Study your brand
Gohashi stays close to customers by going directly to where they can be found.
“In Japan, we say the customer is a god,” says Gohashi. “I go out to retail shops and see what’s going on there. It’s just
a casual visit as a consumer. I look at the competitors’ products, the atmosphere of the shops and also how the consumer
reacts to our products. If I pick up some ideas, of course I discuss them with my staff.”
It was on one of those visits where Gohashi realized that the company’s point-of-purchase materials weren’t a match
for its competitors, an experience that spurred him to have better signage for store displays and shelves created.
To gather information from outlets he can’t visit personally, Gohashi reviews a monthly report that sales reps post on
a database. He says that helps him spot trends and problems that might otherwise go unnoticed.
Protecting the brand he’s worked so hard to help build has also been a major concern for Gohashi.
Because success attracts imitators, ASICS America began to find that products were showing up in the marketplace
that it thought were a little too similar to its own distinctive stripe design used on its products for years.
“We’ve had what we call the tiger stripes since 1979,” Gohashi says. “Now that we’re starting to grow as a company, both in
the U.S. and globally, we have to protect that. So we have to be very aggressive with any kinds of knockoffs or counterfeits
using our design. There are many fakes on the market.”
To counter imitators and discourage future attempts at knockoffs, Gohashi initiated a campaign of legal actions last year
against manufacturers, marketers and retailers involved with products that it deemed were infringing on its designs. Suits
were filed against the likes
of Skechers, Target and Payless ShoeSource.
He says it’s difficult to gauge how much effect the effort has had on either quelling imitators or protecting its own sales
by keeping counterfeit products out of the market, but he says that any company has to do whatever it can to protect its
brand.
“We’re making a statement — we’re definitely going through with the lawsuits — but it’s also a statement because we are
releasing that information publicly,” says Gohashi. “The brand is the most important asset for us, and we have to protect our
brand.”
HOW TO REACH: ASICS America Corp., www.asicsamerica.com