Foot Locker and ASICS Bet on Anime to Sell Sneakers in 2018
Foot Locker and ASICS launched 'The Sun and The Snake' in the United States in August 2018, a five-part anime-inspired branded-content series created by BBDO New York to introduce the exclusive Welcome to the Dojo footwear and apparel collection, blending Japanese martial-arts heritage with contemporary sneaker culture across Instagram and YouTube, according to The One Club.
The campaign represents a deliberate creative pivot for the Foot Locker and ASICS partnership, according to Worldfootwear. Rather than staging a conventional product launch, BBDO New York constructed a serialised narrative world in which the sneaker itself becomes a plot device. Each of the five episodes ran approximately one minute, releasing in sequence across one week beginning August 21, 2018, three days ahead of the Welcome to the Dojo collection's official retail date of August 24, according to reporting by Cartoon Brew. The individual episodes were later compiled into a single short film, extending the campaign's shelf life beyond its social rollout.
The series stars a cast of cultural figures drawn from music, fashion, and street culture. Luka Sabbat voiced the central character, Sneaker Samurai. Princess Nokia and YFN Lucci also provided voice performances, grounding the anime aesthetic firmly in contemporary American youth culture rather than leaving it as a purely aesthetic reference to Japanese animation. In the United States, the campaign ran during a period of heightened competition in the athletic footwear segment, making the decision to lead with storytelling rather than product specifications a meaningful strategic choice. The animation and illustration studio Shotopop executed the visual world, giving the series a distinct graphic identity that differentiated it from conventional sneaker advertising of the period, according to Bryanstokely.
BBDO New York grounded the campaign's strategy in the intersection of Japanese cultural heritage and American sneaker subculture. ASICS itself originates from Japan, and the Welcome to the Dojo collection drew directly on martial-arts imagery and samurai narrative — making the anime format a logical creative vehicle rather than an arbitrary stylistic choice. The campaign treated cultural authenticity as a competitive asset at a moment when that asset was increasingly contested in the US athletic footwear market.
In the United States, Foot Locker operated within a fiercely concentrated retail environment for performance and lifestyle sneakers. Competitors including Nike and Adidas dominated shelf presence and marketing spend across the period, while Under Armour maintained a significant presence in the performance segment. Nike's longstanding dominance in storytelling-led campaigns — from its athlete-endorsement model to its digital content franchises — set a high bar for branded narrative in the category. Against that backdrop, BBDO New York's decision to pursue a format, anime, that neither Nike nor Adidas had deployed at comparable scale for a US sneaker launch represented a genuine point of differentiation rather than a safe creative choice.
The serialised social distribution model also reflected a strategic read of where US consumers were spending attention in 2018. Releasing episodes on Instagram and YouTube before compiling them into a longer film allowed the campaign to generate episodic engagement during the pre-launch window, then provide a consolidated viewing experience at and after the point of sale. As reported by Little Black Book Online, the structure was designed to sustain conversation across the week preceding the collection's retail availability, effectively using content cadence to manufacture cultural momentum around the product drop.
Shotopop executed the animation and illustration for The Sun and The Snake, bringing a graphic sensibility that sat between classic anime tradition and contemporary streetwear visual culture. The studio's approach gave the series a tactile, hand-crafted quality that distinguished it from the smoother digital animation more common in branded content of the period — a deliberate aesthetic decision that reinforced the campaign's premise of blending artisanal Japanese heritage with modern US street style.
BBDO New York's creative leadership on the project was substantial. David Lubars served as Chief Creative Officer of BBDO Worldwide, while Greg Hahn held the position of Chief Creative Officer at BBDO New York, according to credits documented by One Club. Dan Lucey served as Executive Creative Director on the campaign. Bryan Stokely, Martins Zelcs, and Bhanu Arbuaratna were credited as Associate Creative Directors, per One Club records. Among the target creative contributors associated with the campaign's broader production, Dipankar Sengupta, Richard Payne, Ionut Lupu, Giulia Frixione, Hannah Lau-Walker, and Marylou Mao are credited within the production team documented by Clapboard.
