Lining'S Brand Remolding From The Perspective Of 3C Strategy

The competition in sports products industry is becoming more and more intense, and the role of brand in competition is becoming more and more prominent.

Li Ning Co started from a small company started by Lining, a gymnast prince, and encountered development bottlenecks in the late 90s of last century: slow growth in performance and even negative growth in some years.

For this reason, since 2000, Li Ning Co has begun a series of actions to adjust strategy and rebuild brand.

Thus, Lining has today: the leader of China's sporting goods industry.

What are the successes and shortcomings of Li Ning Co's brand remolding strategy? What problems should we pay attention to in the future?

Based on the 3C strategy model put forward by Japan's strategist Kenichi Ohmae, we made a comprehensive analysis of the Li Ning Co before implementing the brand remolding strategy, put forward the rational thinking of Li Ning Co's brand remolding strategy, and compared with the brand remolding strategy implemented by Li Ning Co, aiming at summarizing the gains and losses of the company in the process of brand remolding, so as to provide reference for Lining and other brand strategies.

The strategic triangle of 3C proposed by 3C strategy triangle Japanese strategist Kenichi Ohmae (Figure 1) believes that there are at least three key factors in successful strategy, namely, the company itself (Corporation), the company's customers (Customer) and its competitors (Competition).

Only by integrating the company, customers and competitors in the same strategy can the sustainable competitive advantage be better.

Therefore, when formulating strategies, enterprises should make full use of their relative competitive advantages to better satisfy customers' needs and strive to form absolute differentiation with their competitors.

For the key factor - enterprises, strive to maximize the competitive edge of enterprises, especially the functional areas closely related to the success of enterprises.

For the key factor customer, it is the foundation of all strategies. The company should first consider the customer rather than the interests of shareholders or other groups.

If the customer demand can not match the company's needs, it will endanger the long-term survival of the company.

In addition, third key factors need to be considered: competitors.

If competitors can not better match the relationship between the two enterprises and customers, the company will also be at a disadvantage.

In short, the competitive advantage of enterprises can be achieved through differentiation in the links of procurement, design, manufacturing, sales and service.

A good strategy must match the relationship between the company itself, the company's customers and the three competitors, and dynamically grasp their evolution trend, so that the enterprise will have the chance to win this interest war.

The three elements of Li Ning Co's strategy before implementing the brand remolding strategy: Li Ning Co became the first brand of China's local sporting goods after five years of establishment, and its market share ranked first in the seven consecutive years. However, after the rapid expansion of the brand in 1990s, it was hit by a development bottleneck.

From the Asian financial crisis in 1997 to 2000, the company failed to break through the growth ceiling. Sales revenue dropped from 670 million yuan in 1996 to 523 million yuan in 1999, and the market share continued to decline. The reasons are as follows.

The problems existing in Li Ning Co itself are as follows: (1) the brand positioning is not clear.

For a long time, the company mainly follows the strategy of following the leading brands of foreign countries. The product positioning and advertising theme demand are constantly changing. The brand and the market lack strategic thinking. Lining's brand positioning is also wobble between "Sports" and "leisure".

2. Brand lacks cultural attributes.

When operating brand, Li Ning Co ignored the building of brand culture and did not form a unique brand culture.

3. Brand personality is not distinct.

In the eyes of consumers, the personality of Lining's brand is always connected with the image of the prince of gymnastics, Lining, that is, "affinity, national, sports and honor" rather than the brand personality of "youth, enthusiasm and fashion" that the company strives to build.

Fourth, the quality of products needs to be improved.

Li Ning Co's product movement attributes are weak, and its technological content, innovation and performance improvement are lagging behind rival Nike and Adidas, and become the primary reason why consumers do not like the products of Lining.

But Li Ning Co also has its advantages, mainly manifested in: 1. Brand awareness is high. After ten years of development, Lining brand has a high reputation and loyalty, and has a cognitive advantage in the minds of consumers.

Second, the company's public relations network is relatively wide. By virtue of Lining's personal influence and the strength accumulated by the company over the past ten years, the Li Ning Co has established a very wide range of public relations resources.

Third, the distribution network is perfect. Li Ning Co has the largest distribution network in the country.

Company customer target customer dislocation.

The target customers of the company are consumers between 14~28 years old, mainly students, large and medium-sized cities, enjoying sports, advocating fashionable fashion and international trend, but the actual consumers are 18 to 45 years old, living in two cities, middle income, not heavy consumers of sporting goods.

The number of new customers is decreasing. Most of the loyal consumers of Lining's brand are admirers of Lining. For the new generation of young people, the attractiveness of "Lining" is gradually losing, and they should be the target consumers of the company.

Customer demand has changed dramatically. With the improvement of living standards, people's consumption ability has been greatly improved, and the demand for functionality, specialization and individuation of sports products is more intense.

In the middle and high-end market of competitors, international brands have entered China one after another. Nike and Adidas are in the absolute leading position in the sporting goods industry. Their brand influence, product function and fashion, sports resources, product image and market promotion are all better than those of Li Ning Co in the Challenger position.

But because they still use the operation mode of mature markets in Europe and America, they have affected their development in China.

Moreover, Nike and Adidas are expensive, the market is mainly distributed in the eastern developed areas, while in the underdeveloped areas of the central and Western China, the development is slow.

The middle and low end market, led by Anta sports equipment Corps in Jinjiang, has broken the Lining brand's unique pattern in the national brand of China's sporting goods.

