Asics Experiments With Non-Sport Celeb Endorsement In Southeast Asia

The deal began with the quartet promoting a rehash of Asics popular late 90s GEL-BND trainer collection across various platforms. Kard’s latest catchy single “Bomb Bomb” was also used in the brand’s campaign video in a bid to encourage the band’s fans to purchase the trainers.

Last week, Asics also launched the #GELBNDChallenge on Tik Tok. Until the end of August, fans can enter a 15-second dance challenge on the TikTok app, by following a few simple dance moves and hashtagging #GELBNDChallenge. Three winners will be selected to watch Kard in action at Bangkok this September. In tandem with the marketing efforts, it also released KARDxGEL-BND GIPHY stickers on Instagram Stories.

According to ASN data, Asics is ranked 6^th (2.3% share, ~US$31.2m) across the Asian sponsorship market since Q416, unsurprisingly about 99% of the Japanese sport brand’s budget has been allocated to sport-related deals, with the likes of Lifetime Asia’s TV show Who Runs The World (US$250k) and Singapore’s leg of the Laneway Festival in 2017 and 2018 (~US$20k per year) sticking out as rare non-sport dives for a brand which tends to even shun from celebrity (non-sports) deals.