New Zealand Screened Across World in New Global Campaign

For immediate release

4 March 2015

New Zealand Screened Across World in New Global Campaign

New Zealand’s mountains, forests, urban streets and a remote glacial lake provide the backdrop for a global campaign for ASICS that will be broadcast across the world from this week.

The campaign was shot in Auckland and the South Island with almost 200 New Zealand runners, including both professional athletes and everyday runners, taking to mountain trails, forests, city streets and glacial streams to reach the top of a mountain peak.

With the tag line ‘It’s a big world. Go run it.’, it is the biggest campaign ever undertaken by the sports footwear and apparel brand and will air globally in Australia, Japan, the United States, and across Europe.

Many of its placements will feature around headline sports events such as the ICC Cricket World Cup, UEFA Champions League in Germany and around NFL and NBA games in the United States. Stills of the campaign will also be showcased in large outdoor formats around key marathon events from Tokyo, Barcelona, Paris and Stockholm to New York and Los Angeles.

Tourism New Zealand Chief Executive Kevin Bowler says this campaign perfectly showcases the beauty the country has to offer, particularly when you take to foot and run it.

“New Zealand’s spectacular landscapes play a starring role in the campaign and will give runners around the world a taste of what New Zealand offers, we only hope they choose to come and experience it for themselves.”

With the campaign designed to inspire sportspeople around the world to explore new territories and the variety of ways to run, the diversity of New Zealand’s landscape made for the perfect filming location, says ASICS Marketing Manager (New Zealand) Emma Mearns.

“In order to create the epic spectacle, a vast range of different terrain was needed; forest, snow and ice, open plains, rivers, mountains and cities – New Zealand could offer it all.

“The filming locations were diverse. One of the wooded locations was used as part of the Lord of the Rings shoot, but we also captured places that had never been used for film or commercial shooting before, like the ice lake in a mountain crater,” says Ms Mearns.

“And we’re pretty certain that it was the first time that Mount Alfred in Glenorchy had ever had a portable toilet airlifted to the top of it.”

The campaign starts with a single runner finding a ram’s horn on a deserted city street, shot in downtown Auckland. After he blows the horn, more and more runners emerge from roads, deserts, mountains and trails, gathering into running tribes. As the multitude of runners realise their achievement of reaching the summit of a giant mythical mountain, the sound of another ram’s horn echoes through the air calling them towards their next challenge.

“ASICS’ heritage is firmly entrenched in running and caters for marathoners, triathletes, trail, endurance and ultra runners – plus a wide spectrum of specialist types such as desert and ice running. We wanted to show the breadth and variety of types of running and inspire runners to get out there and explore the world through running,” says Ms Mearns.

“What’s depicted in the ad is real – every one of the 150 plus extras, professionals and featured runners we used run the different ways that were featured in the ad, in their real lives. The lead runner Chris Webb, an English baker living and working in New Zealand, even ran to the audition and now wants to take up trail running in Queenstown after visiting the region for the first time for the filming.”

To view the 90 second version, please visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_B5X22YY0Q

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