Although Lining is still in the leading position of national brand of sporting goods, and has stronger brand influence and recognition, higher product quality and technology content, these local brands attract a large number of consumers at a lower price, and already occupy a large market share in the three tier market.

In short, the middle and high-end market competitors are becoming more and more powerful. More and more new customers in the low-end market, the obvious changes of customer demand, and the inherent problems of Li Ning Co, make the development of the company encounter an unprecedented crisis. It is urgent to adjust the brand strategy and implement the brand remodeling project.

According to the strategic thinking of 3C strategic triangle Li Ning Co brand remolding strategy, brand remolding, also known as brand reengineering, refers to a series of processes of brand reengineering, re evaluation and re positioning from the perspective of brand strategy on the basis of existing brand, and ultimately through the brand innovation, the ultimate competitiveness of the brand.

Brand remolding is an inevitable choice for enterprises to adapt to major environmental changes and seek, maintain and enhance their competitiveness in change.

Kevin Keller, a famous brand asset management master, thinks that to rebuild the brand, there are many changes that need to be done, such as changing the brand elements, repositioning the brand and establishing a more convincing difference. That is, creating brand identification, making the brand more in line with the modern trend, more in line with the psychology of modern users, or more modern brand personality, entering new markets, winning new customers, and matching new marketing programs to improve the strength, reputation and uniqueness of brand associations.

Because of the huge changes in target customers' dislocation and competition, Li Ning Co must relocate its brand and target market.

Among the main consumers of sporting goods, consumers aged 15~25 years old account for about half of the total. They are also the main components of Lining brand's non loyal users and potential users, and their annual average consumption level is far higher than that of other age groups.

However, the preference of young consumers to Lining brand is still relatively low compared with other brands, and prices are the main reason why they choose Lining brand at present.

15~25 year old consumers like new, changing and challenging lifestyles, hoping to buy different products and highlight themselves.

On the other hand, most consumers' desire to engage in sports activities hopes to highlight themselves by experiencing the sense of success in sports and become the focus of attention.

Moreover, consumers are paying more attention to the professionalism of sports products, especially young consumers. The emphasis on product technology is obviously higher than that of older consumers.

We must inject brand culture, create brand personality, and enhance brand image in an all-round way.

The main competitors Nike and Adidas have their unique brand culture, and brand culture is particularly important in brand building.

As the first brand of China's local sporting goods, in the economic globalization today, Lining's brand internationalization is reasonable, so that it can not only establish the international image of the Lining brand, but also seek the space for development in the international market in the relatively weak international market such as Nike.

We should give full play to the channel advantages, increase investment in science and technology, extend the brand to the high-end through the way of mother child brand, enhance the added value of the brand, and get a share in the relatively high-end domestic market of Nike and Adidas.

Compared with other local enterprises, Li Ning Co has the advantage of science and technology, and with the largest channel in the country, to build an effective defense system for local brands such as Anta in the middle and low end market.

Li Ning Co's brand remolding strategy, which was implemented in 2000, started the brand remodeling from 2000. During the period from 2000 to 2002, it was the stage of thinking and exploration. For this reason, the company adjusted the management level, introduced many professional talents, reorganized the organizational structure, and established a brand remolding department specially responsible for it.

In 2002, under the intervention of IBM, Li Ning Co made a systematic analysis of the advantages of the business, the industrial environment and the tactics of the company's history, so that the company quickly defined the direction of development. At the end of the year, Li Ning Co formally established the mission, vision, values and business development strategy of the company.

Among them, the mission is to stimulate people's desire and strength through sports.

We are committed to the creation of professional sports products, so that sports can change life and pursue breakthroughs in a higher realm.

The vision is "the world's leading sporting goods Brand Company". In order to realize the internationalization of the company, the company needs to enhance its international competitiveness in the Chinese market by 2008.

By 2018, the world's top 5 sporting goods companies, the company's international market share accounted for more than 20% of the total business.

To become a sports brand management company, we will use multiple brands to cover different customers and regions, and more than two mainstream sports are in a strong position in the market.

In 2003, the company formally implemented the strategy of brand remolding.

Since then, Li Ning Co has entered a stage of specialization.

In order to achieve the above goals, Li Ning Co has adopted a series of strategic measures.

Repositioning Lining's brand.

In 2002, Li Ning Co established a brand-new brand positioning: "professionalism, fashion, oriental characteristics and internationalization" and embarked on the development path of sporting goods specialization.

Its advertising appeal is changed to "Lining, everything is possible".

Improve product prices and quality.

We should increase R & D investment, carry out technological innovation, improve the technological content and functional value of products, and at the same time raise product prices and push the products to the high end.

Change the brand promotion model.

Li Ning Co pushed the bull's eye of brand promotion from the ordinary consumer to the national sports team.

According to Nike's "pyramid" promotion idea, Lining has thoroughly pformed his original "grassroots marketing".

The company focuses its marketing on specialized sports marketing, promotes brand by naming sponsorship sports events, and gradually increases its sponsorship to international top sports events (Adidas compete for the TOP sponsors of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the last defeat) and the foreign sports teams (sponsoring those African countries representing the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games), while increasing cooperation with sports stars, especially NBA players.

The implementation of multi brand strategy.

At present, Li Ning Co has many brands such as "Lining", "Ai Gao" and "SHAQ". It has also become a famous holding company of table tennis brand "red double happiness".

Brand internationalization.

As early as 1999, Li Ning Co put forward the "brand internationalization". Now it has raised the brand internationalization to a strategic height, and formulated the strategy of first brand internationalization and re market internationalization.