Elastic therapeutic taping, sometime referred to as kinesiology taping, is a healing methodology invented and introduced in Japan in 1979 by Dr. Kenzo Kase, founder of Kinesio, based on deep insight into skin and tissue physiology and its relationship to injury, impaired function, pain, and healing. Through subsequent decades of research and clinical validation, the “wisdom” acquired by Dr. Kase has been refined and integrated into the design of Kinesio tape products and a rigorously defined application methodology to ensure the most effective healing outcomes.

Tape With Wisdom can be read as a noun describing the unique properties of Kinesio brand elastic therapeutic tape products and as a verbal expression to guide the application of Kinesio tape using the methodologies developed by Kinesio’s founder and original inventor of kinesiology taping, Dr. Kenzo Kase. For more than 40 years Dr. Kase and his associates have been continually engaged in clinical research and validation to refine and expand taping methods and applications. The expression Tape With Wisdom describes the essence of Kinesio’s mission to enhance the experience of living, whether active or sedentary, by using the right tape with the right methodology to obtain healing benefit.

As the patents for Kinesio’s original tape products, introduced in 1979, expired after 20 years, Asian manufacturers aggressively pursued opportunities to produce tape product for various OEM brands, of which there has been a proliferation during the past 10-15 years. Kinesio operates its own R&D and manufacturing facility in the USA to produce unique Kinesio tapes designed to deliver optimum healing benefit based on decades of research and clinical validation by Dr. Kase and his associates. As news appears of other tape brands facing legal action from consumers in response to disappointing or no benefit from using their tape, it is apparent that too few people realize how distinctly Kinesio is differentiated from other brands in the market, in both its tape products and in the volume of knowledge the company has acquired in the effective application of taping for therapeutic benefit. Kinesio wishes to make it clear to the market that optimum healing benefits of elastic therapeutic taping are achieved by the compound effect of wisdom embedded in product and its application methods.

Kinesio’s business strategy has always been to produce the best possible tape for use by well-educated and trained practitioners and that is not changing. What is changing is the priority that will be given to expand and improve on the delivery of appropriate training and knowledge to users at all levels and a greater commitment to ensuring understanding by practitioners and users of the complementary relationship between characteristics of Kinesio tapes and specific target treatment modalities, from basic muscle support to lymphedema and beyond.

Kinesio will remain committed to distribution strategies and partners that prioritize delivery of Kinesio tape and treatments by appropriately qualified, ideally Kinesio Certified, practitioners.

Kinesio’s new product development will continue on its course of developing and delivering new products, based on clinical or application research, that precisely address specific taping requirements for healing, support, or relief. The impact of Tape With Wisdom on all Kinesio products will be the expanded information “eco-system” that informs and supports them.

As they have been doing for many years, KTAI and KU will continue to pursue their mission of producing, delivering and rigorously certifying high caliber education and training in correct assessment and effective treatment application using Kinesio tape. In this role they are principal guardians of the integrity of Kinesio’s “wisdom” and are the vanguard of its propagation.

The tagline will appear in all iterations of the Kinesio logo in company communications and marketing materials as they are newly produced going forward.

Wherever the Tape With Wisdom expression can be fully, concisely, and correctly expressed in the local language it will replace English. Where it cannot be succinctly translated, the English language tagline will be supplemented with local language.

It is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. This places Kinesio in the spotlight of admiration by all brands of elastic therapeutic tape since all of them, to varying (and often limited) degrees of effectiveness, have imitated the original invention of Dr. Kenzo Kase more than 40 years ago. What none can imitate or replicate is the accumulated knowledge and insights continuously acquired by Dr. Kase, clinicians, researchers, and tens of thousands of Kinesio trained practitioners during those ensuing 40 years. That clinically validated “wisdom” informs the design and manufacture of Kinesio brand tape and the evolving curricula of Kinesio Taping courses by which it is delivered. A Kinesio trained practitioner applying Kinesio tape delivers healing through wisdom that knows no imitator.