Yonex

Building a quality brand was a top priority at Yonex, a Japanese sporting goods manufacturer. Generally unfamiliar to many US golf, tennis and badminton enthusiasts, Yonex tapped into the Challenger Brand Marketing® experts to help them better compete with their larger, better-financed competitors. Our team studied Yonex’s current customer base as well as the competitive landscape to build a strategy that allowed Yonex to compete with the gorilla brands. In each sports category, we defined in a meaningful way how to leverage Yonex’s endorsement partners, as well as better connect with their consumer, to propel them to action.

For several years, we designed and produced the annual Yonex Catalogue, which established the annual brand theme and marketing strategy. Additionally, our team built out the annual themes, by product (golf, tennis and badminton) through the creative development of print ads, digital banners and videos. Working in partnership with Yonex Marketing, we brought the creative campaigns to life by applying US sensibilities to Japanese initiatives.

Television, direct response, direct mail, collateral materials such as product brochures and sales sheets, website strategies, print advertising, online advertising and trade show strategies were designed to reach consumers and the trade on multiple levels. Our team’s fingerprints were on all Yonex marketing materials with a particular impact at annual trade shows. Our partnership with Yonex at annual golf and tennis trade shows, involving creative presentations and interactive engagement with attendees, led to increased traffic at the Yonex booth generating more leads and, ultimately, closing more sales.

Further, Yonex’s US success came in large part as a result of the strong connection between our team and Yonex’s US sales team. Working side-by-side with Yonex Sales for over a decade, we created Trade Show and retail strategies that made the necessary impact in the marketplace to positively influence distribution and sales.