Nike: Star Factory Fourteen Years Waiting For "Na" Marketing Behind

As the spokesperson of Nike, Li Na won the French Open women's singles championship as a "good fruit".

Just like the production line, Nike started the system more than 10 years ago.

Late in the night, on the red soil of Roland Garros stadium, when the "Na" was blooming, Li Na, who won the French Open women's singles champion, fell on the court excitedly.

Zhu Jinqian, on the side of the TV, knows that his "battle" has begun.

Zhu Jinqian is Nike East China sports (China) Limited (hereinafter referred to as "Nike China") general manager of East China.

What she wants to do is to change the main sales outlets of Nike East China to the "outfit" to celebrate Li Na's winning as soon as possible.

For Zhu, he is very familiar with this kind of work.

5 years ago, in July 12, 2006, Li Na, who was the spokesman for Nike as well as Liu Xiang, created the world record of "12 seconds 88" in Lausanne, Switzerland. Zhu Jinqian acted as a world record.

Compared with the "Xiang marketing" that happened 5 years ago, there is no big difference between store replacement, T-shirt production, plane, TV and website advertising. However, after years of accumulation, micro-blog's marketing system is more systematic and interactive.

Fourteen years waiting

"A lot of people worked hard and stayed up all night.

Wuhan Jianghan Road started last night, and the people of our hometown came to our shop with firecrackers.

At noon on June 5th, Zhu Jinqian entered MSN, and she was still busy for a night.

Li Na is a member of the martial arts who supports Li Na's "natives" who turned hard from the "single flight" to the professional athletes in 2008. After Li Na became the first tennis player in Asia to win the four Grand Slam championship, Li Na's first sentence was "thank you."

"The cooperation between Li Na and Nike began in 1997.

When Li Na was 15 years old, Nike helped her to TheJohnNewcombeTennisAcademy (JohnNewcombe Tennis Academy) in Texas, USA.

It was Li Na's first chance to exercise tennis skills and learn English abroad.

Li Na always thought it was a great experience.

Huang Xiangyan, director of Nike China Communications, said.

Indeed, it is hard to have any brand like Nike, which has been consistently sponsoring the same spokesperson for a long time and has had a bumper harvest in the fourteenth year.

"There are some misconceptions about sports marketing in most Chinese enterprises, always trying to maximize output with minimum input."

Zhang Qing, President of Sports Management Consulting Co. Ltd., said: "this is not a problem in specific circumstances.

But the core principle of business games is actually value exchange. If a brand can not first impress the corporate spokesperson from the heart, how can the spokesperson reveal the true feelings in the face of consumers, which will better convey the understanding of corporate brand?

According to Huang Xiangyan, for the past more than 10 years, the most important thing for Nike to serve Li Na is to provide her with all kinds of sports equipment needed for training and competition.

Of course, it also includes casual sports clothes.

In addition, Nike hopes to present Nike's support for this great athlete at the right time, such as the women's singles champion who won the French Open this time.

Nike's support is by no means empty talk.

In 2002, Li Na was disappointed with the "national system" of tennis, so he retired for two years to go to university.

But Nike did not give up contact with Li Na.

In 2004, Li Na re emerged from the mountains, and Nike quickly reclaimed its leading edge.

System and warmth

As the world's most popular sports brand, Nike has a complete set of athlete endorsement selection and service system.

Generally speaking, Nike will find worthwhile nurseries through different summer camps or scouting systems.

As mentioned earlier, Li Na, 15, gained popularity with Nike through JohnNewcombe Tennis Academy, and Liu Xiang's 18 year old record of 13 seconds 34 at the World University Games triggered Nike's concern.

After signing up for the athletes, Nike will provide at least one professional to keep track of the dynamics of the "Li Na" in addition to providing the necessary equipment.

Huang Xiangyan did not disclose who served Li Na, but Wang Yao, who followed Liu Xiang, was in charge of track and field in 2002. He worked around the Nike track sponsored China Athletics Association and the field athletes.

Because of familiarity with the life and language of athletes, Wang Yao's communication with the field associations and athletes seems to be flexible: she can give "Liu Xiang" life care, understand their habits and requirements, and respond to these requirements in time, and then give constructive suggestions to Nike's products.

Besides, the division of labor in Nike's marketing department is also simple and efficient.

The marketing department and sales department of Nike China are the two parallel departments. The latter is responsible for product sales and channel management of Nike stores, while the former controls Nike's marketing and public relations affairs.

The marketing department of the marketing department is responsible for the interview of public relations affairs. The sports marketing department is responsible for the communication between the enterprises and the field partners and the cooperative athletes. The brand communication department is responsible for the advertising of Nike in the plane, TV and network.

"There is a long and close relationship between Nike and athletes. We believe that every international event is very important for athletes and Nike.

Because we have the opportunity to spread the best achievements of athletes to more people who like sports, so we plan ahead and prepare for them.

Huang Xiangyan said that for this time Li Na fought for the French Open, Nike's most important task was to provide her with sports equipment during training and athletic fields, so that she could create the best personal results.

In addition, we also created a yellow shirt for Li Na's team to express our support.

