Adidas Himself Proved "No Impossible".

The number of stores is not as good as Lining, and the amount of sales is hard to beat Nike. Now it is time for Adidas to prove "no impossible". Over the years, Adidas has always believed in "Impossible is nothing". In China, the German company, which has been lagging behind the Nike of the United States, hopes to end its role as a catch-up in 2008. After paying the huge sponsorship fee of Beijing Olympic partners, it needs to find the first feeling immediately. Start with the largest store in the world. Adidas has just wrapped up a four story independent building on Sanlitun street in Beijing. This golden section, once famous for bar street, will soon become one of the most fashionable shopping centers in Beijing. In July 5th, the store, which was called Adidas's first brand center in the world, was officially opened. The brand new products of Adidas and its clover and Y-3 have all entered this 3300 square meter space. The sneakers designed for the Beijing Olympic Games are displayed in a very prominent "Made for Beijing" space. Ke Ruijia, director of the Adidas 2008 Olympic project, told the first financial weekly that the Olympic team of the company designed 43 different sports shoes for the 28 major Olympic Games. Adidas is looking for every opportunity to show the identity of the Beijing Olympic Games partner. This is the most important moment for China to win the game in China. Before that, the Olympic sponsor was troubled by the frequent rush of rivals Lining and Nike. Lining immediately co operated with CCTV after bidding for the failure of Olympic sponsorship, and put the Crystal Logo with Lining logo on the Olympic Channel host and the reporter. Liu Xiang, who held a big star in Nike, even put him on the cover of the company's annual earnings report. In addition to Liu Xiang and Yi Jianlian, Nike also sponsored 28 large and medium 22 Chinese sports teams. Lining also has the sponsorship of China's diving team, table tennis team, gymnastics team and shooting team four gold winning teams. The sports teams sponsored by Adidas are volleyball teams, judo teams and football teams that are not regarded as favourites. This makes many consumers unable to tell who is the real Olympic sponsor at a time. Hu Jia, Zheng Zhi, Sui Feifei and Chinese women's volleyball team as the leading role of the "2008 together, no impossible" Olympic theme advertising, is the largest marketing campaign launched in single market in Adidas history, even more than two years ago in the German World Cup. The Olympic advertisement, which costs a lot of money, has been covered by the subway in Beijing and Shanghai, and has recently won the Golden Lion Award for outdoor advertising in Cannes. However, its overall grey tone has always been mixed by the audience. What's more, Adidas's selection of a series of Chinese athletes spokesmen has left people's sight due to poor performance or injury. For example, Hu Jia, the champion of the men's ten meter diving platform at the last Olympic Games, has almost missed the Olympic Games. With the Chinese football team stopping the world cup again, everyone's enthusiasm for Zheng Zhi, another spokesman for Adidas, will also be affected. Female soccer player Ma Xiaoxu did not play very well in the women's World Cup in 2007 because of his poor performance, and this year's women's Asian Cup is also a miss. These are enough to make Adidas originally want to rely on the Olympic Games to enhance the popularity of the people feel depressed. It was not until July 1st that a notice issued by the China Advertising Association, which had not much administrative power, allowed Adidas to regain its pleasure. It stipulates that from August 1st to August 27th, non Olympic sponsors can not be invited to serve in the advertisements, and athletes, coaches and officials who participate in the Olympic Games will serve as spokesmen. Many brands will be affected, including Nike, Anta and 361 degrees. Prior to the early June, the Beijing Olympic group held a special conference to call for the prevention of Olympic stealth marketing. Lining's logo has gradually disappeared from CCTV Olympic Channel hosts, reporters and columns. "We are very happy," Ke Ruijia breathed a sigh of relief. "The Olympic Committee has worked hard to protect the rights and interests of the Olympic partners." Adidas has indeed paid a high price for the sponsorship of Beijing Olympic Games. According to convention, Olympic partners do not disclose the amount of sponsorship, and Adidas is no exception. But the price of Adidas has been widely used to win this seat at a price of 1 billion 300 million yuan, while foreign media generally speculate that 80 million to 100 million dollars is a reasonable number. "The core of sports sponsorship is the stars, then the sports teams, the most peripheral is the competition." Zhu Xiaoming, President of sports marketing in Beijing, told the first financial weekly. In the just concluded European Cup in 2008, Adidas's two teams defeated Nike sponsored teams to break into the final, and Adidas's luck seemed good. But in the Chinese market, if it wants to defeat Nike by the Olympic Games, it will obviously need more than just luck. Adidas hopes that the huge sponsorship fee will be gained, and its plan to expand the store and brand publicity by the Olympic Games is underway. At the beginning of 2006, Adidas global CEO Herbert Heiner (Herbert Hainer) announced that it would open 5000 stores in China at the end of 2010. Now, it is very close to this goal. Nike and Adidas have been reluctant to disclose the number of stores in the Chinese market. In August last year, Nike opened the first Chinese direct store in Wangfujing, and it was estimated that the two companies had about 3000 stores in China. In the information provided by Adidas to the first financial weekly, there were more than 4000 stores in China as of the end of 2007. In the same period, the number of Li Ning Co listed in Hongkong was 5233. "Nike is experiencing more than 50% growth in China". In June 2007, Nike CEO Mark Parker told Reuters that Nike would sell more than $1 billion in China within a year. In the quarter ended in May 2006, Nike China's revenue was only about $600 million. Of course, Nike also benefited from