The Gorgeous Evolution Of Lining, The Brand Of Sports Shoes

October 11th, in Lining The brand is 20 years old, gorgeous and changing, and joyful birthday party, besides releasing new Identification And the new slogan, to everyone's surprise, Lining himself mentioned the defeat of Seoul in 1988.

"Let the change happen" Lining changed the bid.

On the last day of June 2010, Li Ning Co Ltd announced its brand remolding strategy and issued a brand new logo. Advertisement Language.

Since then, the slogan "Everything is possible" (all possible) has been fading away from people's eyes because of the highly similar slogan of "Nothing is impossible" (Adidas's impossible is). The official explanation is that the logo also interprets the sports values in the form of "human", and encourages everyone to express themselves and realize themselves through movement.

If the founder is said to be the soul of a company, Li Ning Co has a breakthrough that touches the soul, that is, changing the company's bid. It changed the image that Li Ning Co has always brought to the public in the past 20 years.

This is a bold attempt, and also the only way for enterprises to go global: "go to Shanzhai".

As a result, Li Ning Co's brand slogan also became "make the change" (let change happen).

This is the sixth time Li Ning Co has reshaped its brand. Timing is coincidence, but it is thought-provoking.

Because, just a few months ago, Lining and Adidas announced their achievements. After 6 years of catching up with each other, in 2009, Lining's turnover in mainland China finally surpassed Adidas, becoming the second largest sports brand after Nike.

After 2003, the haze of Nike and Adidas giants could not be dissipated. The result of this year's seesaw battle also shows that the dawn of Li Ning Co has been revealed.

In the 20 year old Lining brand's gorgeous and changing birthday party, in addition to issuing new logo and new slogan, let everyone surprise that Lining himself mentioned the defeat of Seoul in 1988. In September 20th of that year, on the fourth day of the Seoul Olympic Games, Lining hung his foot in the hoisting ring and then fell to the ground while he was vaulting horse. But he smiled and got up from the ground.

"This is the spirit of athletes," Lining said at the conference. This means that no matter what this change means to Li Ning Co, the champion will not fear failure and continue to advance.

During his speech, he smiled with a straight face. Just like 22 years ago, he fell from the jump and lay on the ground with a smile on his face.

His speech was not fluent and his eloquence was not first-rate. Of course, he is not a showman, but the soul of an enterprise.

"I started playing flash when I was a teenager, so I'm still relaxed. My way of life is to live a relaxed life. I do not live by acting. "

In order to widen the market and enter the international market, Li Ning Co must also make professional managers.

So, as early as 1999, Lining himself began to fade away from management. In 2002, Zhang Zhiyong, the then managing director, led Li Ning Co for the first time to break through 1 billion yuan sales. Zhang Zhiyong has built a team of professional managers dug up from the top 500 in the world, and has been learning from international predators such as Nike, using IBM, Roland Berger to make strategic planning, running SAP's ERP software, and hiring Leo Berna's 4A advertising company.

"Transition from individual to organization"

"Zhang Zhiyong let Li Ning Co complete the transition from individual to organization." Some people say so.

Zhang Zhiyong did not feel that Lining was deliberately fading out of the public view because of his arrival. "This is sooner or later." Lining himself has always had a goal of pushing the team to professionalism.

Now, when Lining meets with an interview and is asked to take photos, he must call Zhang Zhiyong. The company has activities, and the reporters can only interview Zhang Zhiyong. Even if CCTV's "dialogue" program invites Lining, he is also working hand in hand with Zhang Zhiyong to face the media.

"If I want to do something exciting for young people, I want to take pictures of Lin Dan much better. It's not that I don't want to accept everyone's interviews. If you ask me a specific business, I will not take part in it. How can you solve it? Then I'll tell you later, so you can't just interview him directly. "

In 2004, the moment when Lining and Zhang Zhiyong trusted each other, perhaps the starting point for this founder and professional manager.

At that time, Zhang Zhiyong heard Lining say to him that the company decided to IPO (initial public offering) to be listed and wanted him to be the chief executive. He thought for more than ten seconds, and said to Lining, "please give me ten days to think about it."

In the end, he failed to live up to Lining's waiting and expectations.

Lining said, in those days, the Chinese team took the championship and needed me to show it. It was everybody's dream. It was to be realized through me. Now, I want to have a dream and want to be a Chinese brand, so I need you to help me achieve it.

"I pay more attention to the governance and strategy of a company. I discuss many things with Zhiyong, mainly based on strategic problems, and will not talk about a particular business. A CEO (CEO), if he does not have a sufficient platform, a relaxed environment to make a decision. Every day, I have to think about whether the boss is so unhappy. Will the boss whisper, how can you do it? A local company, as your business expands and your goals grow bigger and bigger, the pressure and challenges you want to face, and you want to go up to the next level, are all kinds of challenges.

