Anta Ding Shizhong: Only By Fighting Bravely Can We Win The Olympic Games

More than ten years have passed since I dared to spend money on marketing, Ding Shizhong Still unchanged. The industry estimates that Anta will sponsor the Chinese Olympic Committee for as much as 600 million yuan this time.

At the 2012 London Olympic Games, Anta succeeded in surpassing Li Ning To become a sponsor of the London Olympic Games and create a "champion dragon suit" for the Chinese sports delegation.

In addition, Anta also launched a large-scale advertising campaign during the Olympic Games. In Beijing Wangfujing Pedestrian Street, Anta's huge champion dragon dress model stood in the street and attracted countless passers-by to watch. In addition, Anta also launched a new Olympic promotional film during the Olympic Games. Ding Shizhong invited many sports stars to participate, including Xu Haifeng, China's first Olympic gold medal, Guo Jingjing, the diving queen, and Kong Linghui, the Olympic table tennis champion.

The industry estimates that Anta will sponsor the Chinese Olympic Committee for as much as 600 million yuan this time.

So people are thinking that whenever the photos of the Chinese athletes who won the gold medals appear on the front pages and prominent positions of major newspapers clothing Ding Shizhong, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Anta Sports Goods Co., Ltd., must have been enjoying himself when the brand logo of Anta was looming on his chest, and felt that 600 million yuan was worth spending. Really?

　 Olympic scramble

Ding Shizhong's love for the Olympics is a special hobby cultivated by competition in the process of running enterprises.

Those who are familiar with Ding Shizhong know that he transformed from a small shoemaker to an entrepreneur through countless hardships and doubts. In particular, he broke through the traditional shackles and asked Kong Linghui to speak for his company Anta in 1999. At that time, Anta's benefits were less than one million yuan, and this advertisement cost 800000 yuan, which attracted many people's incomprehension.

But Kong Linghui is following Anta In the second year after signing the contract, Anta won the gold medal in men's singles at the Sydney Olympic Games, which helped spread the brand image of Anta. "The Olympic Games is the top display platform for sports marketing, which has a very good role in improving our brand image and reputation." The Olympic marketing means took root in Ding Shizhong's heart, and he is determined.

At the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Li Ning lit the torch, once again making Li Ning's brand a fire. This made Ding Shizhong, who loves Olympic marketing and has always been talking about surpassing Li Ning, feel very sorry.

Ding Shizhong spared no expense in the London Olympics. "Anta is proud to build award-winning equipment for Chinese Olympic athletes, and also the glory of Jinjiang brand." Ding Shizhong said, "Anta has prepared sufficient supporting funds to operate cooperation projects with the Chinese Olympic Games." This time, Anta focused on the "Chinese Legion", seizing the largest piece of the "Olympic cake".

The Chinese Olympic Committee said that Anta's sponsorship fees have exceeded those of "top sponsors of the Olympic Games".

According to the financial report publicly disclosed by Anta Sports, the advertising and publicity rate of Anta for the mid 2011 Olympic Games rose to 12.6%, and will further rise to 14% in 2012. According to the 2011 turnover of 8.9 billion yuan, Anta's sports marketing expenses including the Olympic Games have exceeded 1.2 billion yuan.

More than ten years have passed since Ding Shizhong dared to spend money on marketing. But this time, Ding Shizhong is so generous. Is he really not distressed?

　 Inventory pressure leads to war

Looking back at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, it is not difficult to find that the event held at home, although businesses from all walks of life have rubbed their fists together, ended up in adidas. Local brands can't avoid it, so PEAK, Li Ning and other brands have saved the country by sponsoring foreign Olympic delegations or national teams, hoping to get a piece of the luxury feast. Ding Shizhong also made a lot of efforts in 2008, but he only played the sidelines.

In addition to the fact that the Olympic Games itself has attracted much attention, all sports brands want to improve their brand reputation with the publicity of the Olympic Games.