the continued depreciation of US dollar against the RMB in two years. Adidas's growth in the Chinese market in 2007 was about 45%, and there was not much difference between the two sides in terms of revenue growth rate. But in any case, the number of stores is not as good as that of Lining, and the sales volume is hard to compete with Nike. Adidas's 2008 wishes do not seem so easy to achieve. Ke Ruijia believes that the Olympic Games are the best stage to show Adidas's brand image and spirit of innovation. As a partner of Beijing Olympic Games, Adidas will provide clothing for all staff, volunteers and winners. After opening the world's largest flagship store, Adidas will then release the Olympic fashion design plan that will be won by the world. In this flagship store, Adidas not only brings fresh experience such as experience testing, private customization, creative space, but also brings the whole line of brand to people. In addition to the familiar Adidas and Clover retro series, it also includes the namesake brand co operating with GUCCI designer Stella McCartney, the The 10 ways cowboy, Adidas golf, Porsche series and high-end independent brand Y-3, which are working with fashion brand Diesel. These high-end brands are usually expensive, and a Y-3 sports pants usually sell for one to three thousand yuan, and Porsche's sports shoes and Diesel jeans are basically priced at more than two thousand yuan. As an Olympic sponsor, Adidas will also accelerate the pace of expansion. At the end of 2008, Adidas plans to increase the number of Chinese stores to 5000, and by 2010, Adidas group's sales in China will exceed 1 billion euros (about 10 billion 870 million yuan), set up 6300 Adidas stores and 1000 Reebok (Reebok) brand stores. "We will become the first sports brand in China in 2008." Bi Baoyuan, vice president of marketing department of Adidas Greater China, said. "We believe we are fully prepared and are implementing our plan." He looks confident. But can the continuous expansion of stores increase sales? Zhu Xiaoming believes that although Anta, PEAK, Hongxing Erke and other local brands do not seem to have a large market in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, they have occupied positions in the two or three tier cities. "This is a force that can not be ignored by us. If Nike or Adidas can't go in, it will be difficult to achieve sustained growth." Herbert Heiner has previously said that in many of China's county-level cities, Adidas has opened stores, and with the development of business in China, the middle end and low-end products will also enter the market more and more. In response, Nike said in a written reply to the first financial weekly: at present, the company focuses on the first tier cities, hoping to develop as soon as possible to the second tier cities with better retail environment. The three tier market is not the primary issue at present, but there are still opportunities in the long run. Adidas group earned 2 billion 254 million euros (24 billion 300 million yuan) in Asia in fiscal year 2007, an increase of 11.6%. Nike's revenue in Asia in the 2007 fiscal year is only 2 billion 283 million US dollars (about 15 billion 600 million yuan), but China is Nike's largest market in Asia and its second largest market outside the United States. Because Adidas is always tight lipped about its annual revenue in the Chinese market, its gap with Nike is not yet able to get an accurate answer. According to Nike, its revenue in the 2007 fiscal year (as at the end of May 2008) in the Chinese market is roughly 1 billion yuan (6 billion 800 million yuan). Adidas expects that its annual revenue in China will reach 1 billion euros (10 billion 700 million yuan) in 2010. If it is pushed back according to its 45% growth rate, Adidas's income in the Chinese market should exceed 5 billion yuan in 2008. This data is consistent with the conclusion of the "about 1000000000 Yuan gap" drawn by insiders before. At present, the income of Lining and Anta in the 2007 fiscal year is 4 billion 350 million and 3 billion 180 million yuan respectively. If Adidas and Nike only have a difference of about 1000000000 yuan, then this is not a big gap, but if we want to get a fast growth in the Chinese market, catch up with Nike and throw off Lining, Adidas will need to do all kinds of ways, including making products more attractive to young people. At present, Adidas has divided its brand into two series: adidas sport performance and adidas sport style (Adidas). Among them, sports performance products provide 70% of the revenue. Adidas is implementing its goals through a more daring market behavior. The cooperation with many fashion brands is a concentrated expression of this intention. It tries to defeat competitors by design and fashion sense. "Adidas has created a dedicated sports wind sector to develop a market dominated by clover and other fashion brands," Bi Baoyuan told first financial weekly. "Through cooperation like Y-3, we have a strong competitive edge in the fashion industry." Y-3 is a brand created by Adidas and Adidas, a famous designer in Japan. In 2006, Y-3, China's first store opened in the China World Trade Center center of luxury goods in Beijing. Bi Baoyuan also revealed that Adidas plans to set up Taylor Adidas golf brand store in China's first tier cities to promote the company's retail development strategy in China. Previously, Adidas golf products were sold in some specialty stores, a golf T-shirt usually approaching $1000. Compared with Nike, Adidas brand's image has long been more technical. Its popularity is closely related to the design of sports shoes for Olympic athletes. In the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, American Jesse Owens pushed Adidas's founder Adolf Dassler to win four Olympic gold medals for his special spiked shoes. By 2000, the Adidas congener swimsuit made by Australian genius Ian Thorpe was the star of the match with the athletes. For 36 consecutive years, Adidas will provide the ball for the world cup, and this sponsorship will last until 2014. In 1972, when Nike was founded, its jogging shoes for ordinary people became Americans' favorite. Gradually, the American company, which looked more fashionable, younger and more individualistic, was defeated.