ASICS put a movement break into the employment contract

A sports brand writes an employment clause

On 24 September 2024 ASICS publishes a release headed "ASICS PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT WARNS THE WORLD ABOUT WORKPLACE MENTAL HEALTH THREAT".¹ The announcement is a film. The instrument underneath it is a document: an employment contract clause entitling staff to a fifteen minute movement break during the working day, which D&AD describes as "the first employment contract clause for movement".²

The addressee is an employer rather than a consumer, because a contract clause has to be adopted by whoever writes the contracts. ASICS publishes the clause with its own caveat attached: "Employees are advised to check with their employer first before taking a Desk Break."¹

Brian Cox as the scariest thing in the office

The film casts Brian Cox, known for the role of a corporate patriarch in Succession, as what ASICS calls the world's scariest boss, delivering a warning about the object in front of him.^{1, 3} Campaign reports his lines: of his desk, "It turns out that I'm not the deadliest thing in the office, this is", closing on "your desk is a danger to your mental health" and "take a desk break to move your mind".³

Cox describes the reversal himself: "I've played some pretty intimidating characters in my time but who would have thought a desk could be scarier? It's great to see ASICS try and do something about this and encourage people to support their mental health through exercise. As I say in the film, run, jump, roller skate. I don't care. Just move for your mind."¹

The work is made by Golin in London, with Kode Media producing.^{2, 4} Al Wood, Chief Creative Officer at Golin London, puts the ambition in category terms: "We loved the idea of ASICS stepping out of the exercise world to take on office culture in ways you wouldn't expect from a sports brand."⁴

Three studies, not one statistic

The clause rests on commissioned research, which is by now the company's standard method. Three pieces sit behind it. The first is the State of Mind Study published earlier in 2024, which finds that mental state begins to decline after two hours of continuous desk work and that stress rises 18 per cent after four. The second is a September 2024 survey of 7,000 desk-based workers across seven markets.¹

The third is purpose-built. The Desk Break Experiment runs from 15 to 26 July 2024 with 80 office workers across 16 countries, led by Dr Brendon Stubbs of King's College London. After one week of a daily fifteen minute movement break the reported effects are a State of Mind score rising 22.5 per cent, from 62 to 76 out of 100, stress down 14.7 per cent, productivity up 33.2 per cent, focus up 28.6 per cent, and 79.2 per cent of participants reporting greater loyalty to their employer.¹

Stubbs notes what surprised him: "We have shown previously that just 15 minutes of exercise in leisure time can result in a meaningful improvement in people's State of Mind scores. But what surprised us with the Desk Break experiment was how powerful the 15 minute movement breaks were in improving wellbeing and reducing stress. It even changed people's perceptions of their workplace for the better."¹

The study reports the loyalty figure alongside the wellbeing measures rather than separately.

What it returned, as reported

The results figures come from award submissions rather than from audited measurement, and they do not agree. D&AD's entry records 1,700 earned media placements, 1.2 million workers moved and 130 companies signing the clause. Golin's own Cannes account gives 2.3 billion earned reach across 37 countries, more than 50 million views of the film and more than 1.2 million desk breaks taken, and notes that the Director General of the World Health Organization shared the work.^{2, 5} These are the agency's numbers.

The award record is documented by the awarding bodies. At Cannes Lions 2025 the Desk Break Clause takes a Silver Lion in Creative B2B, announced on 20 June 2025.^{5, 6} At D&AD 2025 the work is entered in PR and in Health and Wellbeing and shortlisted in Use of Talent; the entry record states no pencil level.²

The platform reaching into an office

The campaign extends the position ASICS took in January 2021 and the threshold its own State of Mind Index identified in 2022 at fifteen minutes and nine seconds.⁷ In the release, Gary Raucher, then Executive Vice President at ASICS EMEA, sets out the founding acronym before setting out the study.¹

What is new is the target. The company takes its own finding to the place where people sit still, and writes it as a clause rather than as a slogan.