Professional athletes, amateur enthusiasts or absolute beginners, there are more than 600 runners from over 30 countries in the ASICS FrontRunner community. Chosen from tens of thousands of applicants each year, every member of the diverse team brings their own passion and experience to the FrontRunner site, inspiring and motivating runners worldwide with blogs, videos, playlists, product reviews and other content.
In 2016, ASICS approached The Plant to create a new version of the FrontRunner platform. Its first attempt at a brand ambassador site had operated as a standalone entity, requiring separate infrastructure and delivering a user experience inconsistent with the rest of the ASICS site. ASICS wanted to give the FrontRunner program the look, feel, and functionality of an integral part of its brand – now and in the future.
Seamless integration with the wider ASICS site
Standalone branded sites can quickly look dated over time. Technology and brand design evolve, but updating entities separate from the central CMS doesn’t always come as a top priority. Maintaining a distinct site may require specific knowledge, too, and often means paying for extra infrastructure.
That’s why The Plant developed the FrontRunner site as an extension of the ASICS CMS. Because it shares design assets and content containers with the rest of the CMS, FrontRunner pages always look fresh and up-to-date. Reusing code components from elsewhere in the ecosystem ensures that ASICS doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel for new integrations. And maintenance costs are kept to a minimum, as the site operates from the same servers as the rest of the CMS.
Building out from the CMS, the team at The Plant developed all of the necessary specialist features for the smooth operation of a brand ambassador site. Intuitive administrative tools control and track access for a wide range of user types, from regional brand ambassadors with admin privileges, to editors reviewing content for publication. Robust login systems make it easy for FrontRunner members to manage their profiles, link to social media, and embed content, giving them the freedom to express themselves within a clean, branded aesthetic.
Tens of thousands of people a year apply to be an ASICS FrontRunner, but only a handful are chosen. Applications are detailed, covering the wide range of information judges need to make their decision. An easy-to-use system created by The Plant streamlines the process of reviewing and ranking applicants, creating summaries of their strengths, exporting data for evaluation, then importing it back into the system.
Launching new programs in under two months
Five years after launch, the ASICS FrontRunner site is more popular than ever, with over 125,000 Facebook followers.
Building on that success, the company is using the same approach to create cost-effective ambassador programs in other sport disciplines. Launched in 2020, ASICS Tennis Academy was put together by The Plant in just 8 weeks.
Active in four countries, it brings together tennis coaches including Patrick Mouratoglou, the coach of Serena Williams, to share tips and exchange training programs.
“The Plant team is very competent and helpful, always responding with efficiency and expertise. All campaign pages built with the QOR3 system look very interactive and dynamic and building and updating them is relatively easy.”
Nikoleta Yankova, Digital Content Specialist, ASICS Europe.
