Zhang Zhiyong Responded Sharply To Lining'S Orders: Undergoing Spanformation.

As report goes, Lining The company has changed its new trademark since the third quarter of last year, but now it has been a year since the end of the Lining brand. Order-placing meeting Look, orders are falling sharply, and the annual report released in March is cloudy. Some people question that the giant of the domestic sports brand seems to be on the decline. Lining's brand strategy has entered a dead end? Li Ning Co general manager Zhang Zhiyong told reporters in an exclusive interview that this is only a problem encountered by Li Ning Co during the "spanformation period".

In the 2011 quarter of, the third quarter of the Lining brand product order meeting, according to retail brand In terms of price, the order amount decreased by more than 8% per year, the wholesale price dropped by about 14%, and the order volume of shoes and service products dropped by about 17%, except that the average retail price increased by about 10%. At the same time, in the Li Ning Co annual report, by the end of 2010, the total amount of losses has reached 201 million 300 thousand yuan. For this result, Li Ning Co CEO Zhang Zhiyong "spanition period" to explain:

Zhang Zhiyong: we think this is a change that we have to take the initiative to take, because when a company's brand is developing to a certain stage, it is necessary for consumers to carry out a spanformation for them. When spanforming, some things will be abandoned. Just as we did in 1996, we all know that when we were in 1996 or 1997, our company had about 70 million business. At that time, this business was already very large. It was actually a big business. It came from leather goods, leather belts, gloves and leather briefcases. Later, after we finished consumer research, we found that the connection between these products lines and sports was far away, which weakened the sports assets of our brands. Later, we stopped these products lines in 1996 and 1997, and indeed brought profits and benefits, but this is not good for the long-term development of the brand. We must make some trade-offs here.

The brand remolding in Zhang Zhiyong's mouth means that over the past decade or so, the basic mode of growth of Lining's brand is still the expansion of channels. From more than 1000 stores six or seven years ago to more than 7900 stores now, the scale of Li Ning Co is expanding rapidly. However, how many of these are beautiful soap bubbles, but we have no idea. In recent years, the cost of China's production, sales and other links has risen, including the increase in the cost of retail channels. The obvious change that we have seen is the declining performance of Li Ning Co. But now, Lining has begun to start again.

Zhang Zhiyong: we need three years to gradually upgrade our Lining brand to a new platform. In fact, Lining also said this year at the annual meeting of the company. He said that Lining had changed a little earlier today, just like his hand came back, and then clenched his fist and gathered our ability to really attack it again. He plans to let consumers see a brand new and truly competitive after three years.

Today's sporting goods market in China can be described as "changeable". It may not be too much. You just sing and I'm on the stage. Besides the brand of Lining, Adidas, Nike and other brands that are born in sports, brands like the H&, M, Zara and other non sporting goods monopolized brands should also get a share. But in Zhang Zhiyong's view, it is only possible to make sports leisure products from sports itself, which is also the advantage of them competing with other non monopoly sports products brands.

Reporter: now the market for sporting goods should be a phenomenon of group pattern. If we reduce the number, will it be a more dangerous signal for the whole competition?

Zhang Zhiyong: I don't think so. The reason is that in many products we sell, many consumers buy this product or wear it everyday. This ratio is very, very high. But in the past two years, we found another factor is expanding, and the competition of retail brands is expanding. For example, you can see that H&, M and ZARA are actually closer to sports life. They find that they can wear other leisure brands besides daily fashion products of sports brands in daily life. What is the ultimate goal of sports brand? Or is it necessary to return to sports itself? If you go back to your sports from sports life, this is not the ultimate competitiveness of sports brands. If we seize this source and pull those consumers who really love sports, then there will be no problems. So in this aspect of positioning, in this turning point, we also see the change of consumers. It is very important to judge this boundary at this stage, not to say that any business can catch up.

In the competitive sporting goods market, in addition to competing with the brand of non exclusive sporting goods, how can Lining compete with the famous foreign brands such as Nike, Adidas and so on? How should Lining respond to the encirclement and suppression of domestic sports brands?

With the increasingly fierce competition, many people have decided that Lining has begun to abandon competition with the low and middle end manufacturers, turn to the professional field and enter the high-end market. But at the same time, foreign high-end brands represented by Nike and Adidas are beginning to reach the middle end, and a large number of domestic brands that occupy the market in the two or three line cities also have enough strength to move from the low end to the middle end. In response, Zhang Zhiyong responded that there is still a gap between Lining and the international high-end products, which will build up mutual trust between domestic consumers and the brand so as to cultivate the loyalty of domestic consumers to products.

Zhang Zhiyong: our price segment is really not high end. Our main price segment is between 250 and 380, 390, which accounts for about 70% of our price. In addition, I believe that Nike ADI or international brand, or any brand of its penetration, I think it is competitive, this poses a very big challenge to Chinese brands, but ultimately the key to provide consumers with value is cost-effective, which can include your use value, including your emotional value. This kind of emotional value is attached to what we have just said to do brand, product innovation can be achieved.

On the other hand, for the competition of domestic homogenization companies, Zhang Zhiyong believes that this should not have happened. Companies should make a good match and connection between their main products and ultimate consumers, so as to have a healthy market.

Zhang Zhiyong: actually, I have always believed that in China's big market, every sports brand can find its own consumers and market segments. This is the most interesting point of making brands, because you can't eat the whole brand, because the breakdown of consumption will happen. Every consumer has what he likes and what he does not like. This is the final consumption. Even if the two top brands in the world are actually different consumers, if everyone has their own unique positioning, rather than ultimately taking price competition, the whole market will become healthier. In fact, the last thing I want to see in industry is the price killing between the two.