Written Assignment Unit 6

BUS 5112

Marketing Management

University of the People

July 2021
ASICS is a Japan Global Brand that specialized in making sport shoes. This one-minute video

clip advertisement published was made in collaboration with tennis world champion Novak

Djokovic who is the brand ambassador since 2018.

Question 1: Would you consider the ad to be an emotional or rational ad? Why or why not?

The video can be related to be an emotional ad as it inspires its audience to have the courage to

take on a far stronger opponent in life rather than tell yourself I’ll never win. This video includes

characters of different races, age groups and people with disabilities as an illustration that

everyone is capable of achieving his/her dreams, only if we have the courage.

Question 2: Who do you think is the target audience for the ad?

I think the ad relates more to young sportsmen and women, in all sports due to the relevance of

the message to sports community. YouTube is mainly used to promote the ad because its users are

mainly the younger generation. We would agree that the older generation generally is not physical

fit to participate in competitive sports except on rare occasion, therefore the message spread

across thus, “have courage to take on a far stronger opponent” would not relate to them.

Question 3: Why or not should people want to share the ad for it to go viral?

It appears that the video ad is lacking in effectiveness as the video has only garnered 9.5k views

and 26.7k subscribers since uploading its content. The video lacks certain features of a viral ad

presented by Stokes & The Minds of Quirk (2013): it fails to address trending topics, its video

thumbnail and titles for a personal opinion isn’t enticing, and the video look like just another

inspirational video which has no uniqueness in it.

Question 5: Is the content for your chosen social media platform more suitable for B2B,

B2C, or both?
Indeed, the video done on YouTube is suitable for B2C.

Question 6: How many times more likely is it for a lead (potential customer) to convert

when developed through employee social marketing? Why?

Stone (2017) wrote that a lead is seven times more likely to convert when developed through

employee social marketing. This happens due to the following two reasons:

a. Employees extend the audience size who receive marketing messages through friends and

family networks.

b. People have stronger trust in the content that comes from people they know and trust as

compared to messages coming from brands or experts (Stone, 2017).

Moreover, having content shared by employees improves the voice of the brand. (Sociabble,

2020) corroborates this by his research that online target audience are eight times more engaged

in social media content shared by employees as compared to the brand.

Question 7: List three social media which you consider to be most suitable for a customer

testimonial and why?

The social media that I would consider to be the most suitable for customer testimonials and

feedbacks are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and more recent TikTok. This is due to the

fact that for every post posted by the brand on their Facebook or social platform page, customers

can leave their comments sharing their thoughts and experience of the product either positive or

negative. The brand as well is also able to respond the testimonials of these customer, hence

engaging and relating to customers in a two-way communication that is visible to all visitors to

the brand page. Positive testimonials by customer act as marketing tools to attracts more

customers or users of the products while negative testimonials opens an opportunity for the brand
to show that they care and responds to customers’ feedback and make efforts to improve. In

Twitter and Instagram customers can submit their testimonials directly to the brand by using the

tag ‘@’ or ‘#’. The tweet would then be listed on the brand’s page, which is viewed when leads

search the brand within Twitter and Instagram. Brands that have a huge following on Twitter

would find that good customer testimonials are highly effective in promoting brand trust. TikTok

also enables customers to submit their testimonials using short video clips of just one minutes.

The video is then tagged to the brand and when leads search the brand within TikTok, they have

access to all testimonies and feedback tagged to the brand. TikTok has built-in features that

increase ‘viral ability’ of any videos posted, and the videos are easily shared across various

platforms. This makes TikTok highly effective tools in social media platform for marketers.

References:

ASICS. (n.d.). ASICS Company Profile. ASICS. https://corp.asics.com/en/about_asics.

Principles of marketing. (2015). University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing.

https://doi.org/10.24926/8668.1901

Sociabble. (2020, September 22). 10 Stats that Prove the Impact of Employee Advocacy.

Retrieved from: https://www.sociabble.com/blog/10-stats-impact-employee-advocacy/

Stokes, R. & The Minds of Quirk. (2013). eMarketing: The essential guide to marketing in a
digital world (5th ed.). Quirk eMarketing (Pty) Ltd. Retrieved from:
https://www.redandyellow.co.za/content/uploads/woocommerce_uploads/2017/10/emarketing_te
xtbook_download.pdf

Stone, S. (2017). Employee advocacy impact study: The Marketing Advisory Network.
https://marketingadvisorynetwork.com/2017/07/17/2017-employee-advocacy-impactstudy/

YouTube. (July 2021). ASICS Tennis | Take One Step Forward | Novak Djokovic. YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMhkeHg4qCs.
Wightman-Stone, D. (2021, May 11). Asics signs up Novak Djokovic as footwear ambassador.
Fashion United. https://fashionunited.uk/news/fashion/asics-signs-upnovak-djokovic-as-footwear-
ambassador/2021051155408.