World Cup Adidas Marketing Is Perfect.

Du Bairui, the managing director of Adidas Greater China, who served as captain of the French national hockey team, is a sport full of passion and pioneering spirit in his eyes. The 54 year old man now looks forward to the world cup June in Cape Town, South Africa.

"The world cup in South Africa will be the perfect stage to show Adidas's brand and products."

Du Bairui told the China new era reporter that "at that time, Adidas will launch new products on the global scale and carry out creative marketing activities."

As the official partner of the world cup in South Africa, Adidas will provide the match ball.

At the same time, Adidas is also a sponsor of several national football teams, including the host South Africa team.

Therefore, the world cup is not only a competitive arena for football teams from all over the world, but will also become the main arena for Adidas.

In China, Adidas plans to participate in all channels of the local market, and will launch comprehensive marketing and communication activities through TV, outdoor media and sales terminals, especially digital marketing, so as to attract consumers concerned about the world cup, and then show them the charm of Adidas.

In fact, not just Du Bairui himself, Adidas is looking forward to the world cup in South Africa.

On the walls of the Adidas Shanghai office corridor, the poster of the newly designed Adidas brand and the world cup, although it does not know which poster will be used, it has a strong atmosphere of the world cup.

Adidas looks forward to the promotional activities around the world cup, which can reverse the adverse situation of its profit decline.

Once made a big mistake.

In March 3rd of this year, Adidas released its financial report in 2009. Its annual sales volume was 10 billion 381 million euros, down 418 million euros compared with the same period last year. Net profit dropped by 61.9% compared to the same period last year. Sales in the Greater China region were 967 million euros and sales fell 16%.

In contrast to the decline in Adidas's performance, in 2009, the sales performance of Chinese local brand Lining increased significantly.

In March 17th this year, Li Ning Co Ltd released its annual report in Hongkong. Its sales revenue in 2009 was 8 billion 387 million yuan, an increase of 25.4% over the same period last year.

According to the 1 euro exchange rate of 9.31 yuan, sales of Adidas in Greater China in 2009 amounted to 9 billion 93 million yuan.

Some analysts estimate that the mainland market accounts for 84% of Adidas's Greater China sales, reaching 7 billion 638 million yuan.

According to this data, Lining has successfully surpassed Adidas.

This means that in the 2009 Chinese sporting goods market, Nike ranked first in sales of 10 billion yuan, Li Ningyue for second and Adidas back to third.

Du Bairui is very stubborn and does not agree with this statement.

He said Adidas has never released the proportion of mainland China's sales in the Greater China region.

According to the figures he has grasped, the sales performance of Adidas and its main competitors are comparable in the Chinese market.

Most importantly, Adidas believes that they still have great potential for growth in the Chinese market.

Du Bairui attributed the decline in Adidas's performance last year to the financial crisis. "As in other parts of the world, the financial crisis has also hit the confidence of Chinese consumers."

In the 2009 financial crisis, Europe became a major disaster area.

Some European based companies have been cutting back on their own expenses, and they have also reduced investment outside Europe, including emerging markets.

Adidas has taken similar measures.

In May 2009, Adidas saved some stores in order to save money.

In China, some large agents have also closed some Adidas stores, and some small and medium-sized agents have even withdrawn from the market.

While Adidas is shrinking, Lining and other sports brands are expanding against the trend.

By the end of 2009, Li Ning Co had 8156 retail outlets in China, an increase of 1239 over the same period in 2008.

When Adidas realized that the Chinese market was not affected by the financial crisis, it would be too late to become a market to save its global performance.

In fact, Du Bairui himself was also the victim of the financial crisis.

Du Bairui served as president of Adidas Asia Pacific.

In response to the financial crisis, Adidas has laid off more than 1000 people worldwide and has withdrawn its headquarters in Asia Pacific and Europe. Du Bairui was pferred to Adidas Southeast Asia at 0:00.

China is Adidas's second largest market in the world, and the success or failure of the Chinese market is related to Adidas's future.

Faced with the grim situation, Adidas headquarters had to reactivate the experienced Du Bairui to take charge of the Greater China business.

But it is not objective to push the problem to the financial crisis. Adidas has made a big mistake before.

Adidas is a partner of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. As the vision of Beijing Olympic Games will make Chinese consumers demand for sportswear sharply, Adidas encourages dealers to take the goods actively. As a result, in 2008, Adidas achieved great success in the Greater China region only on the basis of book sales.

But what Adidas did not expect was that many of the products that had been taken away by dealers were not bought by consumers, but instead they became dealers' inventory.

In 2009, Adidas's dealers were busy cleaning up their inventory. Discount sales not only failed to increase the sales volume of dealers, but also greatly reduced profits. It also highlighted the magnitude of the decline in Adidas's performance in 2009.

Brand new attempt

Although he does not admit that he has been surpassed by Lining, his declining sales performance is a fact that Du Bairui must face.

First of all, we must clean up dealer inventory, otherwise this problem will continue to affect Adidas's development.

Faced with difficulties, Adidas decided to lower its status and work with distributors to tide over difficulties.

