Can Lining Succeed In This Pformation? Time Validation Change

The slogan "everything is possible" started in 2000 to let a batch of China.

Followed by a new exchange of slogans and signs, Lining is entering the direction of replacement after 20 years of entrepreneurship.

For a company with high recognition in the market, can the pformation be successful?

Over the past year or so, whether it is quarterly or semi annual reports, the number of Lining presented is far less than that before pformation.

In August 24th, Li Ning Co's first half performance report showed that Li Ning Co's net profit in the first half of the year was 294 million yuan, a decrease of 49.5% from 582 million yuan in the same period last year.

At this time, several sports brand semi annual reports have been released. Among them, Anta has performed well, with sales performance and profits reaching 4 billion 450 million yuan and 930 million yuan respectively. At the same time, international brands such as Nike, Adidas and so on are actively participating in major events in China, and still maintain the unique brand of international brands.

In the external worries, Lining's "pition period" appears to be very long, and there may be unavoidable pains.

Had to turn

After 2008 of the global financial crisis and the same year's Beijing Olympic Games, China's sporting goods industry is becoming more mature. At the same time, the rapid growth of China's sporting goods enterprises is facing bottlenecks, and the industry is also in urgent need of upgrading.

Under such circumstances, Lining's consumer structure is slightly old. Under the attack of foreign brands and domestic brands, Lining's position is not clear, his brand lacks cultural attributes and his personality is not distinct.

Zhang Qing, a former Lining employee and founder of the key sports marketing company, said: "facing the post pformation Lining, is it worth buying after 90? This move is faced with the risk of losing the original consumer groups. How can Lining avoid it? Can we stand out in the increasingly homogeneous product competition with the help of remodeling and pformation? Can we successfully expand the international market and achieve the international brand positioning?" these are all questions Li Ning Co needs to think about and needs time to test.

Many people believe that Lining's pformation is not smooth. An important reason is that the estimate of consumption upgrading is too advanced. After Lining's pformation, he emphasized the movement characteristics of products too much in marketing, which did not get the recognition of potential consumers.

In fact, the market of leisure and fashion has been let off.

There is a view that the Li Ning Co made a few mistakes: first, the subjective positioning of the brand connotation, to its own positioning and its actual consumer groups are too different; two, the change is too thorough, slogans and LOGO can gradually change; three, give up the bull market at the golden bull stage, but take the thought to re cultivate the next generation; four, even if the company's strategic focus is on the young group, to adopt multi brand strategy can not do it, there is a view that if Lining wants to turn to high-end, he must give up part of the target market.

Instead of competing for 70 and 80, it is better to concentrate resources on the post-90s. Combined with the demographic characteristics of the 1990s and the prediction of variables in the next few years, today's pformation is the best time.

Regarding this, Zhang Xiaoyan, director of public affairs of Lining group, said, "although Lining was founded in 1990, the happiness, passion and enjoyment brought by sports can not be divided by age."

In fact, Lining has his own difficulties in focusing on the "post-90s" group.

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 35-40 year old group, and the population was over 50%.

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

But positioning directly after 90 is hard to understand.

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

Zhu Xiaoming, the founder of Tai Du sports company, believes that Lining has been established for 21 years, and has formed a consumer group spanning many age groups. It is too much emphasis on the age of consumers, which is not conducive to maintaining the original brand followers. "Therefore, it is not appropriate to highlight the creation for the post-90s". After more than a year, Zhu Xiaoming no longer expressed his opinion on Lining pformation.

Two years later, I will talk about success or failure.

In fact, changing the standard, changing slogans and changing the route, in the course of the development of Chinese enterprises, this is not just a Lining company.

"In 2002, Lenovo changed its performance.

The pain is normal if we want to break through the bottleneck.

No pains can be avoided for the pain of internationalization.

Zhang Qing believes that in addition, "HUAWEI, Tencent, Changhong and other Chinese local enterprises have related experience, they pass the information to the outside world by changing the bid: there will be new tricks to play cards."

There are also well-known brand pformation cases in the world.

In March 2011, Starbucks changed its bid globally, and Starbucks changed its bid to replace Lining's bid. "All old customers can not accept the new standard at once, and think they are not as good as they used to be."

In Starbucks's view, "bid change" is seen as an attempt to diversify strategy, and it also conveys the changes of the company's image and values.

It is far from simple and good-looking to change the company's bid. The replacement of Starbucks and Lining is due to major changes in the company's strategy and marketing.

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"Transition pains usually take 3 years before and after.

We can not talk about heroes in a short time. Two years later, that is the key to Lining's pformation.

Zhang Qing said that Lining's dilemma today is not entirely a result of strategic pformation. The overall adjustment of the sports industry is a huge external influence.

Market competition is like long-distance running. As long as the brand is still there, the game will not end.

Now, we must stick to it.

There is no essential right or wrong in strategy, only the result of execution is different. "The time of formation of Chinese brand is too short, and there is no historical precipitation.

For example, Coca-Cola has done a series of promotion with the theme of "home" in the past few years. Has it not caused much impact? The most important thing is product, product or product.

The slogan "anything is possible" has been called for 10 years to get market recognition. The new slogan should allow market recognition to take time to accumulate.

From a personal perspective, Zhang Qing said he prefers "anything is possible", but "all possible times are over".

Dialogue Enterprises

Li Ning Co: pformation takes time to locate mainstream cities in the future.

The pformation started in June 30, 2010 has passed for more than a year. Whether it is quarterly or semi annual reports, the figures presented by Lining are not so convincing. Reporters interviewed Li Ning Co about the success or failure of the pformation and the resulting market controversy.

Reporter: many views on Lining's pformation, what does Li Ning Co think?

Li Ning Co: this question can be answered to the fundamental reason for our strategic pformation.

China's sporting goods market can be divided into four main driving factors: the mainstream city value consumption drive and the basic urban price consumption drive.

The former is value consumers while the latter is mainly price consumers.

The two are not right or wrong, mainly because of different strategic choices.

Lining's choice of the former is also an inevitable choice for us to build a world-class sports brand.

Everything has a process, and strategic pformation is even more so. It takes time.

We have foreseen the challenges and difficulties, and we have encountered even more serious situations. But the overall direction and pace are in our planning.

Reporter: for the strong offensive and performance of competitors, what do Li Ning Co think of the current direction?

Li Ning Co: we do not comment on competitors.

There are three important conditions for building a sports brand: first, to understand consumers.

The second is to have the world's top sports resources and their recognition.

Finally, we have the ability to really help top athletes and consumers to participate in sports, enjoy sports and improve athletic performance.

Reporter: China's sports brand will take the road of pformation. Lining is in the front. Over the past year, what lessons and experiences has Lining learned in the pformation process? Semi annual report shows that the gross profit margin is difficult to improve in the short term. Is there any action in operation mode or channel?

Li Ning Co: the fundamental change is from former channel drive to value drive.

Li Ning Co now has about more than 8000 stores, mainly distributed in two or three cities in China.

But as we said in the annual report, our future position is the mainstream city value consumer market.

So the whole market structure will have an update process in the future.