ASICS Champions Constant Evolution, Forward Movement & Relentless Energy In ‘Always In Motion’ Campaign

A new ‘Always In Motion’ campaign in early March saw sportswear giant ASICS SportStyle champion forward movement and evolution to tell the brand’s sports style story through the hypnotic interplay of creative vision and constant motion.

The creative brief from ASICS was to introduce the SportStyle core values of ‘Timeless Legacy’, ‘Relentless Innovation’ and ‘Intrinsic Positivity’.

The ‘Always In Motion’ spot rolled out globally from 9 March and invites viewers to ‘always be in motion’ and defines motion as ‘the act of constantly evolving, building on the timeless elements, innovating relentlessly, and moving forward in a way that uplifts the mind ​and unleashes our intrinsically positive energy’.​

Creatively, the hero ad is a collaboration between Canadian R&B duo Majid Jordan, actor, dancer, choreographer, director (and former member of the dance group Mos Wanted Crew) Ian Eastwood and digital artist Bambi who combined to explore movement in three different forms – dance, art, and music.

The spot sees Eastwood move dynamically and fluidly to Jordan’s R&B composition in an enclosed world within a world where LED art in the form of projection loops is projected onto a three-wall set creating Bambi designed all of the projection loops and refined all of the colorization and live lighting-integrations with the brilliant DP Mike Gioulakis (The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Old, Split). The result is an ever-changing canvas as the camera swoops and jags, as dynamic as the dancer himself.

Created by new ASICS agency Wheelhouse Labs, produced by Golden LA and helmed by Director Jordan Bahat, the campaign will run through to 2023 and aims to educate and increase engagement across multiple channels through content creation and focus on movement through various forms of art.

According to the brand, the marketing and creative team took ‘an improvisational approach’ and Bahat worked with production designer Liam Moore ‘to create a space that would isolate the work of the three artists almost exclusively’. Each artist wrote their own respective segment and these were blended together on the day of the shoot.

“I was really excited by the experimental idea of different artists inspiring and affecting one another’s work across disciplines,” commented Bahat. “Of a dancer realizing their skillset might motivate the musical approach; or a composer writing music knowing it will be translated into light by a digital artist. In an odd way, it was like four people using the Ouija board together. Similar to designing a piece of theatre, where every tool is available to you. It’s a perfect metaphor for a brand that is always evolving, innovating, and creating.”

Wheelhouse Labs Head Of Creative Joe Saroufim added: “With only a few days together to prepare, we needed someone with a rich background in music videos who would be precise in how they explored the idea of movement within the piece. Jordan had a unique vision for bringing all the moving pieces together.”

The campaign was briefed in by and created for ASICS SportStyle Marketing Manager Mizuki Miyai and Global Category Marketing Lead Masaki Sekine by a team at Wheelhouse Labs which included Head Of Creative Development Joseph Saroufim, Managing Director Patrick Schmidt, Creative Executives Laura Colagrande and Rod Kashani, Senior Producer Celestina Lucero and Account Director Lena Khouri. The group working on the project at production company Golden LA included Managing Director Matthew Marquis, Director Jordan Bahat, EP Geoff McLean, Line Producer Ian Blair, DP Mike Gioulakis, Post Producer Kevin Gallagher, Editor Jake Frank, Colourist Luis Silva and Animator Jonathan Nee.