Sports Shoes Marketing At The Crossroads

Some people say that only one place in Jinjiang, Fujian.

You can feed CCTV's five sports channel.

According to statistics, the Jinjiang brand advertised in this station has been leaping forward in recent years. There were 16 in 2000, 33 in 2001, 36 in 2002, and 44 in 2003.

However, the accompanying sales myth has not correspondingly increased. Except for the Anta sports shoes advertised in 1999, the 4 years after the second half of this year can be regarded as the "explosion" way of growth.

From this, people can basically judge that the Jinjiang way of "star advertising + CCTV" has met the ceiling.

The footwear industry in Fujian, represented by Jinjiang, began in OEM production.

However, due to the financial crisis and the pfer of China's footwear industry chain, orders were sharply reduced. In addition, the larger profits of their own brands reminded them.

They began to embark on the road of brand building.

However, with the stimulation of the 2008 Olympic Games to the sports industry, this brand building movement intensified.

But what worries these bosses is that the problem has not diminished.

"Hollow value of brand"

In this wave of licensing, Anta made the first brand symbol in Jinjiang sports shoes.

In the early stage of development, like other Jinjiang enterprises, Anta has been taking the road of production and operation, capital has been continuously invested in various production sectors, but little investment has been made in shaping the brand. In 1999, Anta hired ping pong world champion Kong Linghui as the brand image spokesperson.

It happened that Kong Linghui won the world championship at the 2000 Winter Olympics.

In 2000, it became "the year of Kong Linghui". As a result, the Anta Star licensing movement was launched, and it was successful at one stroke.

Just over a year later, Anta has been the top player in the sales of domestic sports shoes.

However,

President Ding Zhizhong did not fully acknowledge the role of advertising.

He told reporters: "in the early start of the venture, through the hardships built up the distribution of the national network, is the basis for the survival of Anta.

As a tourist shoe and sports shoe production base in Jinjiang, most enterprises first take foreign markets. When other brands begin to cultivate the domestic market, Anta has established a complete marketing network, so the Anta brand has a great competitive advantage compared with the same kind of domestic enterprises. "

At the same time, he did not emphasize the decisive role of the Internet: "we are leading for the time being, but the competition is fierce."

Ding Zhizhong's worries came from XTEP in the same city.

Hongxing Erke and other brothers, the same advertising strategy: celebrity endorsement and bombardment.

In fact, the so-called network can be shared, because there are several large agents developed locally. Giving them more goods can make them less wasteful of resources.

But when the market competition is called this for a while, when Anta creates a brand, in China, the world's largest footwear consumer market, there are actually only two famous international sports shoes brands such as Lining, double star, Nike, Adidas and other international brands. The growth of the new brands is very large, but now it can be said that thousands of troops have crossed the single timber bridge, and the results can be imagined.

Not only that, Anta also felt the challenges of brand positioning and brand credibility.

Yuan Yue told reporters: "in our market survey on the brand value of famous sports shoes, Anta, double star and Reebok are in the second group of Chinese sports brands. Nike and Lining are in the first group.

The problem faced by Anta is that consumers' loyalty is low, only 12.4%, and their linkage consumption ability is low.

Anta can not compete with Nike on high-end products, and has little competition with Lining in its low-end products.

There is a big gap between the second group's products and the first group, but the gap between the third group is very small, so if there is no clear direction in the market positioning, the brand is likely to fall.

Ding Zhizhong also admitted that at present,

The credibility of the company is a big problem.

"Even though the quality of our products is not different from that of international brands, there is no way to compete with them in terms of credibility."

Ding Zhizhong's bewilderment in brand positioning and brand reputation is the confusion of Anta and other footwear manufacturers in Jinjiang on brand management: how to keep doing good sports brand?

From Anta's advertisement, we can see that this brand positioning is not clear.

As a sports brand, the need to convey to the audience is a kind of sports impulse and passion.

Speaking of Nike, people will think of the phrase "JUSTDOIT", associated with Jordan and Yao Ming. When it comes to Adidas, people will think of "endless movement", while Anta's "I choose, I like" did not give people much imagination about sports.

Another famous brand of sneakers in China is even more ambiguous in terms of brand positioning. Zhang Jing, director of the Propaganda Department of double star, told reporters that the positioning of double star shoes is from low end to high end, from sports shoes to leather shoes.

As a matter of fact, in the current domestic sports shoes market, we can say that the double star with Lining was lagging behind Lining and fell to the second group.

Zero index data website executive director Ceng Huichao told reporters in a

When entering the initial stage of the market, a lot of advertising input and publicity will play a larger role in the market share. But when the enterprise develops to a certain stage, the impact of a large amount of advertising investment on the market share of a brand will not change much. At this time, enterprises should pay more attention to the shaping of the value connotation of the brand, so as to promote the brand to develop continuously and healthily.

Some famous brands in China, such as Anta and Binxing, are facing the problem of unclear brand positioning and "hollow value of brand value".

If these enterprises do not solve the problem of brand positioning and enhance the value connotation of the brand as soon as possible, the future development prospect is worrying.

The inspiration of Lining's brand Reengineering

Experienced the first stage of the development of sporting goods, the way Lining sports shoes have traveled to Fujian.

It has some enlightening significance.

Compared with the "Fujian Legion" made by Lining, he realized the importance of brand extension and brand value connotations.

Lining's brand development path is not smooth sailing.

After rapid expansion in 1990s, Li Ning Co suffered the bottleneck of brand development.

From the 1997 financial crisis to the 2000, Li Ning Co has been unable to break through the ceiling of growth, the volume of sales has stagnated, the consumer groups have not made breakthroughs, the loyalty of the brands is not high, consumers have not repurchased products, and no new consumers have joined.

And from the data of market survey, the main consumers of Li Ning Co are concentrated in the age group of 25-35.

"For the sports industry, such a crowd structure is dangerous, because the audience of the sports industry is the younger generation."

Li Ning Co agent market director Xu Weijun said.

In the past 12 years, Li Ning Co has changed 8 advertisements, from the earliest "hope of China's new generation" to "leaving it for itself" to "I exist in sports".

"The beauty of the world is shared", "excellent, from the true colors" and so on, Xu Weijun said frankly that the original advertising changes because the brand positioning is not clear.

Of course, Lining's life cycle is related to the development of the international sports industry.

Since 2001, more sporting goods companies have joined the ranks of competition, and consumers' consumption psychology has gradually matured. They realize that choosing sports brands is not just about price, but also a sports concept.

The primary problem facing Li Ning Co is to activate aging brands and enhance brand awareness.

Therefore, in the past two years and more, Lining's brand positioning is mainly focused on changing consumer awareness and continuous pformation of his brand.

In 2002, Li Ning Co launched a new brand positioning "anything is possible".

Fortunately, in the past 10 years, Lining has been associated with the development of sports in China, so that this pformation has a solid foundation for sports culture.

Zero point Ceng Huichao told reporters that in terms of brand value connotation, although Lining and Nike, Adidas and other international brands still have a large gap, but compared with many domestic brands, Lining did better.

It should be said that from the very beginning, Lining started a brand with a high starting point. He received a good sense of brand trust in the hearts of consumers through sponsoring a large number of sports events.

In addition, when it comes to basketball, people will think reflexively.

When it comes to football, people will think of Adidas, a mature sports brand, will inevitably embark on the road of specialization.

"We have also started the pace of specialization."

Xu Weijun said, "professionalism is not only reflected in products, but more importantly, it requires the use of sports mode of thinking."

But he did not explain this to reporters.