Nike'S New Way Of Running New Battlefields, Creating A New Era Of Sports Marketing

4 years ago, Liu Xiang's retreat to Nike brought a public relations nightmare. After 4 years, Nike actually faced a worse situation: Liu Xiang's tragedy replayed, Li Na's first round was eliminated, Yi Jianlian led the Chinese men's basketball team five games were all negative, embarrassed out, Nike in China.

The three most influential sports resources are "completely annihilated".

However, even in the Olympic Games, the results were "horrible", but with the "great body" copybook on micro-blog, Nike pulled back the score in the Olympic marketing war outside the stadium.

From it, people are seeing a new trend of sports marketing and some new ways to play.

The mentality of the Chinese people is changing and the media environment is changing. Under such a big background, sports marketing is entering a new era.

New era, new battlefield, new way of playing

London Olympic Games is a demarcation line on the road of Olympic marketing development. Before that, the main axis of Olympic marketing war was offline.

The most classic case happened at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games.

Jordan, Barkley and other NBA superstars, in order to safeguard the interests of their sponsors Nike, put the American flag on their own body, thus concealed the Reebok Logo in the award dress, cleverly bypassed the contract restrictions of the US Olympic Committee and Reebok, leaving only Reebok suffering.

After 16 years of Beijing Olympics, "gloomy" was replaced by Reebok's Adidas.

Before the opening of the Olympic Games, Olympic volunteers wearing Adidas's auspicious cloud T-shirt had spread all over the streets of Beijing. Almost everyone thought that Adidas, the official partner of the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee, could win the Olympic marketing war.

On the evening of August 8, 2008, at the end of the Olympic opening ceremony, Lining, the former gymnastic prince, raised the torch on the top of the bird's nest. When he lit the main torch, Adidas was stunned.

In the past, exposure is the most important index of Olympic marketing. All the enterprises involved want their Logo to appear in all possible places and be seen by more people.

However, in just 4 years, the world has changed a lot.

The marketing environment faced by businesses is also radically changed. London and Beijing are separated by 8000 kilometers. Home advantage no longer existed 4 years ago. The 7 hour difference is doomed to allow the Olympic Games to be televised more dramatically than the Beijing Olympics.

A more fundamental change is that the rise of social media such as micro-blog has opened up a new battlefield for the Olympic marketing war.

In August 6th, the day before the 110 metre hurdle preliminaries, Nike released a poster on micro-blog.

Liu Xiang on the poster looked straight ahead and started running. The above copy was written to "great, no need to give answers to others."

Looking back at all the posters released by Nike on micro-blog on the theme of "live your greatness" during the Olympics, you will find that only this one was released before the start of related competitions.

When sponsors try to create a "public participation" instead of "strive for the first" before the competition, they should know that their subtext is bad, and Liu Xiang is in a bad situation.

Only 14 minutes after Liu Xiang fell down, Nike released a new poster picture on micro-blog. The above copy is: "who dares to spell all dignity, who dares to go all over the summit, even if nothing is gained, who dares to rush, who dares to fall, great dare."

And the text part of micro-blog reads, "let 1 billion 300 million people jump to the finish line with one leg."

Within 10 minutes after the release, the micro-blog was forwarded more than 10 thousand times. After 3 hours, the forwarding volume of sina alone exceeded 100 thousand.

Nike's series of "great" themes have been completely detonated.

Since then, the "great body" has quickly set off a wave of "all objects" like a small climax, which has been constantly interpreted by PS.

When many companies are still on the line to defend themselves and fight hard, Nike has completed counterattack on micro-blog, creating a textbook classic sports marketing case.

The popularity of the great body has also brought the public relations team behind Nike to the surface. The team is composed of five companies, Nike and W+K, Razorfish, AKQA, Jia Ai (CIC), and Mindshare (Mindshare).

In the underground room of Sinan road in Shanghai, more than 30 employees of 5 companies worked together for 17 days and nights to ensure that any accidents at the stadium can be reacted at the first time.

In addition to the first reaction after the game, the pre competition plan is equally important. After Liu Xiang's injury and retirement, Nike sent out copywriters and posters in more than ten minutes, but the reaction was too fast, which also led to some negative arguments.

In fact, because Liu Xiang had retired 4 years ago, and coach Sun Haiping also told the media that Liu Xiang's foot injury was "repeated". Therefore, it is a very natural thing for Sun Haiping who has a lingering fear to do his homework in advance.

Later, members of the Nike public relations team privately said that Liu Xiang had ended the competition in such an extreme way as the Achilles tendon laceration. This was also unexpected. In the group, some people even cried bitterly.

Nike will prepare for the ultimate goal, coupled with the ability to cope with others, and finally help them win the battle in this new Olympic marketing battlefield online.

The full plan and quick response is also the key to the success of event marketing.

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It is worth mentioning that Liu Xiang half an hour after the withdrawal, micro-blog has always liked the "gag" Durex also to join in the fun, a "fastest man is not the best, persist in the end is really strong men" micro-blog attracted many people clapping, easy to earn more than 45000 times forwarding.

After the Olympics, Nike turned its attention to the next battleground, WeChat.

In August 14th, Nike's proxy company announced its partnership with Tencent on a high-profile basis, and launched Nike's brand subscription platform at WeChat. Nike began to test water WeChat marketing.

On August 23rd -26, Nike's Shanghai sports hosted offline activities, Nike's Nike interactive game "scanning two-dimensional code, collecting badges" has already shown its head.

