It Changed The &Nbsp At That Time; Lining And ADI Nike Fought Close To Each Other.

This is really a wonderful 20 year birthday celebration.

China sports equipment by the end of June

Gambling, however, has never been the style of this young company.

Li Ning Co has been preparing for this new market strategy for three years.

In the June 30th brand redevelopment program,

At the same time, Lining targeted the young generation of China, born in 1990 after the 1990s, and strive to create a more fashionable and attractive brand image.

Zhang Zhiyong, the 41 year old chief executive, recently said in public: "Lining brand is becoming a smart, humorous, frank, curious and creative young man!"

Like other Chinese consumer brands, this is a "young man" who has undergone many changes.

Even a few years ago, the president of a well-known Western advertising company commented that China had no real international brand.

But this view needs to be corrected at the moment.

"Lining is one of the few successful brands that have grown up in China. The brand remolding program is only part of its natural development process.

Stephen Hawke, a marketing professor at Walton business school, said StephenJ.Hoch.

"This is just the beginning. With the development of China's consumer economy, we will see more of these cases."

By the end of July 2010, according to Interbrand's list of China's best brands in 2010, Lining's brand value reached 5 billion 770 million yuan, ranking nineteenth in the comprehensive ranking, ranking the first among sports brands.

As Lei Xiaoshan, general manager of the Shanghai based China Market Research Group (ChinaMarketResearchCompany), pointed out, "in the past, some Westerners remarked that Chinese enterprises would not build brands, but now this is not true." (ShaunRein)

Chinese enterprises are competing not only for price but also for brand. "

Li Ning Co's sales revenue grew at a compound annual growth rate of 35% from 2004 to 2009. They launched fierce competition in the Chinese market with Nike and Adidas, the Western sporting goods giant.

"We didn't see Lining as a direct competitor, but now Lining is inclined to ignore us when it comes to competitors."

"Now we are more concerned about the dynamics of Li Ning Co," said a business director of Adidas China.

They can make key decisions quickly and respond more quickly to the market.

We must speed up our pace. "

Changing the time

Why did Li Ning Co decide to reshape the brand at this time? "Before 2008, it was the outbreak of this industry. Now the industry has entered the second stage: stable growth period."

Each growth stage has different driving forces to the industry, "Zhang Zhiyong said at a press conference in June 30th." before 2008, the most important driving force is the expansion of distribution; but next, it will return to the main competitiveness of the industry: product innovation and brand innovation.

However, this does not mean that the brand strategy before Li Ning Co failed to achieve its goal.

Although little known outside China, Li Ning Co has opened more than 8000 stores in China, and plans to expand the number of stores to 1 by 2013.

Relying on a series of mergers and acquisitions and strategic cooperation, Li Ning Co has built up a "multi brand strategy".

At present, the company's brand portfolio includes "Z-DO" (new movement) for the middle and low end customers, outdoor sports brand "AIGLE" (Ai Gao), fashion sports brand "LottoSport" (Le Tu), table tennis brand "red double happiness" and badminton brand "KasonSports".

Lining is also always ahead of his competitors in some aspects of the company's operation.

Lining's delivery time from design to delivery is only 30 days, which is half or even 1/3 of other international brand competitors.

Lining was also an early sport brand involved in e-commerce.

In early 2008, Lining launched an online shopping mall with Taobao.

Moreover, the more than 4000 Lining stores are equipped with an electronic POS machine, which is directly linked to the company's central database in Beijing. The real-time update provides a solid guarantee for timely replenishment of goods, and provides an important foundation for better planning and forecasting.

Neither Nike nor Adidas has established such a wide range of data correlation systems in China.

But the company is still unable to lie in its past success.

"Adjusting the marketing strategy is a top priority for enterprises like Lining," commented professor Li Fei, a professor of marketing at Tsinghua University. "For the sports equipment market, the homogenization of product mix and function is becoming more and more serious.

Not only that, competition in the price and distribution field is becoming more and more intense, advertising fees and sponsorship fees skyrocketed, and the operating cost pressure of retail stores has increased steeply.

In such a situation, it becomes more and more important to achieve brand differentiation.

Because of this, it will become so important to integrate fashionable and unique elements into Lining's brand and reshape brand vitality.

"Lining brand needs to shake off the shadow of international brands and create an independent identity," said Xiao Shitian, director of consumer insight at emerging markets in the UK based TNS international research company (TNSResearchInternational). (AshokSethi)

The brand logo before Lining was a elongated "L", like the tail of a squirrel, representing the initials of "LiNing" (LiNing).

But this logo was criticized by the outside world for its lack of originality and plagiarized the logo of Nike.

In 2002, Lining opened the slogan "AnythingisPossible".

Although the slogan "ImpossibleisNothing" (Adidas) was born two years earlier, it did not leave any impression on consumers.

Until now, many people believe that Lining is copying Adidas's slogan.

"For Lining, it is ripe for us to become a bolder, more independent, and distinguish from other similar brands," Xiao Shitian said.

