Asics London Store Opening
Asics is one of those brands that if someone mentioned it to me, I would not recognise it but I would recognise the logo. That’s because I always pronounced it O-asics in my head!
Screenshot from site
But now I know better. Last night I went along to the the opening of their first shop outside of Japan to find out more. This was not any special blogger opening, but a full-on PR festival, with store management, lots of people from the fitness industry and a smattering of sports stars. Food was served, drinks were downed and we got to listen to a few of the Asics athletes being interviewed about their trainning, competitions this year and plans for 2012. Iwan Thomas ‘exclusively’ announced he would be running in the next London marathon; Nell McAndrew talked about her running the Great North run this Sunday in a Wonder Woman costume and Tim Don talked about his race against the Circle Line. The race was one of the key PR events, with the tri-athlete competing against the Tube over 1km and 5km, winning both times.
image: from me
At the end of the night we got a goodie bag, with with things like a t-shirt, socks and an mp3 player (I’m guessing those with VIP labels got a different selection. The other opportunity we had was to get our feet measured and trainers recommended. That all went well, so I have a good idea what I’m looking for. Overall, an enjoyable event.
So they invited bloggers along, as part of their social media effort but at the moment the rest of the digital work appears pretty standard. The website falls into the informative style, with lots of product information ,especially about the science about it, plus news about the brand and their athletes. I think they could do a lot more with the product section to allow people to explore what would be best for them (a simple search from product would help). When it comes to online conversation, they seem to get a consistent level of chatter.
English posts that contain Asics per day for the last 30 days.
Get your own chart!