The voice casting decisions reinforced the creative strategy at the execution level. As Luka Sabbat told Cartoon Brew in September 2018, 'As the voice behind the character, Sneaker Samurai, I'm able to combine two of my personal interests — style and anime.' That alignment between talent, character, and product proposition was structurally deliberate: each voice performer carried existing cultural credibility with the US youth audience the campaign targeted, meaning the anime format arrived pre-loaded with social relevance rather than needing to earn it. Princess Nokia and YFN Lucci extended that cultural signal across genre lines, reaching audiences in fashion and rap respectively. The result was a creative execution that functioned simultaneously as entertainment, influencer activation, and product launch vehicle.
No verified performance data for The Sun and The Snake is publicly available. No audited figures for view counts, engagement rates, sales attribution, or foot traffic impact connected to the Welcome to the Dojo collection have been documented by Foot Locker, ASICS, or BBDO New York in publicly accessible sources. Analysis therefore rests on structural and creative factors.
The campaign's architecture carries several features associated with durable effectiveness in the US branded-content space. The serialised release structure created multiple points of audience contact in the days preceding the August 24, 2018 retail launch, building anticipation across a compressed window without requiring paid media to sustain momentum at every touchpoint. The compiled film format extended usable content life beyond the launch week. The casting of Luka Sabbat, Princess Nokia, and YFN Lucci embedded the campaign within existing cultural conversations rather than attempting to manufacture new ones, reducing the persuasion cost of reaching a sceptical young US audience.
The global athletic footwear and equipment market was valued at approximately $224.7 billion in 2018, according to Allied Market Research — a figure that encompasses equipment beyond footwear and apparel but signals the scale of the competitive environment in which Foot Locker and ASICS were operating. Within that environment, a campaign that generated organic cultural conversation around a collection exclusive to Foot Locker carried measurable strategic value independent of direct sales lift. The Clapboard Score for The Sun and The Snake is 61 out of 100, reflecting a campaign with genuine creative ambition and sound strategic logic that stops short of the execution consistency required for a higher rating.
'The Sun and The Snake' is a five-part anime-inspired branded-content series created by BBDO New York for Foot Locker and ASICS in 2018. It launched the exclusive Welcome to the Dojo collection in the United States, releasing episodes on Instagram and YouTube before compiling them into a single short film. Production credits include animation studio Shotopop.
BBDO New York created The Sun and The Snake for Foot Locker and ASICS. David Lubars served as Chief Creative Officer of BBDO Worldwide and Greg Hahn as CCO of BBDO New York, with Dan Lucey as Executive Creative Director, according to One Club credits. Dipankar Sengupta, Richard Payne, Ionut Lupu, Giulia Frixione, Hannah Lau-Walker, and Marylou Mao also contributed to production.
Luka Sabbat voiced the central character, Sneaker Samurai. Princess Nokia and YFN Lucci also provided voice performances. Sabbat told Cartoon Brew in September 2018 that the role let him combine his interests in style and anime. The casting grounded the series' Japanese aesthetic in contemporary American street and music culture.
The campaign launched in the United States on August 21, 2018, according to Cartoon Brew. Episodes released sequentially across one week on Instagram and YouTube. The Welcome to the Dojo collection went on sale officially at Foot Locker on August 24, 2018, three days after the first episode debuted online.
Welcome to the Dojo was an exclusive ASICS footwear and apparel collection sold through Foot Locker in the United States, according to Little Black Book Online. The collection drew on Japanese martial-arts imagery and samurai narrative. The Sun and The Snake anime series served as its primary creative launch vehicle, releasing across social platforms in August 2018.
The Sun and The Snake holds a Clapboard Score of 61 out of 100. The score reflects genuine creative ambition in the campaign's anime format, cultural casting, and serialised release structure, while noting that execution consistency fell short of the standard required for a higher rating within the competitive 2018 United States branded-content landscape.
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