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Entering the high-end market

The new brand strategy also shows that Lining is moving away from his early image as a cheap substitute for multinational brands and turning to a more high-end brand.

At the same time, the company has begun to adjust the pricing strategy in recent years.

"The upgrading of Lining's brand image helps to narrow the price gap between the first tier international brands such as Nike and Adidas."

Wei Xiaopo, an industry analyst with Hongkong based CLSAAsia-PacificMarkets, said, "Lining plans to increase the proportion of sports shoes with an average retail price of more than 400 yuan."

He predicted that in the next three years, the retail price difference between Lining sports shoes and Nike and Adidas should be reduced from the current 30-35% to 15-20%.

"Other Chinese brands occupy a position in the market because of their price factors," added Lei Xiaoshan. "But Lining is moving in the right direction.

In some ways, Lining did imitate Nike, but now it is forming its own style. "

In addition, Li Ning Co's product line has also been upgraded and added more original elements.

Lining's designers have proved that they have the ability to meet the needs of Chinese consumers for fashion.

In 2008, the company's "embarrassment" shoes surprised millions of young consumers.

The idea comes from Internet buzzwords (in Chinese, "funny" is funny and embarrassed).

This product, which is regarded as "cool", has brought Lining unprecedented success and sold out quickly.

Another noteworthy product is "Lei Feng shoes" (Lei Feng is a soldier, in the age of Mao Zedong, his selfless behavior made it a key hero model).

"Compared with other Chinese brands, Lining has better product design and more types."

Lei Xiaoshan of CMR said, "if I were Adidas, I would be very worried about it, because Lining has left Adidas behind in China's two or three tier cities, and Lining has been very quick in adjusting the product line."

Lining also promoted his image through a series of sports sponsorship projects.

In 2009, Lining became a sponsor of China Badminton national team, and also sponsored the world champion badminton Lin Dan.

And acquired Kason, one of China's largest badminton equipment brands.

Is it too cool?

These changes will enable Lining to take the lead in China's domestic market, which remains to be seen.

Obviously, Lining wants to be close to the younger generation.

But Professor Li Fei of Tsinghua University believes that because of the over half of the 25-45 year old consumers in Lining's market, the new marketing action may make the group feel uncomfortable.

On the social networking site "MP net", Lining's 80 generation consumers have begun to complain: "are we no longer important?" TNS's Xiao Shi Tian said: "the new slogan may cause a good response in the target group, but I still hope Lining has tested it."

In addition, although consumers aged 15-25 are a large and attractive group, they are too hasty and changeable when making choices.

"Post 90's positioning is too narrow."

Lei Xiaoshan said, "young people like to catch up with fashion. They may love a brand for only one or two years, so the company needs to be very careful."

At the same time, fierce competition and huge investment in China's first tier cities is also a huge challenge.

For example, a more fashionable and more expensive Lining undoubtedly needs to increase the exposure rate in the first tier cities, where the post-90s are more active and the fashion style is more important.

However, the central parts of these cities have been dominated by international sports brands.

This will be a difficult choice for Lining.

The company's budget in the market and advertising has been very tight: sales revenue in 2008 was 6 billion 700 million yuan, and the market and advertising budget were 1 billion 100 million.

The figures for 2009 were 8 billion 400 million and 1 billion 200 million, respectively, and the proportion did not increase.

Lining currently has only 160 stores in the first tier cities, while the number of stores in Nike and Adidas is almost 4 times that of Lining.

Lining is currently launching a publicity campaign in Shanghai.

However, in a golden section such as Huaihailu Road, Lining is rarely seen, which is the favorite place for young people to go shopping.

Xiao Shitian said: "it's not just a question of changing logo or advertising language; it's about whether they can produce products and marketing strategies that match the new image.

It should include all elements of the retail strategy, and the overall environment and services should be able to clearly present a world-class brand and experience.

In addition, the distribution network industry may be a hindrance.

By the end of 2009, there were more than 128 distributors of Lining, none of which could account for more than 10% of the total turnover of Lining.

As a result, it is difficult for the company to achieve economies of scale and to form a stable supply chain. Adidas's business director is commenting.

Competitors such as Nike and Adidas have two main distributors who account for half of the total business.

China's local brand Anta controls the distribution network by holding a licensed dealer. The vast majority of these dealers are Anta's exclusive agents.

But Professor Hawke of Walton business school does not mind the obstacles and risks faced by Li Ning Co.

"People often say that brand remolding is more difficult than brand creation, but that means you may lose a position.

In this particular case, Li Ning Co does not have much baggage.

It does not have a brand image that has always been unchanged in people's minds.

If it could lose anything, it would get more.

As for the risk of being too close to the post 90s, Hawke said, "let's face it. Sports equipment is a game for young people."

Now that the new brand has been released to the public, Lining has already faced Chinese consumers. But as the founder and chairman of Li Ning Co, Lining once said, "an athlete needs to take the initiative and strive for the first time on the playground. Only by having this vision will he have the chance to become the ultimate winner." he will agree to put this mentality into the commercial arena.