products based upon that particular playing style. So for us, that's really important as a caregiver brand. We want to drive people to the right product for them.
Richard Gillis, UP:And what's the impact of innovation on this marketplace in terms of the, you've, you know, obviously you've you've had these running shoes that are now breaking world records and all of that bit. How does that change your job?
Gary Raucher, ASICS:Well, I mean, uh, how does it change my job? I think that, uh, first of all, I've always said that marketing needs to be spelled with a capital M and not a lowercase M because the difference is lowercase marketing, which is what most marketing departments do is, well, we wait for the product to be developed. And then we just figure out how to communicate them. Uh, uppercase marketing has a much more strategic and much more upstream role. So I think we play a critical role in, uh, feeding insights into the product development process. Um, we are constantly gathering input from consumer testing. And we're using a combination of elite athletes, our networks of coaches, of clubs. Uh, but also everyday athletes to be able to help in that, in that product development process. Um, and then of course, what we have a responsibility to do is as you get closer to the point of purchase, whether that be in store or online, we need to make sure that we're clearly educating, uh, the ultimate shopper, but very often also the store staff on being able to understand why certain technologies have gone into certain products and, and how they are best suited for different. types of athletes.
Richard Gillis, UP:that market information flowing back to you, what are the roots? How do you get that intelligence?
Gary Raucher, ASICS:It's I mean, it's it's throughout the entire process. We have an institute of sports science in Kobe, Japan. That's where we do a lot of our initial research and biomedical testing. We bring most of our elite athletes through that facility to get direct feedback from them. We are testing throughout the season prototypes with elite athletes. Uh, the last time that we launched the, uh, Court FF, which is, uh, Novak Djokovic's shoe, he tested 20 different prototypes in the development of the shoe. It's a, you know, I think a lot of other brands will, they'll develop a product and then just give it to one of their athletes to wear. We are really working intimately with our athletes in that product development. Um, so that is sort of in the product creation process. Obviously we're doing, uh, uh, product usage and, uh, product, um, acceptance testing throughout the entire process. We're listening quite closely to any social media conversations that are happening after a product launch. We're looking carefully at, uh, reviews and recommendations, whether they be from, uh, uh, professional journalists, influencers, or just consumer reviews themselves. Um, so we're, we're basically gathering all of these different points of, uh, information and insight and feeding that all back into the product creation process.
Richard Gillis, UP:And how do you sort of impact that world? Because it's quite, it's really fascinating from a, you know, Reddit through to Instagram, through, there's a whole area there. How do you engage with that world?
Gary Raucher, ASICS:Well, I mean, it starts with us trying to understand who are the most influential people in the consumer decision journey process, and then engaging with those individuals and encouraging them to share their experiences about ASICs. So, for example, in the world of tennis, we know that it's actually the tennis coach that has more influence over a consumer's choice than anything else. So we've created a network of coaches, we call it the ASICs Tennis Academy. And we are working closely with those coaches to make sure that they're involved in product creation. They're the first ones, uh, to basically try out all of our new products. But then in return, we're asking them to, uh, be quite visible and quite public about sharing their opinions, good or bad. Uh, we think any type of feedback is, is important. But whether that be leaving reviews. Uh, on asics. com or sharing their experiences through their own social channels. It's a way, uh, to really get more visibility from a very influential group of people.
Okay, let's finish off with a sort of future gazing question. What are the trends that you would bet your house on? It could be in relation to the brand or even just the category more broadly.
Gary Raucher, ASICS:I think that from a marketing perspective, I think that we have quite a timeless positioning. Um, you know, we were founded after the second world war because cause people needed a mental uplift, and here we are 75 years later, and, or more than 75 years later, and I feel that our positioning is perhaps more relevant than it's ever been before. So I think that one of the macro trends that we will continue to focus on is, uh, the fact that we live in a world where there is more and more pressure. There is less and less time, and we need to encourage people to get up, go outside, and move. And I think that that will always be the core of what we are going to continue to focus on, because, I mean, I think that that is something that we know for sure is going to continue. I think we also see this emerging trend that the world of sport is evolving and that people are more interested in the social and, uh, non competitive side of sport. So I think that that also bodes well for us because we want to be more inclusive and more welcoming as a brand, um, and I think that's a trend that we will continue to see and it's why the rise of Padel or pickleball, you know, has, has grown, uh, so quickly and we think will continue to grow. So I think there definitely will be, uh, emerging sports. that are more inclusive and, and, and, and more fun. Um, and I think that's what we need to bring to the sports industry, is also more fun again, and more enjoyment, and remind people. You know, we, we did a campaign last year where we invited a bunch of adults into a room and asked them why they exercised. And as you can imagine, it was because they wanted to look good, it was because they wanted to lose weight, they wanted to gain muscle, it was because they wanted to publish on their social channel, look at, look at this record that I've broken. And then we brought a bunch of kids into the same room, and we asked kids why they exercise. And it was for the fun of it. It was for the fact that, you know, that your mind just goes blank. And I think that's what we need to do, is we need to remind the world for why we used to exercise, and why we should be exercised going forward. And I always, I always think of myself, I myself am a tennis player, and I try to play at least a couple of times per week. And it doesn't matter if I've had a stressful day. It doesn't matter if there's something that I'm, have been worrying about. As soon as I got on the tennis court, all of that disappears. And I not only feel much better while I'm playing tennis, but for the hours and sometimes days after my tennis match, I'm still feeling great. And, and that's what we want more and more people to experience.
Yeah, we don't talk about fun very much, do we, in sport? It's interesting. You don't see people, happy, smiley people in sports advertising. It's often game face, very serious, very about performance. Quite often I think there's, there's a sort of analogy, isn't there, about, you know, kids start off with artistic talent and it, and, and creativity, and it sort of gets educated out of them as we grow older. And I think that, that, that, that, that, that, Association of fun with sport, quite often professional sport is, is not presenting that as, uh, we, we lose that sense of fun somewhere along the line.
Gary Raucher, ASICS:Yeah. But again, you know, coming back to the world of professional sports and elite sports. That's why we also look to partner with certain athletes. I mean, Jasmine Paolini is someone that always has a smile on her face, even when she's on the court, certainly after afterwards. Novak Djokovic. I mean, he tells this great story of, uh, I think it was 2017 and he had an injury. He had changed his coach. He was, you know, thinking, do I want to continue doing this or not? And at the end, his motivation to come back was he realized just how much he loved the game. And ever since a child, being a child, it's just every time he's on the court, he just feels great. Um, and I think it's those types of stories and those types of athletes that, uh, that we want to be associated with because we want to remind people that that's the real reason that we participate in sport, no matter how casual or serious you might be about your sport. The real reason to do it is it makes you feel great
Richard Gillis, UP:Kids get put off sport a lot of kids because it doesn't look fun, It doesn't feel fun. It's about competition.
Gary Raucher, ASICS:Exactly. So we're, we're trying really hard to try to change that, uh, that image and that impression because again, we want to have as many people achieve a sound mind and a sound body as possible.