Novak Djokovic testing new Asics tennis shoes.
Asics is number-one in the tennis footwear space in North America. The Japanese-based brand wants more.
Mitsuyuki Tominaga, Asics president and COO, laid out the brand’s growth strategy in North America, telling me he’s launching the T-Project, a play off both his name and the sport’s name, to maintain the top spot in tennis footwear and build the distance between Asics and competitors.
“I love tennis and my passion is to win in tennis,” he says. “That is where we are right now.”
The T-Project comes twofold, using both an investment around sponsorships and grass roots connections but also a research and development effort to increase the innovation and technology used in the sport’s footwear.
Mitsuyuki Tominaga, Asics president and COO, has launched the T-Project to focus on growing tennis ... [+]
“Tennis is something we want to build,” Tominaga says, noting that despite the market size being smaller than running, it remains an important element of the brand’s growth strategy. “We are number-one in the United States and also number-one in Europe. We’d like to be dominant going forward.”
To improve the Asics branding within the sport, Tominaga says they will sign new athletes—including a prominent female player this year—focusing on the women’s side of the sport and ensuring they have young, upcoming talent. Then there’s also working with tournaments on sponsorships and creating a better grass roots campaign to partner with coaches and smaller events to ensure Asics remains prominent throughout every level of the sport.
“A top player is important,” Tominaga says, highlighting the relationship with Novak Djokovic. “Grass roots is also important.” Across the world Asics has taken differing strategies, whether partnering with coaches, sponsoring junior tournaments or signing young players. “Each region is quite different,” Tominaga says. “We will try to replicate it.”
Alex De Minaur is one of the feature athletes for Asics tennis.
Picking the right athletes isn’t just about winning on the court for the increased visibility. “I think it is very important that we get the athletes who will work closely with us,” Tominaga says, adding that the brand’s mantra of a “sound mind, sound body” means they want players willing to work on product development and giving feedback to researchers and product designers.
Tominaga notes that elite-level athlete feedback is paramount in understanding how product responds to court conditions. Top athletes play in so many more conditions—and often far longer and more often—in terms of environments, locales and court surfaces than a typical player could ever experience. Their insights along the way prove valuable.
That’s been evident in the Asics relationship with Djokovic, who has helped the brand define the Court FF silhouette. “Obviously the way he plays, the footwork, the flexibility he has, he does give us a lot of requirements, which is good,” Tominaga says. “We try to make sure we are up to par on his demands and making the shoes for him trickles down to the other [shoes] as well.”
Asics tennis shoes ready for a Novak Djokovic wear test.
Asics has three key silhouettes that help drive the brand’s top position. Along with the Court FF and the Solution Speed FF, the brand’s number-one driver of tennis footwear sales is the Gel-Resolution line, which is currently in its ninth iteration.
While Asics does have more price-point accessible models in each silo, Tominaga says he expects to continue pushing innovation for the three main silhouettes thanks to the T-Project’s focus on technological research and development.
The launch of the Asics Creation Center in Boston may play a role in that effort. The May 1 start of the center will debut with 30 people in Boston, some already working for the brand there and others coming from Japan, a combination of product design, innovation and craftsmanship across the company to help capture the United States market.
Along with the focus on tennis, the North American growth strategy features a dedication to run specialty shops. With running the largest market in performance footwear, Asics aims to regain the top spot in North America and will work with specialty run stores to ensure they have the latest information on the brand’s shoes. Asics also hopes to get feedback from the stores, gaining insights via their work directly with consumers, on what Asics must improve.
As the North American growth strategy takes root—there will also be an expansion into the booming pickleball and padel markets—in run specialty, tennis remains top of mind.
“The United States is very important,” Tominaga says. “We need to capture market share.”
