Lining'S New Marketing Strategy Is Hurt. How Many Ways Do Lining Have To Go After 90?

Gym shoes

After the 2009 performance surpassed Adidas, Lining, the proud brand of the Chinese, took advantage of the good situation and made a long time brand remodeling in 2010. The new logo and brand slogan were launched, and the international brands of Nike and Adidas were directly challenged in brand positioning.

However, it is regrettable that the Lining brand, which is heading for the high-end market, has seen a continuous downward trend this year.

According to Li Ning Co's second quarter product orders this year, the total volume of orders decreased by 6% compared with the same period last year.

The results of the third quarter product orders released by the company this year showed that the order amount dropped by more than 8% over the same period. If the wholesale price is calculated, the order amount will be reduced by about 14%.

So, what is the reason for the continuous decline of Lining brand sales? As the most powerful sports brand in China, how far is it to achieve the dream of becoming the top sports brand in the world?

Lining's new marketing strategy has hurt old employees.

"Wobbling", when asked about the most intolerable leadership behavior, Simon blurted out that this was the trouble in the previous work.

Three months ago, Simon was a manager in the marketing department of Li Ning Co, but he decided to take a break and change his job.

He has been in this company for more than four years. When he left, he had some regrets about his unfulfilled ambition. He once told some friends that Lining is China's most likely to become a world-class brand.

In the past year, he kept silent about this view, "only in this mountain."

Last June 30th, Li Ning Co launched the largest brand redevelopment campaign in company history.

Simon is somewhat puzzled. A brand remolding campaign that should have been carefully considered and step-by-step was launched. Why did it lead to high-level personnel turbulence within a year? The company's unstable mind and the declining orders of the channel? He thought the departure of the former CMO Fang Shiwei was also expected. After all, he was the CO ordinator of the brand remolding campaign and could not blame it.

Ah Dick also felt that the company was ill. He pondered and broke the disease into "lack of a clear standard of value judgment". Vague standards appeared both in product development and personnel appointment and removal.

Ah Dick, a highly experienced employee of Li Ning Co's product department, has spent seven years in Lining's itch, but decided to leave Lining when he felt no pain.

The shoe product manager of the company has changed a lot in the past five or six years. He thinks he is "old" and should go out to see a fresh theory of product development.

I heard that the former chairman talked about himself. Roy was surprised that he was a manager in charge of channel sales by Li Ning Co. He resigned after the Spring Festival this year.

Roy also entered Li Ning Co in 2007, responsible for some channel management business innovation.

In his impression, during the four years of the Li Ning Co, he never had a separate communication with Chairman Lining.

From a friend's office, he heard that the former chairman talked about the business he had been in charge of and talked about him. Some of his veterans wanted to go out again.

Simon and Dick have similar views.

They all remember that in January 27th, at the end of the annual meeting of the Lining group, Lining, the chairman of the board, said with great enthusiasm, "in three years, we have a new Lining," but they all chose not to wait.

For the next life, they want to make changes happen.

Lining's new marketing strategy hurt old customers.

At the end of June 2010, at the celebration of the 20 th birthday of Li Ning Co, the new Logo of "Lining cross action" appeared. At the same time, the new brand slogan "made the change (let change happen") replaced what consumers already know "anything is possible". The target is directed at the "post-90s", and is eager to take the lead and occupy the future consumption force.

The brand "Lining", founded by former Olympic champion Lining, has an unusual emotional significance for the Chinese sports equipment market and a generation of Chinese.

Looking back at the consumption culture of Chinese clothing before and after the founding of Lining, China entered the initial stage of brand consumption in the early 90s of last century.

People do not deliberately distinguish the dressing requirements of different occasions. Therefore, Lining and YOUNGOR, Shanshan, tiger and other western style brands are put together, and are regarded as the pronoun of Chinese famous brands.

The spillover effect of the personal brand of the prince of gymnastics brings Lining the first high-speed development, and more importantly, the brand has even become a collective memory of a generation.

According to the relevant information, in the actual consumer group of Lining brand, consumers aged 35 to 40 years old account for about half of the total, while the "post-90s" consumers account for about 30%.

For the entire sporting goods industry, 15 to 35 years old young consumer groups account for more than 80%.

It is precisely because Li Ning Co has clearly realized this point that it has made a major marketing strategy for the "post-90s".

But in the eyes of many people in the industry, this is somewhat aggressive.

Lu Fei, the industry insider, believes that while changing the logo, the strategy of Lining's brand has directly crossed the "post-80s" and aligns the core target consumer group with the "90 generation" generation of its age.

And the "70 after" consumer group, which has become the backbone of Lining's brand business, has been abandoned in the new marketing strategy.

