Sportswear Influencer Marketing in Malaysia: What 1,897 Tagged Posts Reveal

Sportswear is one of the busiest categories for influencer marketing in Malaysia. Every launch, race and store opening comes with a wave of creator posts. To see what that wave actually looks like, we collected every public Instagram post that tagged the Malaysian accounts of ASICS, Puma and Under Armour from 1 July to 30 September 2026, a full 13-week quarter, then looked at who posted, how much they engaged and what they posted about.

1. The quarter at a glance

*Under Armour's engagement figure is based on 28 sampled posts, so treat it as directional.

Note on ASICS: this quarter was race season. The build-up to the KL Standard Chartered Marathon (KLSCM) fell inside the period, including its official launch event, an exclusive ASICS KLSCM 2026 collection and 42 official ASICS pacers, with race day itself in early October. ASICS was also the title sponsor of Cameron Ultra in July, and many runners posted from the KL Half Marathon in August. These events added significantly to ASICS's tagged posts, so its volume partly reflects a busy race calendar rather than a typical quarter.

Puma reached the most creators by far, with 236 individual creators across running, fashion and motorsport. ASICS had fewer creators but the most tagged posts overall, because its community kept posting. Under Armour was smaller but steady, with a similar number of posts each month.

2. Smaller creators engage more

The pattern we see across all our data holds in sportswear too: as follower count rises, engagement rate falls.

This doesn't mean big creators are less effective. They bring wide reach in a single post, and each tier plays a different role. Per follower, though, nano and micro creators drive noticeably more engagement, which is why the strongest programmes in this quarter combined a few big names with many smaller voices.

3. Communities beat one-off posts

The clearest difference between brands wasn't creator size. It was how often the same people came back.

Across the three brands, 48% of creator posts came from people who posted three or more times in the quarter. At ASICS, these were runners sharing training, races and new shoes week after week. At Puma, they were Hyrox athletes, runners and fashion creators. A one-off launch post fades in a day; a community keeps the brand in feeds all quarter.

4. What people post about

We grouped creator captions by theme (a post can fall under more than one).

Running and Hyrox is the common ground: race results, personal bests, training sessions and honest shoe reviews. Beyond that, each brand built its own identity. Puma used fashion and motorsport to reach people who will never run a marathon, while ASICS kept a tight focus on runners and racket sports.

Creators weren't the only voices. 42% of tagged posts came from everyday customers: race-day photos, new-shoe pictures, court sessions. Another 12% came from retailers, malls, sports media, run clubs, race organisers and event photographers. That everyday content is free, authentic reach, and race sponsorships and store events were the biggest triggers for it.

5. Reels vs photos: measure the right thing

Photo and carousel posts earned more than twice the likes and comments per follower that Reels did. That doesn't make photos better. Reels are built to reach people outside a creator's following, and that reach shows up in views and shares, which aren't public. The lesson: judge Reels on views and shares, and photos on likes and saves.

6. A global lesson: tiny accounts, huge reach

Outside Malaysia, global sportswear accounts show how far a small creator can go with the right video. These posts, from our earlier sample of global brand accounts, came from creators with a few thousand followers:

None of these were celebrity posts. They were everyday formats people love to watch and share: try-ons, fit checks, run-with-me videos and honest shoe reviews. This is the For You Page at work: the algorithm rewards a good video, not a big following.

7. Brand by brand

8. What this creator activity would be worth if it were sponsored

We can't tell from public posts which were sponsored and which were organic. So we asked a simpler question: if every creator post had been a paid post, what would it have cost? We priced each post using the creator fees in our database, the same quotes behind our influencer marketing cost guide.

SushiVid estimates, not figures disclosed by the brands. Creator fees only: excludes agency fees, production, boosting, events and athlete sponsorships. Creators with 300,000+ followers are quoted individually, so we priced them at our 150K–300K average.

In reality, many of these posts were organic, gifted or part of an ambassador deal, so actual spend was very likely lower. But the figure shows what a strong community delivers: content that would cost up to RM120,000 or more a month to commission post by post. The more of your content comes from people who post because they want to, the less of it you pay for one post at a time.

Want to see the data behind this report? The full list of creator posts is on our data page.

What this means for sportswear brands

1. Build an always-on community. Sign creators for three to six months, not one post. Runners, Hyrox athletes, court players and gym regulars who post every few weeks keep you in feeds all quarter.
2. Mix sizes, lean small. Keep a few big names for reach, and put more of the budget into many nano and micro creators. See KOL vs KOC vs celebrity.
3. Own a world beyond the product. Running is crowded. Fashion, motorsport, court sports and fitness give people who don't race a reason to follow you.
4. Give customers a reason to tag you. Race sponsorships, run clubs and store events produced a steady stream of customer posts. Make them easy to share, and reshare the best ones on your own channels.
5. Go video-first, and boost the winners. Brief Reels and TikTok formats (try-ons, fit checks, run-with-me), then put paid boosting behind the posts that take off. See our TikTok influencer marketing service.
6. Measure views and shares, not just likes. Likes favour photos; views and shares show what actually spread.

For broader benchmarks across 41,000+ creator profiles, see our State of Influencer Marketing in Malaysia 2026, and for what creators cost, the influencer marketing cost guide.

Methodology

• Period: 1 July to 30 September 2026 (13 weeks). Data collected in October 2026.
• Sample: every public post in the Instagram "tagged" tab of @asicsmalaysia (856 posts), @puma.malaysia (790) and @underarmourmy (251): 1,897 posts in total. Skechers Malaysia was not included because its tagged tab does not show recent posts.
• Creators: accounts in the SushiVid creator database, or with more than 3,000 followers (follower counts checked in October 2026). Brand, retailer, mall, media, club, event and photographer accounts were excluded from creator figures.
• Engagement rate = (likes + comments) ÷ the creator's followers, as a median of a random sample of creator posts with visible likes (229 posts). Saves, shares and views are not public on Instagram.
• Themes were assigned from captions by keyword; one post can fall under several themes.
• Global examples in section 6 come from an earlier sample of creator posts tagged to global brand accounts, posted between April 2025 and August 2026.
• Event effect: the KL Standard Chartered Marathon build-up (race day in early October), Cameron Ultra (July) and the KL Half Marathon (August) fell in or around this period and significantly lifted ASICS's post count. Brand totals reflect each brand's event calendar as well as its everyday activity.
• Value estimates: public posts don't show whether they were sponsored, so every creator post was priced as if it were, using the average Instagram creator fees in the SushiVid database (IG Reel + Story, by follower band). Creators above 300,000 followers were priced at the 150K–300K average. Excludes agency fees, production, boosting, events and sponsorships. These are “if fully sponsored” estimates, not brand-disclosed spend.
• Raw data: the full list of creator posts is on our data page.
• Limitations: public data only; we did not have access to the brands' own campaign data, paid partnerships or spend. TikTok was not part of the quarterly count.

You're welcome to cite this report. Please credit “SushiVid, Sportswear Influencer Marketing in Malaysia 2026” and link to this page.

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