Why ASICS continues to focus on mental health to differentiate itself from competitors

“There are a lot of similar trends across sports and talking about mental health is a way for Asics to differentiate itself from its competitors,” said Gary Locher, the company’s vice president of EMEA.

“We want to build awareness and buzz for our brand. We know we don’t have the budget of our competitors, so we need to do something that people will care about and share.”

A lot of the criticism around purpose comes when brands latch onto irrelevant social issues, but in Asics’ case, it’s literally woven into the brand name, Raucher argues: “While other brands might jump on mental health bandwagons, this is literally built into the DNA of the brand.”

So what is the strategy?

Raucher says it helps to have a “clearly defined enemy.” For ASICS, that enemy is stress and anxiety. “We want to find out where people have the highest levels of stress and anxiety. What are the drivers of increased stress and anxiety levels in society? That’s what we want to do.”

Raucher told The Drum that Dove’s Real Beauty campaign is a blueprint for his team: “Dove has a clear positioning. They have a clear opponent, but 20 years of campaigns gives them consistency. Dove always finds new and ingenious ways to tell the same story over and over again.” That’s what he’s hoping to achieve with his mental health initiative with Asics.

Its latest campaign, “Lose Weight in 15 Minutes,” hijacked social media and Google searches for “weight loss exercise” and instead directed users to ASICS content promoting the mental benefits of small amounts of exercise. The campaign was built on the insight that searches for ways to lose weight quickly have skyrocketed over the past year, but these videos have a negative impact and actually discourage people from exercising.

“So all of a sudden there was an opportunity for Asics to step in and take a stand and get people to change the way they think about weight loss.”

Other examples include billboard ads with before-and-after images that highlight the transformative effects of exercise on mental health rather than physique, and multimedia campaigns that question the definition of a personal best.

ASICS has gone beyond mere advertising activities by incorporating mental health support into its contracts with athletes and conducting research experiments in which it asks athletes to refrain from exercise to see how inactivity affects their mental health.

How to measure impact

ASICS is measuring the success of its mental health campaign through business, brand and social metrics. After the campaign ends, Raucher’s team will evaluate whether it helped increase brand favorability and whether ASICS is now perceived as a “caring brand” or one that supports mental health.

“We’re doing this with the intent of wanting to make people feel good, but at the same time, we’re trying to be profitable and grow our market share.”

When measuring social impact, ASICS conducts an annual “Mental Health Index” to evaluate whether the campaign has made a difference to people’s mental health. Other experiments the company has conducted include working with Redford Council, the town in the UK that had the lowest Mental Health Index. ASICS worked with the local council to encourage residents to exercise and conducted surveys before and after the project to prove that exercise improved people’s mental health.

Raucher’s five points

1. Have a consistent list of partners.

2. Maintain a consistent outline that tells the same story over and over again.

3. Discover new creative devices every time.

4. Be encouraged every time you achieve a small success.