Lining'S Pition Pain In The Year Of Weak Crown: Sales Decline 6%, Trouble Every Year

Recently,

With unregistered companies to produce "new moving" brand products, and suspected of false propaganda.

Lining said, "the company is called".

"It is simply because of the misunderstanding that the word" heart "of the company is mistaken for" new "in the tag of the clothes.

This is not the trouble.

In the year of "weak crown", we had to face the throes of pformation.

Last year, it began to brand reinventing, opening up new signs and new slogans, and directly calling for brand positioning.

And other international front-line enterprises.

But in December of last year,

It is announced that the order will result in the two quarter of 2011: the order amount will be reduced by about 6% compared with the same period in 2010.

"Now is the throes of pain, presumably Lining has made psychological preparations."

Zhu Xiaoming, a famous sports marketing expert and President of Tai Du sports marketing group, commented.

In 2010,

Set up 20th anniversary.

In June 30th of this year, Lining personally led Li Yongbo, Wang Yifu and other representatives of the five national team athletes who won many gold medals in the world sports events. They issued new signs and new slogans: the former "L" logo was replaced by the "human" shape, and the original idea was taken from Lining's original "Lining cross" gymnastics.

Professor Chen Gang, director of the advertising department, loves Lining's new logo. "The original logo is like a squirrel tail, a little round and round. After replacement, the lines are more sharp, the shapes are more tough, and they also have more strength and sense of movement."

The slogan "anything is possible" is also replaced by "Make the change".

The slogan "everything is possible" and related series of advertising films, which were put forward in 2002, have attracted widespread social sympathy and received much praise from the industry. However, because of their close proximity to Adidas's "no impossible" slogan, they are accused of plagiarism and "Shanzhai".

This time, the slogan change can not be doubted: Li Ning Co wants to figure out the name of "Shanzhai" and set up its own brand culture.

Xu Ruikun, manager of the Ministry of public relations and foreign affairs, told the times weekly reporter that "originality and final presentation of original slogans must be earlier than Adidas, so there is no plagiarism at all.

Perhaps it is because the promotion of the other side is more effective and the social awareness is higher that we can leave this impression.

"Replacing the bid is a result of careful consideration, mainly on the active adjustment of the internationalization strategy."

Fang Shiwei, director of marketing, told the times weekly that he first proposed this proposal to Lining at a fashion show in France a few years ago.

"Li agreed with him and began to study when he came back."

For bid change,

There are different voices and even great disagreements inside, and different departments have different attitudes.

"The shoe product design department is most willing to accept the Logo change, because Logo can play a structural support role on the upper shoe, and the sales system is most opposed because dealers and users are not worried about it."

At that time, Fang Shiwei faced Zhang Zhiyong, President of the company. "No need to change labels for everyone to decide, as long as two people can decide Lining and you."

Ultimately, the response came from the market.

Li Ning Co has conducted a questionnaire survey of 10000 users.

"Li finally made a final decision: as long as 30% of the users were in favor of the implementation.

Finally, the survey results show that only 35% of the users are against changing the bid.

Fang Shiwei said, "in this way, the bid can be implemented."

There is no doubt that changing slogans and labels shows the vision of Lining's brand remolding.

The new slogan "Make the change" is launched in English only, and its Chinese plation has not been publicized with the same efforts.

As a result, Lining's ambitions of internationalization can also be seen.

At the door of the conference in June last year, the words "90 after Lining" were particularly remarkable.

The goal is obvious, referring the main user group to the "generation after 90" generation.

Subsequently, advertisements with the theme of "post-90s" were frequently seen in the media.

"After 90" to Lining's initiative is not enthusiastic, especially for Lin Chiling endorsement Lining fitness series is quite inconsistent, "after 90" Lining opened "after 70" Zhi Ling sister endorsement, will it appear fatigue? "

Focusing on the "post-90s" group, Lining has his own difficulties.

In the 2006-2007 year, the Li Ning Co survey showed that the actual consumption of Lining brand had a certain offset compared with the target consumer group, that is, the overall age was larger than that of the target population, and the crowd aged nearly 35-40 was over 50%.

"Lining brand remodeling, emphasizing youth and fashion, this is understandable.

It can be directly positioned in the post-90s, which makes people unable to understand.

And in fact, "after 90" will not be Lining's user main body.

Zhu Xiaoming has different opinions on Li Ning Co's move.

Lining has been founded for 21 years, and has already formed a consumer group spanning many age groups. Too much emphasis on the age of consumers is not conducive to maintaining the original brand followers.

In this regard, Xu Ruikun explained that this is a joke from Lining when the conference was held, "at that time, Li said," Lining's brand was also founded in 1990s, so it is also the 90's. "

She repeatedly reiterated to the times weekly reporter, "we are not abandoning" after 70 "and" after 80 ", only hope" after 90 "to Lining's cognition enhancement.

Emotionally speaking, the company's feelings for the old consumers are more profound.

The Li Ning Co, which started in 1990s, opened its market quickly with the popularity of Lining.

Since 1994, Lining has been keeping the leading position in the Chinese sporting goods market.

