THE CHALLENGE

When Covid-19 forced the event’s cancellation, the team had to get creative and quickly find a solution to show ASICS innovation to media, athletes and consumers. The result? ASICS’s first product preview in Virtual Reality.

THE STRATEGY

The team brought in experiential agency Solarflare Studios and together created a VR experience that places viewers inside a virtual, futuristic ASICS Institute of Sport Science and shows them the innovative features of all three shoes.

Virtual Reality headsets were secured globally and loaded with the experience; they were then seeded with media ahead of a global sell in – allowing journalists to feel as if they had come to a futuristic ASICS event in Japan, instead of being at home. For those unable to get a headset, we created a 360° consumer video version of the VR experience, which is available here.

The Edelman team also created a PR toolkit to help markets amplify the VR experience ahead of a global 19-market sell in.

THE OUTCOME

The earned media campaign helped drive anticipation for the launch of three new cutting-edge innovations while reinforcing the ASICS brand message of striving for constant innovation.

The delivered coverage in outlets such as Tech Radar, Engadget, Trend Hunter and more, with more coverage anticipated to come.

Across the 19 markets where the campaign was activated, there have been 399 mentions to date, with 234 articles secured globally, reaching an audience of 2.2 billion.

With the inclusion the 360-consumer video of the virtual experience, ASICS also achieved 8.3 Million potential reach.