Guerrilla Warfare In Jinjiang Changed The Sporting Goods Market In China.

Quanzhou brands, which have dominated the two or three tier cities for many years, will face new challenges in addition to their close competition.

When international brands are busy competing for the middle class in big cities, the wage earners of domestic brands rely on the two or three line cities quietly to win the time of growth and development. Their "guerrilla warfare" market strategy has even changed the competitive situation of China's sporting goods market.

PEAK factory workshop, a shoemaking female worker.

PEAK shoe technology R & D center team members Wang Shaojun (left), Daniel Chan (middle), Chen Chanchan.

A PEAK store in Quanzhou, a teenager who has just bought sports shoes.

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Xu Jingnan, chairman of PEAK group.

Anta Jinjiang factory production workshop.

In fact, in addition to Lining, the domestic brand names made by domestic consumers almost all come from the "Jinjiang Department" of Quanzhou, Fujian.

The afternoon of July 21st.

Xu Zhihua held five meetings uninterruptedly in his office, and implemented various problems one by one with more than 10 heads of departments.

The CEO of the listed company is working hard to manage the foundation of its father in a tough way.

The 32 year old boss, who is familiar with it, is good at learning all kinds of knowledge, having strong psychological endurance and wide communication, but there is a problem - his temper is impatient.

But he seems to be trying to restrain himself.

There is a word hanging on the wall opposite him.

In the conference room on the third floor of PEAK building, Dongbao industrial district, Quanzhou, seven or eight young people are sitting around a round table.

The advertising company is demonstrating the latest issue of advertising for PEAK basketball shoes.

If approved, the film will soon be seen by countless Chinese consumers through television.

There is a dynamic video playing on the laptop on the table: a group of tall and strong NBA players running and jumping on the court, and finally, with a brief "I can play", the picture is frozen to PEAK's Logo.

All eyes went to Xu Zhihua, chief executive of PEAK Sports Company Limited, the young boss wearing a white sports T-shirt made by PEAK, leaning silently on the office chair. Her face was solemn and full of expression.

A moment later, the voice of Xu Zhihua began to sway. "What originality is this advertisement? A lot of preaching words can hardly touch people's hearts."

After a long pause, he continued to shout loudly, "your thinking is too traditional, there is no innovation in the form of the movie, there is no climax in the mood, and there is no knowing what to express."

The designer wanted to argue a few words and was interrupted by him at once. "Adidas's sketching style ads look very simple, but why can the audience remember them? You have to think about how they did it!"

One of Xu Zhihua's comments is that advertising films must not imitate Adidas's sketching style.

The advertising company quickly left.

Zhou Yang came up.

The head of PEAK, who has just returned from Losangeles to China, began reporting to Xu.

The newly established branch is mainly responsible for managing NBA signing players, developing American sales channels, and providing international market information.

Zhou Yang brings out a lot of sports products from his bags, almost all of which are the latest products of Nike in the US market.

On Monday, I would like to introduce to you the characteristics of different products.

The last one is an exceptly thin vest, "its fabric is smoother and its style is very simple."

Zhou Yang hoped that headquarters would provide him with similar products as soon as possible. Some of the products he had brought to the contract players were obviously not suitable for each other's taste.

For example, sports shorts are covered with a pair of underpants, "I don't like that style over there," Zhou Yang said.

He also complained that the same thing needs to be communicated with many departments at headquarters, which not only affects efficiency, but also makes mistakes.

One example is that he had not received a pair of sneakers he had applied to headquarters since six months ago.

Xu Zhihua kept frowning and listened to Zhou Yang's report.

He suddenly shouted annoyantly, "let's say," what does the branch need? What can headquarters do? "

Zhou Yang said, some contract players are not good management, Xu Zhihua hands wave: "everything is done according to the agreement, for the player who breaks the contract should hit, beat the money."

At five p.m., the day's meeting is over.

There was a heavy rain outside the window.

Xu Zhihua rested on the leather sofa for a while, and a pile of papers in front of him was waiting for him to look over.

"We have always adopted the strategy of" encircling the cities in the countryside ", and you can see that this is very effective, Xu Zhihua said. In the past more than 10 years, the wave of urbanization rising in China and the increasing importance of sports by the public have provided Quanzhou sports brand with an open space.

The founders of the early Quanzhou sports brand were mostly local people with low educational level.

But perhaps influenced by the developed business atmosphere for thousands of years, they are born with an entrepreneurial temperament.

The special geographical environment has trained them to dare to rush to fight and fight for the quality of Fujian businessmen. They went out of the development path of Chinese manufacturing industry earlier than most of the factory owners, and began to infiltrate more links into the industrial chain.

Xu Zhihua used the proverb of Fujian businessmen as the motto of life: "fight to win" to describe this group.

The rapid expansion of the Chinese market has made this group of grass-roots entrepreneurs - Xu Zhihua called it the "matrix".

Over the past more than 10 years, two or three line cities have been willing to spend money on decorating their families, and consumers of liquid crystal TV and fashionable clothes have increased rapidly.

In sports and even in daily life, most of them are lightweight sportswear.