Unfortunately, Lining's brand of "post-90s" customer base does not seem to be popular at present. They are more interested in international brands such as Nike and Adidas.

According to a survey conducted by the relevant agencies for "post-90s", "90's" favorite brand of sports shoes are Nike and Adidas, they are called new consumption owners; in the "post-90s" mentality, "Lining" is still the best in the local brands.

{page_break}

For Li Ning Co's "post-90s" marketing strategy, the sports industry observer Ma Gang and Lu Fei's views are basically the same.

He believes that the accuracy of the post-90s communication strategy may still be deviant, resulting in the fact that the "post-90s" consumers have not been touched by this. At the same time, they have overemphasized the "post-90s" positioning, while ignoring the emotional feelings of the "70" and "80" consumer groups, so that these groups that dominate the mainstream consciousness and grasp the media voice will suppress the Lining brand in public opinion.

But in the long run, Lining's "90s" marketing orientation is correct.

Chen Shaofeng, director of the sports industry research center of Peking University, believes that "post-90s" is the focus of sports marketing. In specific marketing strategies, it can be operated through the introduction of multi brand or multi product lines, which can avoid the loss of other age consumers due to the single location.

Lining's new marketing strategy has hurt old dealers.

Another factor affecting Lining's brand performance is the adjustment of sales channels.

It is understood that, unlike Anta and other sports companies, Lining brand sells products exclusively in the form of exclusive distribution, that is, distributors will not set up stores in the name of Lining brand, but sell various brand products at the same time.

According to the official website of Li Ning Co, as of the end of 2010, Li Ning Co had 129 distributors and more than 2000 distributors.

Of these, more than 1700 distributors operate only one store on average.

These distributors, who only run single stores, have made great contributions to the Li Ning Co in the era of horse race. Less than 100 thousand of them can open a store. The owner of the shop owner is a buyer, display and storehouse commissioner. They help Lining brand extend its tentacles to areas where large dealers can not reach them, so that they can cover cities below three at a lower cost.

However, according to the survey of investment companies, due to the intensification of market competition, many retail outlets operated by distributors have been operating inefficiently for a long time. Most of these stores do not perform well in commodity procurement and inventory management, and excessive inventory of old goods leads to the sale of new products.

To this end, Li Ning Co decided to integrate 500 to 600 inefficient distributors, with the aim of enabling more efficient and larger dealers to gain further development opportunities or acquire inefficient distributors.

But this has undoubtedly led some small distributors to lose momentum.

According to the reporter's understanding, for the uncertainty of the future, we worry that too many orders will lead to a backlog of inventory. Many distributors choose a conservative attitude when signing future orders. This is also one of the reasons for Lining brand's continuous decline in orders in the second, third quarter of this year.

What will Lining do after 90?

Ryui Masa, founder of UNIQLO, who is worth 9 billion dollars, admitted that last year, because of the production of a lot of unnecessary fashion clothes, the backlog of products caused insufficient storage of raw materials, which led to a continuous decline of over 25% of UNIQLO stores since September last year, while Zara and h&m took advantage of this opportunity to enter the headquarters of UNIQLO. Today, Zara has reached 63 stores in Japan, and h&m has reached about 10.

UNIQLO is beset with difficulties both inside and outside.

Ziba's findings show that there is a broad consensus within the Li Ning Co to make changes and reshape them.

According to Zhang Zhiyong's statement, "the upward trend of the middle end consumers is becoming more and more obvious. We must keep pace with the consumers.

Of course, it's easier to walk down, but if we want to become world-class brands, we can only go up. "

Marketing practice proves that: first, consumers only accept things that are consistent with the original knowledge and experience. The concept of "post-90s Lining" conflicts with the inherent brand cognition of consumers. It is difficult to cause rational identification and emotional resonance, and the effect of communication will be greatly reduced. Two, advertising that attempts to change consumer cognition is half done or even fruitless.

The only outcome of "post-90s Lining" is the disapproval of the post-90s generation and the injury after 70.

In the view of Zhu Xiaoming, a famous sports marketing expert, there is still a big gap between Lining and Nike and Adidas in terms of brand loyalty and recognition.

"Lining" is still the main customer group of the brand in the two or three line city. The consumers in this area are more sensitive to the price. If the simple price rises, it will not only achieve the effect of enhancing the brand status, but may also lose some of the original customers.

Brand remolding is not an overnight job.

Experts predict that according to the usual international standards, the contribution rate of overseas market to the company's business can reach 20%. At present, the overseas contribution rate of Lining brand is less than 2%.

Therefore, if there is no precise strategy, effective means and enough patience, Lining brand will be caught up in the long run of growth and will always fall into the dilemma of internationalization but not yet successful.