However, in 2003, Li Ning Co was first exceeded by Nike; in 2004, it was left behind by Adidas.

Until 2009, Lining oversold Adidas with a total sales of 8 billion 387 million yuan, reclaiming the position of the "second child" in the domestic market and approaching the sales scale of Nike.

In this case, in 2010, the Li Ning Co increased its product price substantially by three times: in April 2010, it first announced that the price of footwear products increased by 11.1%, and clothing products increased by 7.6%. In June 2010, it announced again that the average selling price of footwear products increased by 7.8%, and clothing products increased by 17.9%; and then in September, the prices of footwear and clothing increased by 7% and 11% respectively.

Zhang Zhiyong, President of Li Ning Co, has publicly expressed the hope that the price gap with Nike will be smaller and smaller, and it may be less than 10% in the future.

The purpose of raising prices is not self-evident. It is consistent with Nike and Adidas in terms of product prices and user positioning, directly and continuously improving the quality of user groups.

However, the market's reaction to the price increase of Lining products is rather cold.

The three quarterly report of Li Ning Co in 2010 showed that in the three quarter of 2010, the sales revenue of same store sales increased by 4%, while in the first quarter of 2010 and the first half of 2010, the growth rate of same store sales was 5% and 4.6% respectively.

On the other hand, Nike did the opposite. The 300 yuan low price shoe launched last August was 25% lower than the current price.

This price will undoubtedly attract the pursuit of brand "after 90".

In Zhu Xiaoming's view, there is still a big gap between Lining and Nike ADI in terms of brand loyalty and recognition.

Lining's main user group is still concentrated in two or three line cities, which is more sensitive to price. Simply raising the brand by raising the price may lose some of the original users.

The international investment bank Goldman Sachs report pointed out that Li Ning Co's removal of brand is facing crisis, and the risk of sales channel is also an urgent problem to be solved.

Not only does the brand fall into the awkward situation of "high failure or low", the layout of Lining's channel is also somewhat entangled.

The one or two cities undoubtedly gathered most of the high-end consumer groups.

In fact, the high-end market of these cities has been completely separated from Nike and Adidas, and the three or four tier market is also dominated by the "Jinjiang shoe upper" represented by Anta and XTEP.

In particular, compared with Anta, the original channel advantage of Li Ning Co has been very weak.

According to the performance forecast issued by Li Ning Co in January 17th, as of the end of 2010, there were more than 7900 stores.

Over the same period, the number of Anta stores has increased to 7549, but the gap is only 400.

There were soldiers behind them, and there were encirclement and suppression.

In recent years, Nike and Adidas are trying to "sink" the channel, and have made plans in 2010: in the next 5 years, we will increase the number of new stores in the two or three line market, and we will work out products that are closer to the two or three line market at the price segment.

Zhu Xiaoming believes that the future two or three line market channel competition will be even more tragic.

"Before, Nike's counterfeit products were rampant in the two or three line cities, but in fact, they did a good brand training for them.

When the real goods arrive, the potential consumers who have been trained for many years are likely to become actual users.

This is why Nike and other international brands are not concentrating on counterfeiting.

As far as channels are concerned, Li Ning Co still has its own characteristics.

It sells products in the form of exclusive distribution, that is, distributors do not set up shop exclusively with "Lining card", but sell other brand products at the same time.

At present, Lining has gathered red double happiness, new mobile, AI Gao and Kaisheng brands, and will appear in the terminal channel of Lining.

Despite its brand name, the sales of Lining brand are still the largest among Lining's stores in the Li Ning Co's revenue structure. According to its 2009 annual report, the sales revenue of the core brand Lining brand increased by 21.1% to 7 billion 690 million yuan, accounting for 91.7% of the total sales revenue; the 2010 performance forecast also showed that the proportion of other brands of the company's total sales revenue last year was similar to that of 2009.

Fang Shiwei admitted in an interview with the times weekly reporter that this sales mode may distract the attention of consumers and affect the sales efficiency of single stores.

He said, "it will definitely be adjusted later, and Lining stores will focus on the sale of Lining products later."

In addition, Fang Shiwei also said, "Li Ning Co will further optimize the supply chain system and sales mode of different sales areas."

The sales organization is directly controlled by the headquarters, and is integrated into three large areas (the north, the East and the South) from the previous five regions, and is responsible for the marketing and distribution of the region independently.

The experience of retail terminals is also undergoing reform.

Li Ning Co will open 70 sixth generation flagship stores in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

Speaking of this, Fang Shiwei spoke with caution. "Now the sixth generation flagship store is still in the process of planning and keeping it confidential."

At the same time, the sixth generation flagship store will be set up. Li Ning Co will also integrate the distribution channels, mainly integrating the single business shops with poor performance, and the number of integrated stores will be about 500-600.

On the other hand, we will continue to make new additions. According to President Zhang Zhiyong's plan, the number of Li Ning Co stores will expand to 8700 this year.

"We try to change everything.

This is the sportsmanship we emphasize.

Fang Shiwei said.

I just don't know if Lining is "anything is possible" this time.