ASICS shifted from being a wholesaler to a retailer with the launch of asics.com and the evolution and investment in their bricks and mortar stores some years ago. Our original task was to review their CRM operation to re-set their ability to engage customers - and take them on a motivating journey. We found three challenges:

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First, all segmentation was built around the media profiles. This makes sense for consistency and for aspiration, but fails in offering a realistic way to inspire a mass audience. In effect, the profiles assumed 5 groups, whose view towards long distance running ranged from active and passionate down to aspiring. Realistically, ASICS shoes are being used for 5k walks and even simply as comfortable shoes. Our response was to re-engineer the segments, according to customer expectations of their use.

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Second, there was no dynamic model for CRM - it was simply an operation rather than a tool to achieve specific goals. Once we’d done this according to the revised segments, we were able to start looking at the journey.

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Finally, the journey itself was simply a repetitive series of communications. Topics included expertise in training, recovery, nutrition - the topics a serious athlete would appreciate. Not so much the charity walker.

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A highlight of the revised journey was a new preference centre to understand their expectations and needs, along with tools to measure wear, an app for the serious runners, and a new channel, ‘Inspire’ which sold nothing, but focused on heritage, stories, messages from ‘people like us’.