Adidas Greater China selectively picked up some of its inventory from dealers, and agreed that distributors in some regions would open discounts to sell stocks.

This is not just the change. According to Du Bairui, "Adidas is innovating from top to bottom."

2009 is the year of reform of Adidas group.

First, Adidas cancelled the headquarters of all continents, compressed the management level, and reclassified the global market into 6 regions, namely, Western European market, European emerging market, North American market, Greater China market, other Asian markets and Latin American markets.

Today, as head of the Greater China region, Du Bairui reports directly to group CEO Herbert Haina.

In the fourth quarter of 2009, Adidas group implemented another major organizational change, which is to separate sales from brand management functions, divide sales into wholesale and retail two parts, and then set up Taylor Adidas golf, Reebok, Rockport, Hockey and other management brand centers, and pform the original vertical organization structure of the group into cross functional and cross brand new management structures.

In order to adapt to changes in headquarters, Greater China is also undergoing corresponding changes.

In 2006, Adidas group spent $3 billion 800 million to acquire another high-end sports brand Reebok.

However, 5 years later, Reebok did not start in the Chinese market.

The contradiction is that Adidas group hopes to make Reebok the same high-end sports brand as Nike and Adidas. However, the former management of Greater China believes that this will inevitably affect the sales of Adidas brand products, both of which are hard to balance, and the two sides are deadlocked. As a result, it has been unable to clearly locate the Reebok brand, resulting in the sale of the products in the Chinese market has never been established.

The new changes made Reebok brand strong in the Chinese market.

At the beginning of 2010, when Du Bairui came to power, Adidas Greater China signed an agreement with Baosheng international, announcing that it would adopt a "China centric" cooperation mode and design, produce and sell Reebok brand products in China.

Professional analysis, the alliance with Baosheng is a very pragmatic consideration.

Baosheng international and its consortium operate 9952 retail outlets in China. It is a well-known channel and retailer in the domestic sporting goods industry, and is also the largest distributor of Adidas.

Cooperation with Baosheng is conducive to the stability of Adidas channel. More importantly, the localization and sale of Reebok brand is more in line with the needs of Chinese consumers, and will greatly shorten the time of Reebok's new product launch.

Du Bairui acknowledges that with the new partner of Baosheng, Reebok will realize the thorough localization from design to market.

As a result, the shelf life of Reebok products will be reduced to 6 to 9 weeks from the original 12 months, which will make Reebok brand more competitive in the Chinese market and allow more Chinese consumers to accept Reebok brand.

"This is the first time that Reebok has realized localization design and production in the world. It is a new attempt within the whole group, and we are very excited to try this new mode in the Chinese market."

Du Bairui said.

He is looking forward to Reebok's surprise sales to Adidas Greater China.

Steady expansion of channels

The new change also includes the division of Adidas's sales business into two parts, wholesale and retail.

Adidas's financial report shows that since 2002, Adidas has gradually increased the number of self operated retail outlets worldwide, and has gradually increased its retail capacity. Now it has 2212 self operated retail outlets.

In 2009, the gross profit margin of Adidas wholesale business was 41.6%, while the gross margin of retail business was 58.6%.

Adidas used to pay more attention to brand, but now it tries to master channels and gradually control the terminal.

To increase profit margins, Adidas regards retail as a "strategic business" for its future development and decides to form a more powerful retail business team.

However, Adidas's Greater China channel adjustment will be very prudent this year.

Du Bairui said, "it is very important to conform to the overall reform idea of the group, but it is equally important to make adjustments to suit the actual situation of the Chinese market.

Localization is based on the actual situation of the region to adjust our business activities.

It is understood that by the end of 2009, Adidas had about 5400 stores in China.

About 60% of the stores are located in the first tier, second tier and three tier cities.

Some seven tier cities, such as Gansu Dunhuang and Hainan Five Fingers Group, also own Adidas's retail network.

Most of these stores are dealers, and Adidas's own stores are few.

Du Bairui predicts that in the next year or two, Adidas's retail stores will grow at around 10%.

Next, Adidas's focus is to continue to vigorously develop the urban market.

Although China's rural market has great potential, it still takes time for Adidas to expand to the county and rural areas.

A staff member from Adidas Greater China revealed to reporters that Adidas decided not to make any dramatic changes in the channel, because in the first half of last year, Adidas reclaimed all its brand Trifolium management rights and opened a number of self operated retail outlets. At present, these outlets have not yet entered a stable period. If Adidas continues to push ahead with self built retail stores or purchase channels from dealers, it will probably affect the stability of its sales.

In fact, in 2009, Adidas's wholesale business in China dropped by 20%, while its retail business surged by 57%. The decline and growth rate ranked first in Adidas world.

It is, of course, the overall strategy of Adidas to increase profit margins and control the retail channels more forcefully.

At the moment, Adidas pays more attention to how to use the world cup in South Africa to expand its popularity and reputation among consumers, because after all, such opportunities are only available once in four years.

Finally, when the reporter asked what he expected of the market in 2010, Du Bairui said he believed that greater China could reverse the decline in sales in 2010, but he was more optimistic about the long-term development of Adidas in China. So he is now committed to lay a better foundation for future development.