Because we were faced with the need to go public at the time, and a thorough result of the overseas listing for a company's governance structure was transformed from a more experienced, traditional local domestic enterprise, and a private enterprise to a modern enterprise management mode. Actually, I am not very familiar with it. So at that time, I was more of a trust in Zhiyong.

"De Lining" has been discussed by more and more media and even business school professors. Lining's image is indeed fading away from the public view. This kind of "go to Li Ninghua", Lining himself is satisfied, and he has said that he has not been divorced from the company, and the company's major decisions are all involved. It's just a daily job. He has already given the confidence to the team led by CEO Zhang Zhiyong.

The two of them usually have meetings in about two months or half a year. "I bring our executives to interact with him. He will say his goals, say his ideals, say what he wants to do, and all his propositions are related to sports. He never talks to you about how much money he earns this year and how much he earns next year. This is his understanding of money, too.

What role does Lining play in the company? "I am just a procedural role." Lining said. But his role in this process is very important to Zhang Zhiyong. "His greatest contribution to the company lies in his understanding of sports. He is an athlete. He has a deep understanding of sports, and what our management really needs to do is transform his perception into process and express it in commercial language."

Li Ning Co changed the logo, or Zhang Zhiyong put forward. He knew it was Lining's 20 years of accumulation, not just a trade mark. {page_break}

"The market risk it brings is quite large. It involves a wide range of things. It includes something beyond your emotions, including your products, including the law." Lining said.

That day, 8 design manuscripts were selected for them. It was Lining's turn when everyone spoke.

At that time, he had just finished the disc surgery and was not able to sit straight.

He struggled vigorously in his chair and said, "can I choose nothing?"

At that time, the whole audience was silent.

Zhang Zhiyong was aware of the impact of Lining. For Lining's performance at that time, his evaluation was "strong". Because Lining finally accepted the reality, also has today's new "Lining" logo.

Now, if reporters again mention "going to Lining", Lining always says, "I never leave the company, just use and trust the team. From the first day I made the brand 20 years ago, I hope that one day people will not buy Lining because of Lining." This brand remolding is actually intended to convey more clearly the gene, character and personality of the brand, which is much more meaningful than "going to Lining".

After changing the face,

First of all, to create international brands and expand the international market, "Lining is more and more stable and mature." Fortune magazine reviews this. In terms of product development, Lining's clever use of Chinese elements also appears to be accurate and hot. Lining keeps playing the symbols of Chinese Kungfu in basketball advertisements, and uses ink and wash tones in advertisements for light running shoes.

Later, Lining went to the birthplace of Nike and headquarters in Portland.

Then, in January 2008, Li Ning Co set up the first global design center for Chinese sports brands there. Over the next 20 months, about 20 veteran designers and engineers who served internationally renowned brands completed many amazing designs in a small building in Portland. The local newspaper exclaimed: "Lining has inserted the red flag into Nike's backyard."

However, Lining is not worried about dumping overseas as quickly as some enterprises. "We hope to increase the added value of the brand first."

Indeed, before we really go out, we must form our core competitiveness in product innovation and brand marketing.

In January 2008, Li Ning Co set up a design and R & D center in Oregon as the front stop for Lining brand to enter the US market. In January 2010, Lining opened the first store in the same place, selling the "Chinese Kung Fu" series and other special products. In Southeast Asia, Lining brand badminton products and equipment marketing is not bad. These are Lining's tentative extensions in the US and Southeast Asian markets.

According to the plan, the Li Ning Co will complete the internationalization strategy by the end of 2012, implement the strategic transformation in 2013, and implement the internationalization strategy in 2014. It will take 8 years to become the top 5 brands in the world and strive to exceed 20% in the global market share.

Some people comment that Li Ning Co's internationalization strategy is too conservative. Anta and other brands have gone ahead of Lining in this respect. If Lining's strategy is adopted, it will usher in a comprehensive internationalization in 2014. In this way, the brand effect brought about by the 2008 Olympic Games for Lining can not be effectively and timely transformed into market efficiency, so that market opportunities may be missed.

However, Zhang Zhiyong and Lining are confident: "at that time, Li Ning Co is expected to become the top 5 Sports Brand Company in the world, when the international market share will account for over 20% of the total sales."

"When the ignition is so high, are you afraid?" one time someone asked Lining this. "No," He replied, "when a man stands too tall, he must always raise his head and have no time to be afraid."

Not long ago, Lining set his sights on the development of the two or three line city market and has just invested in new energy projects. He has already had 8 billion seats. I believe that in the near future, the red flag will not only be inserted in the backyard of Nike, but will be inserted all over the world.