It is this huge number of consumer groups that have made Quanzhou's sports brand refresh the imagination of their development prospects.

Now, PEAK has more than 6500 sales outlets (most of which are located in the two or three tier cities of the country), selling sportswear with a price of more than two hundred or three hundred yuan per day.

Last year, its turnover exceeded 3 billion yuan.

The turnover of Anta and XTEP, another two well-known brands in Quanzhou, exceeded 5 billion 800 million yuan and 3 billion 500 million yuan respectively.

Thousands of sales outlets, most of which are also located in the two or three tier cities.

Like PEAK, the price of their products is much lower than that of Nike and Adidas.

On July 22nd, at a large banquet hosted by the Quanzhou Young Entrepreneurs Association, Ding Shuibo, the president of XTEP (China) Co., Ltd., dressed in a suit and dressed in orange and red tie, held a goblet filled with wine and met with the entrepreneurs around him.

He just replaced Zhou Shaoxiong, chairman of the seven wolf industrial Limited by Share Ltd, and was elected president of the association.

For external questions, most of the domestic brands are located in the voice of the low-end market. Ding Shuibo is a little excited. "Must we enter the high-end market and sell high prices to be a good brand?" {page_break}

His stance is that although some people are lining up to rush to buy expensive LV, more Chinese consumers can only buy products that match their income levels.

"We know best what products the Chinese market needs," Ding believes that consumers in the two or three tier cities will not spend seven hundred or eight hundred yuan or even a thousand yuan to buy a pair of sports shoes.

This analysis is exactly the same as that of Xu Zhihua.

Xu Zhihua said, "not everyone is suitable for Mercedes Benz and BMW. What we need to do is to provide sports products like TOYOTA suitable for the masses."

They should be glad to catch up with the good times - the improvement of the consumption ability of the two or three tier cities and even smaller County residents, and the awakening of public health consciousness in these markets, thus avoiding the tragedies that were strangled by the international brands such as Nike and Adidas in the infancy.

In the first tier cities where international brands are entrenched, no start-ups can afford expensive shops.

Cai Jinghai, director of PEAK business, divided the sports brand into three camps: the first camp represented by Nike and Adidas; the second camp represented by the listed companies such as Lining, Anta, PEAK and so on; and small and medium-sized brands at home and abroad, which are lagging behind in terms of market share and turnover.

He satirize the attitude that international brands are always high on Chinese distributors, "lack of communication, and use a lot of rules and regulations to manage".

He believes that domestic brands know better and can meet the actual needs of the Chinese market.

One example is that he meets at least ten days a month with agents from all over the country, and the problems that can be solved on the spot are never pushed to headquarters for further discussion.

In the PEAK headquarters building, a dealer review meeting just ended.

Buyers from all over the country put forward their own suggestions for thousands of samples of clothing and footwear.

These suggestions will be the main basis for PEAK's product design department to modify product styles, patterns and hue.

A glass round table, several designers are immersed in the client's recommendations to the design drawings.

"We will finish the work quickly," said Chen Meimei, a 25 year old PEAK product manager.

On the iron shelf beside her, PEAK was about to launch a sports T-shirt called the "fragrance" series.

This garment can still smell fragrant after washing several times.

"Cool?" the girl said with a smile.

In the past more than 10 years, when the international brands are busy competing for the middle class in the big cities, the wage earners of domestic brands rely on the two or three tier cities quietly to win the growth and development time.

This "guerrilla warfare" style market strategy has made Quanzhou's many sports brands have achieved great success in the past more than 10 years.

They have even changed the competitive situation of China's sporting goods market.

Xu Zhihua said, Puma, UMBRO, Reebok these early good reputation in the Chinese market, the European brand, now the situation "can only say that is still alive."

Zhao Xiaohong, a partner in Beijing's Jin Du law firm, said, "McDonald's is a big brand, but isn't it a cheap fast food?"

The woman lawyer with rich experience in the field of corporate investment and listing believes that the success of Quanzhou sports brand illustrates one thing: finding a suitable market positioning is very important.

With the rapid growth of sales volume, does the Quanzhou sports brand really understand what Chinese consumers need?

Not long ago, Nandu weekly visited ten consumers in Beijing, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Guilin, Heyuan and other cities (two college students, eight people in the government, banks, schools, travel agencies and other institutions, aged 20 to 30 years old).

What worries us is that if everyone is willing to choose international brands or domestic brands if economic conditions permit, everyone chooses the former.

Yang Song, a 21 year old college student in Heyuan, Guangdong, said that although the latter was "relatively cheap and of good quality", the international brands such as Nike and Adidas were more attracted to him. "I will choose an international brand when I work."

His monthly cost of living is 750 yuan, almost to be poured out to buy a pair of Nike shoes.

In his eyes, the market image of Chinese and foreign brands is as clear as that of "rural areas and cities".

A company employee criticized.

In addition to the product, all the respondents were more aware of the brand image of the international brand.

"To tell you the truth, I think the advertisements for domestic brands are very rustic," said a middle school teacher in Chongqing.

An example is that the advertisements of domestic sports brands are often filled with shots such as volley shot and strong dunking. "There are still slogans with loud slogans, which are annoying."

