ASICS
In 1996, ASICS was a niche running company, badly outspent by industry giants like Nike, and trailing specialty brands like New Balance. After 15 years with VITRO, ASICS is now the number two running brand in America. Sales have increased 700% since 1996, doubling the brand’s market share. We did it by establishing ASICS as the brand that best understands the connection between a “sound mind and sound body” (by the way, ASICS stands for ‘Anima Sana in Corpore Sano’, which is Latin for ‘a sound mind in a sound body’), as well as the leader in innovative, lightweight running technology.
The crown jewel of ASICS’ global marketing effort is the brand’s yearly sponsorship of the New York City Marathon. Year after year, ASICS and VITRO have been recognized for some of the world’s most innovative and effective sponsorship activations. For 2011, we completely transformed the Columbus Circle Subway Station creating the ASICS Marathon Experience at Columbus Circle: an installation spanning more than two football fields with 17 visual stations presenting facts, figures and images from the “Superbowl of Running.”
For the last two years VITRO has also run a program during the ING New York City Marathon called Support Your Marathoner, a site where loved ones can send words of encouragement via video, image or text to the runner they’re supporting. Each runner wore a special RFID tag during the race; when a runner passed sensors along the track, his or her message was displayed on a nearby screen. That way, messages could be delivered to the runners as they raced, helping them keep up their pace and have a great run.
Support Your Marathoner is in its second year and has been a huge success, keeping runners motivated to run harder while reminding them that ASICS can help them get there, in more ways than one.
In 2010, ASICS America tasked VITRO with the company’s largest product launch ever: the GEL-Blur33. Not only was the Blur ASICS’ first foray into the exploding world of lightweight running shoes, it was also the launch of the 33byASICS collection. To meet the challenge, VITRO developed a television campaign that brought the “lightweight” concept to life in a completely unique and novel way. It literally required a rocket scientist to pull off. And sales of the GEL-Blur33 blasted off, far exceeding expectations.
