ASICS Stays 'Always in Motion' in Campaign Spot Directed by Jordan Bahat

ASICS’ 'Always in Motion' campaign has launched, fresh off the announcement that Wheelhouse Labs is the new creative and entertainment marketing (AOR) for ASICS SportStyle. Running through 2023, the partnership is an integral step of ASICS’ campaign to educate and increase engagement across channels through content creation and focus on movement through various forms of art. 

Directed by Jordan Bahat of Golden LA, the campaign spot 'Always in Motion' highlights the ASICS SportStyle brand story through a hypnotic interplay of vision and motion. Per the creative brief, across three sections of the film ASICS wanted to introduce the SportStyle core values: Timeless Legacy; Relentless Innovation; and Intrinsic Positivity. 

To do so, the crew took an improvisational approach, combining art from three different forms – music by R&B/Dance duo duo Majid Jordan, choreography by Ian Eastwood, and digital art by Bambi. Bahat aimed to create a space that would isolate the work of the three artists almost exclusively. With production designer Liam Moore, they housed the stage in a void to block out most anything other than their contributions. 

In the spot, dancer/choreographer Ian Eastwood moves dynamically to Majid Jordan’s R&B-driven composition. Eastwood’s fluidity and power is on full display, as he moves within an enclosed world within a world, where scintillating LED art is projected onto a three-wall set. Bambi designed all of the projection loops and refined all of the colorization and live lighting-integrations with the brilliant DP Mike Gioulakis (The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Old, Split). The result is an ever-changing canvas as the camera swoops and jags, as dynamic as the dancer himself. 

Each artist wrote their respective segment, then came together to execute everything on the day of the shoot. The footage was then handed off to the team at Golden LA for expert finishing touches. Of the collaboration, Bahat says: “I was really excited by the experimental idea of different artists inspiring and affecting one another’s work across disciplines. Of a dancer realizing their skillset might motivate the musical approach; or a composer writing music knowing it will be translated into light by a digital artist. In an odd way, it was like four people using the Ouija board together.”

On collaborating with Bahat, Joe Saroufim, head of creative at Wheelhouse Labs says: "With only a few days together to prepare, we needed someone with a rich background in music videos who would be precise in how they explored the idea of movement within the piece. Jordan had a unique vision for bringing all the moving pieces together." The short timeframe forced the team to be decisive, with much of the improvising across camera and staging coming down to the day of the shoot. Bahat describes orchestrating the fusion of dance, music and art for the ASICS SportStyle shoot as, “Similar to designing a piece of theater, where every tool is available to you….It’s a perfect metaphor for a brand that is always evolving, innovating, and creating.”