What impressed him most was Liu Xiang's second day advertising slogan, "love sports, even if it hurt your heart", when he withdrew from the Olympic Games two years ago because of injury. At that time, he was shocked by Liu Xiang.

The advertising influence is so great that he has spent more than 3000 yuan to buy four pairs of Nike sneakers.

The money is enough to buy more than 10 similar products of Quanzhou brand.

For those Quanzhou sports brands who are looking forward to a better future, such a conclusion lurks a crisis. Consumers who are restricted by consumption power will fly to other branches once they are full of wings.

And probably never fly back again.

Chinese sports brands have enjoyed the golden age of ten years in the market. CEO, Beijing key sports Consulting Co., Ltd., Zhang Qing, is worried that such a good time will not last long.

The reason is that after years of rapid growth, the growth rate of China's sports market has slowed down.

From 2003 to 2008, the annual growth rate of China's sporting goods market has been as high as 30%.

But last year, this figure dropped to 11%.

Along with the emergence of products in the industry homogenization competition intensified.

"If any pair of shoes sells well in the market, in a few days, this shoe will appear on the desk of the boss of Quanzhou." Zhang Qing said that imitating successful people is safe, but such an enterprise can only be a follower of the trend. "A dream enterprise must have courage to pform itself".

A staff member from a sports brand in Quanzhou once put this way: "

In the reality that international brands possess a lot of patented technology and invest huge amounts of R & D funds each year, domestic brands are unlikely to become pioneers in technology in the short term, but that does not mean they have no chance to reverse embarrassing traditional impression.

Phil Nate, the founder of Nike, once proudly pointed out that if competitors want to defeat Nike, the only way is to imitate us in a comprehensive and accurate way, and then find different points to break them down.

But in the face of the success of Quanzhou sports brand, which relies on the rapid rise of the two or three tier cities, this proposal does not seem to be comprehensive.

The Li Ning Co has gone ahead - in June 30, 2010, at the age of 20, it launched a brand new logo and slogan.

Just last year, its sales revenue reached 8 billion 387 million yuan, which has surpassed Adidas and is only second to Nike as the runner up of China's sporting goods market (Adidas sales in China in 2009 amounted to about 7 billion yuan).

But its Logo and advertising slogans have always been seen as imitating Nike and Adidas.

For example, "Anything is possible" and "Nothing is impossible" make it difficult for ordinary consumers to distinguish exactly whose slogan they are.

In fact, the similar situation is also obvious in the sports brand of Quanzhou: 361 degrees once imitated the brand sign of Buick car once, and Anta and XTEP now brand symbol is also referred to as Brooks, Reebok and other foreign sports brand "copy".

However,

At that time, the vast majority of sports brands in Quanzhou were sending large and small Hong Kong and Taiwan stars to the public.

Advertisements and posters with similar styles are filled with CCTV sports channels.

So some people call CCTV5 the "Quanzhou channel".

At the end of the year, PEAK spent $4 million to sign the Houston rockets, which was played by Yao Ming. At the center of the team's TOYOTA center, they produced their own Chinese and English billboards.

Whenever millions of TV viewers cheer for Yao Ming, they also see PEAK's shadow for the first time in the NBA arena.

Chen Yu said that sponsorship of top events and stars has highlighted PEAK's professional brand image in the core business area of basketball.

Now, PEAK has signed 12 NBA players.

Among them, including the NBA Championship winner this year, Lakers Ron Artest and other heavyweight stars.

Recently, these stars are participating in PEAK's China NBA activities in various cities in China, promoting publicity for sponsors.

Xu Zhihua signed the confidentiality agreement, but he did not disclose the status of the players.

It only means that the cost of a star player's cooperation is up to millions of dollars a year, but the less famous players are "no money".

Not long ago, Anta also reacted tens of millions of dollars to become a partner of the Chinese Olympic Committee's sportswear. It provided a brand promotion opportunity for Chinese sports teams to participate in the major events such as the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, the Guangzhou Asian Games in 2010 and the 2012 London Olympic Games.

In addition to brand marketing innovation, some leading domestic brands also have new moves. Last year, Lining and Anta paid huge sums of money to acquire the franchise rights of the relatively high-end Italy brand Lotto and FILA in the Chinese market.

They hope to enter the middle and high-end arena of Nike and Adidas.

PEAK headquarters in Quanzhou will move to Xiamen, a beautiful city next year.

In recent years, brands such as Anta, XTEP and 361 degrees have moved their respective strongholds to Xiamen.

Chen Yu said that a common goal of this is to attract more senior talents.

This is the most important resource needed to compete with international brands.

The pursuit of technological progress is also becoming the common concern of domestic sports brands.

An example is that in the Anta sports science laboratory, a sole pressure test system imported from Belgium costs about 10000000 yuan.

However, the latest news from the media is that Nike and Adidas are considering pushing into China's low-end market by offering low-cost products.

These two giants have acquired Reebok, UMBRO, CONVERSE and other international brands in recent years, and these brands may become the pioneers of this strategy.

If so, Quanzhou brands, which have dominated the two or three tier cities for many years, will face new challenges in addition to their close competition.