Japan campaign boosts Onward sales upward

The Woolmark Company has provided marketing support to six womenswear brands owned by the second largest apparel group in Japan, Onward Kashiyama. The campaign boosted sales of the brands’ Merino wool clothing during the recent autumn/winter season.

Onward Kashiyama is the second largest Japanese apparel group with annual sales of A$2.92 billion in 2020. AWI has been building a good relationship with Onward since 2018 when AWI arranged for two of the Japanese group’s general managers to visit wool-growing properties in Australia.

The visit has led directly to an increased use of Australian Merino wool by Onward’s brands, and Onward undertaking marketing campaigns in Japan, initially in 2019, with AWI subsidiary The Woolmark Company.

Marketing boosts sales

The latest marketing collaboration ran for two months during the recent autumn/winter season, to promote the Merino wool knitwear collections of Onward’ six largest womenswear brands: 23KU, J. Press, BEIGE, ICB, Kumikyoku and Jiyuku.

The campaign focused on positioning Merino wool as the natural fibre of choice for Japanese women’s premium knitwear, while also promoting the quality aspects of Onward’s Woolmark-certified Merino wool products.

The marketing campaign’s landing page on the Onward online store that promoted Woolmark certified Merino wool knitwear pieces.

The promotion of Woolmark-certified knitwear pieces (95% Merino/5% cashmere) led to impressive sales that were 10% higher than the project’s target. The sell-through of the products was 8% higher than the average of all Onward’s other products, well above the target of 3% higher than their average sell-through.

As well as a growing interest in sustainability, Onward has a strong focus on increasing its digital sales. The collaboration therefore focused on increasing online sales by driving traffic to a dedicated landing page on Onward’s e-commerce platform, which generated traffic that was 53% above the project’s target.

The campaign also gained additional visibility through the use of displays in 415 of the brands’ brick-and-mortar stores across Japan.

In-store display advertising, for each of the six Onward brands, was used across 451 stores to raise awareness of the Merino wool knitwear and drive sales.

An enduring relationship

“We are very grateful for the opportunity to work with The Woolmark Company again, and to have achieved the same strong results as we did in 2019,” said Onward Kashiyama Executive Officer, Mr Daisuke Ochi.

“Working with The Woolmark Company is very important to us, as our brands have been accelerating their shift towards e-commerce, and differentiating themselves from their competitors by profiling the high-quality materials they use is essential. We look forward to working with The Woolmark Company on an ongoing basis.”

AWI Country Manager for Japan, Samuel Cockedey, says it has been a tough year for big apparel groups in Japan but this campaign made a real difference to achieving sales of Merino wool knitwear.

“It is very rewarding to see the effort that AWI puts into educating and inspiring brands about Australian Merino wool is resulting in the brands increasing their use of the fibre in their apparel ranges"
- Samuel Cockedey, AWI Country Manager, Japan

“The campaign proved once again that wool’s sustainability message is universally effective, with consistent results across the six brands that each have different positioning and target demographics. These results will help make a strong case when approaching other brands,” he said.

“Onward is pleased with the results and they have suggested another joint campaign this coming autumn/winter, adding new categories such as coats. They are also looking at increasing Merino wool womenswear knitwear volumes by more than a third, which we see as a major outcome of this investment.”

This article appeared in the June 2022 edition of AWI’s Beyond the Bale magazine. Reproduction of the article is encouraged.