Interview: How Asics plans to outrun its sportswear rivals

At the beginning of 2020, the world was plunged into a global health crisis the likes of which no one had seen before. For many retail businesses that sparked a heightened focus on the present and near future as they sought ways to weather the coronavirus storm.

Japanese sportswear brand Asics looked to the past.  

The company’s name is an acronym for Anima Sana in Corpore Sano, which translates to ‘A Sound Mind in a Sound Body’. The brand was founded by Kihachiro Onitsuka in 1947 to drive hope and optimism for Japanese citizens devastated by the impact of the Second World War, using sport as a means of lifting the spirits of the people.

“We really believe sport has the power to improve your mental wellbeing, not just your physical wellbeing… more than ever before our core philosophy is relevant in today’s society”

Gary Raucher, Asics

Asics executive vice president of categories EMEA Gary Raucher says the coronavirus pandemic has helped it reconnect to that founding principle.

“We have seen there is not only a physical health pandemic going on but a mental health pandemic as well,” says Raucher. Research commissioned by Asics in partnership with charity Mind found mental health has deteriorated among more than half of UK adults as a result of the Covid-19 crisis. 

“Responding to a mental health crisis really is at the core of who we are as a company,” he tells Retail Week. “We really believe sport has the power to improve your mental wellbeing, not just your physical wellbeing. For us, this was a moment to go back to the core of who we are and remind people what we stand for because perhaps more than ever before our core philosophy is relevant in today’s society.”

Asics has launched a new tagline to chime with its founding acronym – Sound Mind, Sound Body – and launched a partnership with Mind to fund support services focused around physical activity for people struggling with their mental health.

Embedding the heritage of Asics’ brand – and its commitment to using sport to improve mental wellbeing – within the consumer psyche is part of Raucher’s mission to make the Japanese brand stand out in a crowded sportswear market.

Asics’ sales dropped 13% to £2.2bn in the year to December 31, following Covid-induced store closures across its global portfolio, which spans Europe, North America, China and Japan. It is also operating in an increasingly crowded market with relative newcomers such as Under Armour and Lululemon growing at pace.

Although the business lags behind global leaders Nike and Adidas, which reported net sales of £26.9bn and £20.6bn respectively in 2020, Raucher is confident Asics can eat into their market share by tapping into its heritage and making customers not just aware of the brand, but fond of it as well.

“The key challenge is we are a brand that is known by many but loved by too few. Awareness isn’t our issue. Not enough people understand why they should always choose Asics,” Raucher says.

“We are building preference by focusing on the things that make us superior and the things that make us unique. Our products and technologies make us superior and we’ll continue to bring out great innovation and next to that we’ll focus on our philosophy and Japanese heritage.”

Running out in front

Like many brands, Asics sales have been hit by the pandemic as participation in communal activities and team sports plummetted worldwide due to social distancing measures. But Raucher says against this backdrop, the way people are approaching exercise and how they choose to work out has changed.

“In general, people became more interested in their overall health and wellbeing, more interested in taking care of themselves and living an active life – that’s good news for a sports company, of course,” says Raucher.

“People were limited in the sporting activities they could do, you couldn’t go to the gym or tennis club, so a lot of people discovered running. It’s the first time in years we saw the total size of the running category started to grow again as a result of this pandemic. While our performance in some other areas was negatively impacted, our running business benefited from the crisis.”

Ecommerce sales of Asics’ running products more than doubled in 2020 and were up 25% in the lucrative Chinese market across its physical and digital channels. The group’s first virtual running relay event, Asics World Ekiden, attracted 56,000 participants globally.  

A trend partially driving the increase in demand for Asics’ running range is the fact that a new type of shopper is now spending in the category.

“In the past, we’ve talked to quite experienced and more technical runners who have come to us with a base level of knowledge. Now what is important is ensuring that a runner at any level of skill finds the perfect shoe for them wherever they are looking – because we know running in the right gear is critical,” Raucher explains.

Such a surge in demand, coupled with global store closures, prompted Asics to launch its online Shoe Finder tool, which matches shoppers with the right running shoe for them after completing a short questionnaire. Raucher says conversion rates on its ecommerce platform are “significantly improved” when people use the Shoe Finder, and as a result, the brand is rolling the technology out to a number of its wholesale partners’ websites, including Sports Direct in the UK. 

The brand is also in the midst of its “space management” programme, offering a more premium shop-in-shop format that is managed by Asics from an inventory, staff training and shopfitting perspective. It marks a contrast to the approaches taken by the likes of Nike and Adidas, which have consciously streamlined the number of wholesale partners they work with to make a greater proportion of sales direct to consumers. 

Raucher, though, says Asics remains committed to its retail partners as it strives to maintain accessibility to shoppers at different levels of athletic expertise.

“Our wholesale partners are critical in the ecosystem in which we work and operate,” Raucher insists. “The journey we see takes from 10 to 14 days from a customer deciding they need new running shoes to making a purchase.

“In those 10 to 14 days, they actually are visiting multiple sites and destinations to collect and gather information to make sure they are making the best decision. Our job is to work with all those partners to offer consistency in experience but also to provide the most relevant and accurate information both about our products but also the category. We are the leader in running and as such we think it is important to help the development of the category as a whole.”

Asics hopes that by honing in on its heritage and remaining accessible to athletes at all levels, it will gain ground on the competition.