The reason why Nike is praised by the industry is not only the delicate copywriting and the quick reaction, but also the ability to play the edge ball.

In the table tennis men's singles final, Wang Hao, who finished the 3 Olympic Games in the finals, lost to Zhang Jike and won the silver medal again.

"The 3 runner up proves your determination to win the 3 time."

The copywriter said so.

Lining, the sponsor of the Chinese table tennis team, was the first time after the game. Lining launched the posters with Zhang Jike as the theme. Although the copywriting pictures were excellent, and achieved good communication results, Nike took another way to steal Lining's popularity.

This way of "edge ball" marketing has made some Olympic official sponsors very angry.

"As a partner of the Chinese Olympic Committee, Anta has not endorsed any form of" edge ball "marketing and invisible marketing, but also has the responsibility to oppose Olympic stealth marketing with the Chinese Olympic Committee.

Facing reporters how to treat Nike's latent marketing, Anta official replied.

Anta's dissatisfaction is understandable. After years of huge investment and hard preparation, rival Nike has finished counterattack only by a dozen micro-blog. At least in the new battlefield of micro-blog, the effect of the "great body" of Nike is far superior to that of the "champion dragon suit" of the Anta. No one can deny this.

In fact, whether Nike's "edge ball" or Anta's steady and steady strategy, behind the different models is the most suitable strategy choice for their brand characteristics.

Under the background of the depressed industry, it is imperative to consolidate the foundation for local sports brands in deep mire.

Anta's "dragon clothing" advertising is hard to impress the first tier cities to admire young consumers of foreign brands, but for Anta's target consumer groups, it is in line with their psychological expectations and aesthetic habits.

Therefore, through the champions dragon's continuous exposure and the decline in the first half of the company's performance, these "landing" methods are more practical and more direct to the sales side.

Analyzing the two strategies, it is easy to find that there are totally different two business logic behind them. Anta is pragmatic. Therefore, the exposure rate of brands is the most important. Even if "dragon clothing" is difficult to relate to sports spirit, Anta will also be popular with Chinese athletes.

Nike is not. In order to maintain the first-class image of the brand, it must spare no effort to build the brand. At that time, the reputation of the brand has become the key.

Nike's edge ball strategy has also led to a new discussion in the industry, that is, whether it is worthwhile to spend huge amounts of money to become an official Olympic official partner, and the answer depends on what the enterprise demands.

It is widely circulated that the funds invested by Anta and the Chinese Olympic Committee in the 3 year cooperation period are as high as 600 million yuan. Anta did not confirm this figure to reporters, but said that "the cost of this cooperation is also the largest sports resource sponsorship of the Chinese Olympic Committee in Anta history."

Despite its huge investment, cooperation with the China Olympic Organizing Committee has won Anta the opportunity to "show its face" in many domestic events and mass activities, and the crowd covered by these activities is precisely the target consumers of Anta. Therefore, the cooperation between the two sides is actually a win-win situation.

The same was true in 2004 when Lenovo became the TOP partner of International Olympic Committee, which provided an excellent opportunity for its expansion abroad.

However, when we focus on the "edge ball" marketing, we should dig deeper reasons behind the popularity of Nike copywriting: in sports arena, gold and victory can not only convey the connotation of the brand.

But in the whole country system and the only gold medal theory in China, this way of thinking is quite different.

"The great antonym is not failure, but not spelling."

This is the copy of Nike released by Li Na after the first round of the Olympic Games.

When Federer, a 31 year old king, lost his gold medal in the Olympic singles for the third time, Nike wrote in his copybook: "will you fight for greatness for another four years?"

The sponsors' performance is not good, many local enterprises think that it is a damage to the corporate image, while Nike is not. For Nike, "failure" is also valuable.

It takes a lot of courage and confidence in the brand itself to dare to make an essay around the losing side of the match.

Chinese society is constantly opening up and the mentality of the Chinese people is changing. The gold medal is no longer the only criterion. This is the fundamental reason why the great body can become popular.

Another advantage of not being a performance hero is that it enables Nike to maintain a lasting and stable relationship with its sponsors.

After seeing Nike's own copywriting, Li Na immediately said to micro-blog: "I love you because of our cooperation and falling in love with you because you have always understood us so well."

The ups and downs of the athletes are very normal. One month after the Olympic defeat, Li Na won the championship in Cincinnati masters and broke his 15 months' champion shortage.

Aside from all disputes, Nike's most valuable place for other companies to learn is that it can always find a unique perspective to interpret the spirit of sports.

They are also good at linking their brands closely with these spirits.

The Olympic men's basketball final took place at 10 p. m. in Beijing time on August 12th. During the epic match between the United States and Spain, Nike focused on the commentary of the competition.

"It is also great to explain the greatness of others."

One hour after the start of the competition, Nike released the copy. The short 13 characters drew the psychological sympathy of the media. Yu Jia, who commentates the CCTV5, the first basketball player commentator, forwarded the micro-blog after the match.

Sports marketing seems to be something that everyone can participate in, but what is the essence of sports marketing? How can we achieve twice the result with half the effort? During this Olympic Games, many classic cases are letting more and more enterprises see that brand exposure is not the only pursuit of Olympic marketing, how to make the spirit of the brand resonate with the public, and how to turn the greatest sports event of mankind into a stage of exporting brand values. It is inseparable from the long-term accumulation and input of sports resources, but it is also inseparable from the understanding of the social environment and the environment of communication and keeping pace with the times.

Sports

It is time to start a new era.