ASICS Expands "Support Your Marathoner" for 2011 ING New York City Marathon

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Social Media Program Inspires Runners With Personal In-Race Videos 

 

 

ASICS America Corporation, official sponsor of the ING New York City Marathon, is expanding its award-winning "Support Your Marathoner" program for the 2011 race. This year, Support Your Marathoner will leverage the power of social media to deliver additional moments of inspiration to more runners than ever before, ensuring that no marathoner has to finish the race alone. 

Recently named the "Most Innovative Communication Strategy" of the year by Promo Magazine, the inaugural Support Your Marathoner program in 2010 gained international attention by allowing friends and family to send pictures, texts, and video messages of support to the marathon runner of their choice. Utilizing innovative technology, motivational messages were delivered to the right runners, at the right time, as they ran past giant video screens placed along the course. More than 7,000 runners from 17 countries utilized the program and created their own virtual cheering sections. 

ASICS is bringing back the Support Your Marathoner activation with significant additions. This year, the enhanced program will incorporate a new website ( www.supportyourmarathoner.com ) allowing the runners to use their own Facebook communities to ask for messages of support. Every time a support message is uploaded, the runner's entire Facebook community is alerted, and encouraged to upload more messages. The Support Your Marathoner website will also give runners their own personalized support gallery of messages, pictures and videos to have after the race is done. 

This year, ASICS will also debut the "Share Your Glory" Facebook application. The "app" lets runners update their social media community on their race progress in real-time by pre-writing three Facebook and Twitter posts which are then sent out as the marathoners pass each of three areas at the 9-, 13-, and 22-mile marks. 

"ASICS is committed to giving marathon runners everything they need to compete at their best, including motivation and inspiration during the race," says ASICS' Vice President of Marketing Erik Forsell. "Last year, we were blown away by the reaction to Support Your Marathoner. We saw runners who were digging deep for the final miles look up and break into tears when they saw their kids and their friends urging them on. We instantly knew we had to do more." 

The Support Your Marathoner website ( www.supportyourmarathoner.com ) goes live October 14, and will be supported by email blasts from the New York Road Runners and ASICS' own growing social media community. Fans can follow the tweets and create their own with #ASICSrunsNYC. 

Anima Sana In Corpore Sano, meaning "A Sound Mind in a Sound Body," is an old Latin phrase from which ASICS is derived and the fundamental platform on which the brand still stands. The company was founded more than 60 years ago by Kihachiro Onitsuka and is now a leading designer and manufacturer of running shoes, as well as, other athletic footwear, apparel and accessories.

Source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/asics-expands-support-your-marathoner-for-2011-ing-new-york-city-marathon-2011-10-13

Anta Sport expects slowdown in same-store sales growth

PumaPulse Curated By ZenithOptimedia, The ROI Agency Find out more at http://puma-pulse.blogspot.com

Based on the Board’s preliminary review of the Anta Sports Products Limited's unaudited operational data currently available, in line with the recent challenging local sportswear retail market in China generally, the Board expects a slowdown in the same-store-sales growth of retail stores for the third quarter of 2011 when compared with that of the last quarter. The Board also expects a more relaxed and flexible policy on the retail discount offered by the Group’s retailers for the third quarter of 2011.

Store expansion plan
The Anta Sports Products Limited has generally managed to implement its 4-year (years 2009 to 2012) store expansion plan (of an average of 600 to 800 new stores per year) in the first three years of implementation. The store expansion plan for 2012 will be further ascertained and determined by the Group towards the end of 2011, taking into account, amongst others, prevailing conditions of the PRC retail industry.

Challenges ahead
Notwithstanding the challenges ahead, the Group will use its best endeavours to take all necessary actions and measures that the Board thinks fit with the aim to ensure the sustainability of the Group’s business development. While the orders placed pursuant to the Group’s trade fair for the second quarter of 2012 have yet to be ascertained and finalised, the Board expects the trade fair growth rate to be lower than that for the first quarter of 2012, which is in line with the Group’s strategy for that quarter.

However, given that the Group has yet to hold trade fairs for the third and fourth quarters of 2012, the performance of the Group for 2012 cannot as yet be quantified and determined. Despite the slowdown in the PRC retail market and future challenges therein, of which the market is generally aware and hence not price sensitive in nature, the Group is nevertheless confident that it will continue to implement its long term development strategies.

As one of the leading branded sportswear enterprises in China, the Anta Sports Products Limited primarily designs, develops, manufactures and markets sportswear, including sports footwear, apparel and accessories.

Source: http://www.fibre2fashion.com/news/apparel-news/newsdetails.aspx?news_id=104340  

Nike T90 Strike Counter Facebook App Captures and Shares Your Perfect Strike

PumaPulse Curated By ZenithOptimedia, The ROI Agency Find out more at http://puma-pulse.blogspot.com

The new Nike T90 Laser IV is designed to deliver ultimate power and precision for goal scorers. To accompany its launch, Nike introduced a Facebook app that enables footballers around the world to record and socialize their scored goals in a completely new way on 17th Oct.

The T90 Strike Counter allows players to input data about their goals such as a spot on the pitch they scored from, where in the goal it went in and what part of the boot they struck the ball with. A 3D image can immediately be shared with friends or team mates.

How many goals are volleys? How many are from inside the box? Scored with the right foot? Left? Outside of the boot? Top corner? As the goals roll in, Nike Football will host the conversation bringing Pro’s and young players together in a celebration of the art of the perfect strike, no matter how it ends up in the back of the net.

The app will also feature pro player commentary around memorable goals and what makes the perfect strike.

