This year, Spikes Asia is proud to present the award to UNIQLO, the Japanese retail chain operator that designs, manufactures, markets and sells casual clothing, providing people all over the world withpieces to create their own style.
The company started out in 1949 in Yamaguchi as the men's clothing shop Ogori Shoji, followed by the opening in 1984 of a unisex casual wear store in Hiroshima under the name Unique Clothing Warehouse. It was atthis time that the name "UNIQLO" was born, as an abbreviation of "unique clothing". With an unwavering focus on quality and value, UNIQLO adopted the SPA (Specialty store retailer of Private label Apparel) strategy in 1997 meaning that they would exclusively produce and sell their own clothing controlling every stage of the creation of its products - from the fabric used to the stringent production control programme at the factory and the final store display. It's at this stage that their advertising campaigns proved fruitful in Japan.
UNIQLO opened their first urban store in Tokyo in 1988 followed by outlets spreading to other major cities in Japan. Shortly afterwards they began their overseas expansion and now operate in China, Hong Kong, South Korea, United Kingdom, France, United States, Singapore, and Russia. Today, the company has expanded into over 900 UNIQLO stores worldwide and is a household name in Japan.
Providing the countryt's uniforms for the 1998, 2002 and 2004Olympic Games, teaming up with a number of designers as well as launching their UT Project, a limited-edition collection of t-shirts designed by well-known artists, designers, photographers and musicians, UNIQLO is now Japan's leading clothing retailchain in terms of both sales and profits. UNIQLO is a brand of FAST RETAILING group and among the top 10 speciality apparel retailers in the world.
Having won their first Cannes Silver Cyber Lion in 2007 and going on to win a Cannes Cyber Lion Grand Prix in 2008 for 'Uniqlock', they picked up three Spikes Asia awards last year - a Silver Digital Spike for their Parka series 'Tokyo Fashion Map', a Bronze Digital Spike for 'Try H2 Heat Tech', as well as the Spikes Outdoor Grand Prix for their'Human Vending Machine World Tour'.
"Without doubt, UNIQLO wholeheartedly embrace and encourage creative thinking. From working at the very core of creativity alongside artists, designers and musicians through to taking onboard the ground-breaking marketing ideas produced by their agencies, UNIQLO are not afraid to push the boundaries when promoting its products. UNIQLO are very deserving of the Advertiser of the Year accolade," said Terry Savage, Chairman of the Festival.
The award willbe presented to Naoki Otoma, Uniqlo's Senior Vice-President, during the Spikes Asia awards ceremony on Tuesday 21 September at the Esplanade theatre in Singapore.
Naoki Otoma commented, "It is indeed a great honour and a pleasure to receive thisaward. We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to the festival organisers for seeing fit to recognise UNIQLO with this highest honour for our advertising efforts in Asia. In this era of people, products and economies becoming increasingly borderless each day, people can make global choices and consume globally. Thus, disseminating information and developing new communication channels are tasks that are becoming more important than ever. We will continue to actively communicate, with innovation and humour, to make the lives of people better worldwide. We hope that you will look forward to our future activities as we continue with our mission of "Changing clothes. Changing conventional wisdom. Change the world."
For more information on UNIQLO, visit www.uniqlo.com or www.fastretailing.com.
About Spikes Asia
The Spikes Asia Advertising Festival celebrating and inspiring Asia-Pacific creativity in advertising. Suntec City, Singapore, 19-21 September 2010. Building on 23 years of the illustrious Spikes Awards, the Spikes Asia Advertising Festival is the result of a collaboration between the International Advertising Festival, organisers of Cannes Lions, Dubai Lynx and Eurobest, and Haymarket. The Festival provides the region's growing creative and advertising industry with a platform to network and exchange ideas, bringing together some of the finest creative thinkers from across the region and around the world.
Spikes Asia offers a challenging programme of seminars and workshops focusing on creativity and learning, exhibitions of creative work from Asia-Pacific, networking events in the evening and the Spikes Asia award show. The Awards, judged by leading international and regional creatives, honour the best creative work in the categories of TV/Cinema, Print, Outdoor, Radio, Digital, Integrated, Direct, Sales Promotion, Media, Print Craft, TV/Cinema Craft and Design. For more infomation, please visit www.spikes.asia.
Source: Spikes Asia
Contact:
Amanda Benfell PR & Press Manager Spikes Asia Advertising Festival amandab@canneslions.com Tel: +44 20 7728 4040 www.spikes.asia
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