In the past 2011, several major sports brands in China have suffered from overstock. Li Ning's annual report shows that their inventory reached 1.13 billion yuan in 2011, almost twice the amount in 2008. The inventory of special procedures is 671 million yuan, 361 degree inventory is 451 million yuan, and PEAK inventory is 421 million yuan. Anta is no exception, with an inventory of 618 million yuan, which is under great pressure.

"On the one hand, various brands continue to reduce product prices, on the other hand, rent and labor costs are rising. Sports goods enterprises must learn to maintain profit growth in fierce competition, which is a challenge facing the whole industry." said Xu Yang, director of the brand management center of Anta Sports Goods Co., Ltd.

In this regard, Ding Shizhong said frankly: "There will certainly be pressure, but our advantages are also not available to others." In order to reduce inventory and improve the brand, Anta has made many internal adjustments.

In the face of substantial growth in raw material costs, Anta adopts the "vertical integration" business model. From upstream procurement, research and development, design, production, to downstream brand marketing, channel distribution, and then to related after-sales services, every link is involved. Ding Shizhong hopes that after doing so, on the one hand, the product development process can be shortened through optimization; On the other hand, it can control production and improve the flexibility of production planning.

However, the result of this does not seem to meet Ding Shizhong's expectations. We saw that Anta's average selling price fell in the first half of this year, with its turnover falling by 11.6% to 3.934 billion yuan, and its overall gross profit margin fell by 1 percentage point, including that of shoes, clothing, accessories and other parts. The data from the order meeting is also not optimistic. For the first quarter of 2013 order meeting just ended in July, the order amount of Anta in the first quarter of 2013 fell by 20% to 30% year on year.

Therefore, it is not difficult to understand how to seize the Olympic Games. But what can the Olympics bring to Anta?

Who dares wins

In order to fully interpret Anta in the Olympic Games, Ding Shizhong's Anta "Champion Dragon Clothes" show uses many Chinese elements, such as dragon, red, etc. Although some people doubt the style of Ding Shizhong's naming "Dragon Clothes", netizens have begun to ask where to buy "Champion Dragon Clothes".

"Olympic marketing is not a simple exposure, but a precipitation of the brand. A big marketing is a precipitation process." Ding Shizhong stressed. It can be seen that Ding Shizhong is full of confidence in relying on the Olympic Games to improve product sales, but he dare not jump to conclusions about when it will have an effect.

Ding Shizhong used to use marketing to build Anta brand successfully because of his courage and resourcefulness. However, under the overall downturn of the industry, the prospect of Anta's huge investment in Olympic marketing is not good in the industry. The performance report released by Anta shows that Anta's net profit in the first half of the year dropped by 17% year-on-year to 769.6 million yuan, which is the first time that Anta's net profit fell, and it is also during the Olympic Games.

Ding Shizhong is worried about this, but he believes in the brand charm of Anta. Ding Shizhong has always been a solid enterprise. He believes that his efforts will be quickly spread through the influence of the Olympic Games.

In order to improve the sales channels, Anta invited Accenture to promote ERP (enterprise resource planning). Through the ERP system, every action, purchase, sales and inventory from the customer's order to the production department can be monitored.

In the past, Anta had to collect the sales data of various dealers around the country. The secondary agent had to send the report to the primary agent first, and then the primary agent reported to the head office by fax. Every month, there were 3000 or 4000 faxes sent to the head office. Moreover, due to the time difference or some mistakes, it is easy to cause the data to be untrue or delayed, which will bring trouble to the company's decision-making.

Ding Shizhong believes that these practical efforts have guaranteed the quality of the enterprise, while the publicity of the Olympic Games has improved the image of the enterprise. Ding Shizhong thought it was worth spending 600 million yuan.

In his opinion, the core value of the official partner status of the Chinese Olympic Committee is to improve the brand height, which is very valuable for the brand repositioning of Anta, which is what Anta needs most now.

Moreover, he is convinced that the current crisis will not be a permanent crisis. As long as you dare to fight, you will win. Just as he pursued Li Ning in the past, now it is beyond. It just takes time.