All of these were planned ahead of schedule, so after Li Na won the championship, we could spread all over the country and in all kinds of channels at the fastest speed, including the message of "change everything with sports", and let this message be presented in newspaper advertisements, limited posters, champion T-shirts and outdoor advertisements.

On the first night of the championship, we presented this poster to fans of Li Na's hometown in Wuhan as a special gift and quickly extended to 57 Nike shops all over the country every other day to encourage more people to work hard and make every effort to change everything.

It seems that Nike is like a machine running at full capacity in China, considering the system's precision operation and pipeline operation.

What is even more frightening is that the machine also sends out a warm smell from time to time.

In early 2011, Li Na first entered the four Grand Slam finals in the Australian Open and won the runner up. Nike immediately sent two "gifts" to Li Na: one is the Nike sports watch GPS, and the other is Li Na, the breakthrough of the slam.

After winning the Australian Open, Li Na endorsed the Swiss Rolex (Rolex).

But before the luxury luxury brands had time to catch their breath, Nike quickly showed its concern for the athletes and irreplaceable.

In the commercials that Nike launched at the same time, Li Na, 16, used his immature voice to say "ambition to enter the top ten of the world" ambitions.

In this regard, Li Na said through micro-blog: "Nike's friend sent me a video (saying it was a gift for me), which made me surprised and moved. Where did I find such a long time ago? Let's show it to you! It's so shy."

It is easy to see that Nike always knows what can best touch its spokesperson.

This is very important for advertising endorsement, which is bound to add new brands to Li Na.

Gold absorption and risk

A noteworthy fact is that Li Na was 29 years old when he got his first Grand Slam.

How long Li Na's peak state will last will be an important risk that sponsors have to consider when choosing Li Na.

"He called me and said," I won the championship and made him cry. "

I joke with him that he can't cry secretly, but he must cry to me. He said, he can't reveal the fragile side to me.

We are all looking forward to meeting in Wimbledon.

Li Na said in an interview with the sports weekly newspaper reporter.

Here, "he" is Max Eisenbud, Li Na's agent, one of IMG's ace agents.

IMG is one of the best sports brokers in the world. Its company owns many international sports stars such as Federer and Sharapova.

We can not know the exact reason for Max Eisenbud's "crying" for a while, but IMG will try to use Li Na's commercial value as quickly as possible.

One argument is that Li Na's status at present is not very large, which has been in line with international giants: the annual sponsorship contracts of Nike, Rolex and Haagen Dazs Yu Lina are estimated at 20 million yuan, 18 million yuan and 8 million yuan respectively.

In this regard, Nike said it was inconvenient to disclose because of the confidentiality requirements of the contract.

"With the retirement of Guo Jingjing, the number of international stars such as Yao Ming, Liu Xiang and Li Na is fewer and basically belongs to the seller's market. On the one hand, they have both international influence and high popularity at home.

On the other hand, with the rapid development of China's economy, the world famous enterprises will not ignore the Chinese market. "

Zhang Qing analysis said, "the international influence of tennis is between basketball and 110 meters hurdles, so the endorsement fee of Li Na can also be between Yao Ming and Liu Xiang, sitting on two expectations."

In the most prosperous period of Yao Ming and Liu Xiang, the top two public speaking quotations were 4 million dollars / year and 15 million yuan / year respectively.

Accordingly, Li Na's top endorsement cost is about 20 million yuan / year, basically reasonable.

The question now is whether IMG will be able to sign Li Na's endorsement brand and how long Li Na can maintain his peak.

In the women's tennis world, there are few athletes who can still maintain very high competitive standards at the age of 29, and Graf, one of the "phenomenon" tennis talents, is one of them.

Generally speaking, the peak of female tennis players is hard to maintain to 32 years old.

In this sense, what achievements Li Na has made in the next Wimbledon open competition and whether he can continue to maintain the number one momentum in 2011 will directly affect Li Na's endorsement and brand size.

In addition, in general, the top endorsement brand on Li Na's back is unlikely to be too much.

On the one hand, athletes' endorsement can lead to brand dilution; on the other hand, athletes' endorsement must be directly linked to their athletic performance. Too many endorsements and too many commercial entertainment will inevitably affect their daily training, and then affect their performance and influence their status.

Zhang Qing said.

A case that can be referred to is that at the height of Yao Ming, there were about 4-6 endorsements at the first level and no more than 12.

Liu Xiang was once regarded as "over commercial development" because he endorsed more than 12 brands before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

But Nike's experience with Li Na is also hard to replicate to other brands.

Nike's stars such as Kobe, James, Federer, Nadal, C Luo, Woods, Liu Xiang and so on are too many, the East is not bright, the west is bright, the general brand is very difficult to have Nike's strength.

"In the past few days, I returned to training today to move towards new goals."

On the morning of June 8th, Li Na said through micro-blog.

This is really a blessing to the fans who really like Li Na and her endorsement brand, because the achievement of good performance must be more than that of other people's hard training. When the Williams sisters return to prepare to participate in Wimbledon competition, Li Na's championship will not be smooth.