“A perfect strike depends on the moment within the game. How close to the goal I am, or which side of the field I receive the ball. The most important thing is hitting the back of the net. It’s great to score a spectacular goal, but a tap in is good, too, they all count,” Said Pato, CBF national team player.

Source: http://footballfashion.org/wordpress/2011/10/17/nike-t90-strike-counter-facebook-app-captures-and-shares-your-perfect-strike/

84 per cent of urban Chinese are driven to action by mobile ads

PumaPulse Curated By ZenithOptimedia, The ROI Agency Find out more at http://puma-pulse.blogspot.com

Three-quarters of urban Indians also responded to mobile advertising's call to action, the research found, followed closely by Indonesia with 74 per cent. Urban Chinese and urban Indians are also the most likely to have bought something with their smartphones, at 54 per cent and 50 per cent respectively.

These insights are an exclusive preview for Campaign into the full Google/Ipsos report, Smartphone Research on Mobile Internet and Market Trends which will be launched in October. 

The study, part of which was released earlier,  spanned 11 markets in Asia-Pacific and gathered over 30,000 sample responses between March and July of this year. 

The study also found that urban Indians (80 per cent), South Koreans (72 per cent) and the Japanese (71 per cent) used their mobile phones for search daily. In fact, each of these three markets were more inclined to use mobile phones for search than they were their PCs.

For social networking, urban Indonesians lead the region with three-quarters of respondents using their mobile phones for social networking, followed by urban Indians (72 per cent) and Singaporeans (59 per cent). Urban Indonesians, South Koreans and Singaporeans were all also more likely to use their mobile phones for social networking than their computers. 

City-dwelling Chinese, Indians and Indonesians were also more attached to their smartphones than their televisions. When it's not a choice however, Australians, Indonesians and the Japanese choose both with about four to five in 10 respondents likely to be using their smartphones while watching TV.

Source: http://www.campaignasia.com/Article/275351,84-per-cent-of-urban-chinese-are-driven-to-action-by-mobile-ads.aspx

 

Nike, top sports brand in China, plans to build new campus in Shanghai

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Nike Inc., which has targeted China for its vast sales growth potential, plans to build a campus in Shanghai similar to its world headquarters in Washington County. 

The expansion isn't surprising. 

Nike, the world's largest sporting goods company, has emerged as the top sports brand in China with a growing roster of stores in China that now stands at about 7,300 -- a number that reflects one of the big differences in marketing in that country compared with the U.S. 

Company officials have repeatedly stated Nike's goal of expanding in China, and the company has substantial cash reserves to finance the expansion. 

Nike confirmed Thursday evening it is building a campus in Shanghai but declined to offer any details. 

Some members of a business group accompanying Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber on his recent trip to China heard a Nike official share the plans for a Shanghai headquarters. In turn, Tim McCabe, director of Business Oregon, talked about the plans on Wednesday at a gathering of about a hundred business leaders and others at the World Trade Center in downtown Portland, said David Porter, publisher of the blog "Global Strategies." 

McCabe declined to comment further on Thursday. 

Given Nike's expansion plans in China, as well as the fact the company already has a sprawling European headquarters, it "would be a logical next step" to build a campus in China, said Paul Swangard,managing director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon. 

"Clearly, Nike is winning the battle, the sports brand battle, in China," said Swangard, who was part of a contingent from the Warsaw school that spent two weeks in China in September. 

Besides its 17-building campus near Beaverton that opened in 1990, Nike also operates a European headquarters in Hilversum, the Netherlands, which opened in 1999. It includes five buildings, an athletic track, a soccer field and a grandstand used in the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics. The facility features several sustainable features: water flows from roofs to cisterns, the wood is from certified forests and the bricks are local. 

While this month marks Nike's 30th year in China, the nation of more than 1.3 billion people emerged as a key market for Nike with the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. 

It took Nike 25 years to reach $1 billion a year in sales in China and the company doubled that number by the end of the last fiscal year. Nike officials have said they are confident of doubling the figure again in another four years. (The company overall recorded nearly $21 billion in the fiscal year ending in May.) 

Mark Parker, president and chief executive officer of Nike, and several other Nike executives, offered multiple clues about the company's plans for China at an Investor Meeting in June at their campus. 

"In 20 years, up to 65 percent of the world's population could be middle class," Parker told about 80 stock analysts, institutional investors and others. "And most of that in China, India and Brazil. And we're performing very well in these developing markets and we're ideally positioned to capitalize on their potential." 

Part of that preparation in China included the opening in February of a nearly 660,000-square-foot distribution center in Taicang, Jiangsu, China. The China Logistics Center recently became the first facility of its kind to earn the highest possible LEED designation in China. 

The logistics center handles in-bound and out-bound Nike products, including apparel, footwear, equipment and Nike Golf for mainland China. Nike has additional distribution centers in Belgium, Canada, Japan, South Korea and Memphis, Tenn. 

Charlie Denson, president of the Nike Brand, told the investors group in June that China, as well as Brazil, are "extraordinary growth opportunities for the Nike Brand." 

"Let's go back a couple of years," Denson said. "Coming out of Beijing (Summer Olympics), we said we have one strategy, we want to undeniably win and we want to separate from the competition. 

"We were going to do that with leadership from three categories. It was going to be driven by three categories, basketball, running and sportswear. Now, we've been operating in China for almost 30 years. Actually, a little over 30 years. We've been the number one brand for most of that time. But we wanted to end the debate. We wanted to make it very clear. 

"Today, I can stand before this group and unarguably say we are clearly the number one brand in China."  

Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/playbooks-profits/index.ssf/2011/10/nike_the_number_one_sports_bra.html