Lining Ignites The Brand Competition Behind The Olympic Torch

At the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing, Lining, a slightly bald, slightly old man, became the igniter of the Olympic torch. Not only did one take advantage of the steel wire to take off, but also walked for fifteen minutes, and finally ignited the torch.

Lining, the igniter of the Olympic torch, had quietly disclosed before the opening ceremony, and the rumor was confirmed until the last torch of the torch relay.

After the opening ceremony, although the public's evaluation of the opening ceremony was serious, especially the insipid and incapable theme of the Olympic theme song, Lining's main torch was the biggest focus of public opinion after the opening ceremony.

This is because Zhang Yimou, the director general of the opening ceremony, focused on the reasons for choosing Lining afterwards, and CCTV, who is responsible for the Olympic Games, also opened up a special program to talk about Lining and the torch.

What is all this for?

Why did the old man talk about Lining specifically?

How can CCTV give publicity to Lining?

Before the opening ceremony, the parties concerned had already delineated eight candidates for the main torch igniter, including Lining, and said that eight of them could make a choice. Because the eight men were famous and brilliant, and there was no need for explanation and publicity afterwards.

However, since both old man and CCTV are tired of showing up for Lining, there must be some insider reasons for the inconvenience.

What is the reason?

It is a decisive battle around the Olympic clothing brand.

In January 3, 2007, Li Ning Co's failure to compete with Beijing Olympic partners was defeated by Adidas, Germany, which is more powerful. So the Chinese delegation's award dress will be monopolized by Adidas.

It is said that the bid price of Li Ning Co is 1 billion, Adidas is 1 billion 300 million, plus Li Ning Co annual sales is only 3 billion 200 million, Adidas is 100 billion, and the strength is so different.

But between the protection of national brands and the Olympic Games, the state chose the latter and Adidas was able to win.

However, there is a little misunderstanding that the price of Adidas is not clear. The base price of Adidas is 1 billion 300 million, even though it is close to US $200 million according to the RMB. However, according to the public media, Adidas has paid only about $100 million in cash and sponsorship for partner rights, whether it is far from 1 billion 300 million or 200 million dollars, or even lower than the 1 billion base price of the Li Ning Co.

Is Adidas company fooling China or the Olympic organizers fooling the Li Ning Co?

But anyway, Lining failed, and he failed to publicize the national sporting goods label at his own door. Since 1992, he has been sponsoring the Chinese Olympic delegation to receive the prize equipment, and the biggest Chinese sporting goods company in the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games with the Chinese dragon motif as the theme of the award dress and the butterfly shoes from the natural sense of spirit is so defeated at the door of the biggest sporting event held at the gate.

However, Lining will not give up and the Li Ning Co will not give up, so they attack everywhere to compete in the Olympic Games in a more flexible way to compete for Olympic business opportunities.

In January 5, 2007, Lining signed an agreement with CCTV sports channel. The hosts and reporters who broadcast the columns and events from 2007 to 2008 need to wear Lining dress when they appear.

This means that during the Olympic Games in Beijing, as long as the CCTV sports channel is opened, Lining's Logo will be reflected in the audience's eyes.

A week later, Lining came out again and signed an agreement with the Argentina Basketball Association to agree that the last Athens Olympic champion Argentina men's basketball team will be in the Lining robe and appear on the Beijing Olympic Games.

4 months ago, Lining signed the Spanish men's basketball team to win the first prize in the World Basketball Championships held in Japan. At the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the men's basketball Olympic champion and world champion will both be dressed in Lining's brand and compete for the Olympic gold medal with the American dream team eight.

Not only that, but the "Lining" who has been preparing for the Olympic Games for several months has created a strong "Lining delegation", including the Chinese shooting team, diving team, table tennis team and gymnastics team. The four teams won more than half of the gold medals in the Athens Olympic Games in 2004, and Lining provided them with match costumes.

In addition, there are other "international columns" other than the Argentina basketball team and the Spanish basketball team in the Lining delegation, including the Swedish Olympic delegation, the Spanish Olympic delegation and the Sultan track and field team.

Lining's strategy will make Li Ning Co's trademark and name frequently appear in front of the public, thus competing with Adidas and Nike on the Olympic Games.

But did Lining win?

No, he just won the battle or lost as much as possible.

Not only did Adidas beat Li Ning Co to become the main sponsor of the Olympic Games, Nike, the world's leading rival, Adidas sporting goods operator, also walked through it.

Unlike Adidas's consistent success in competing for Olympic sponsors, Nike is used to digging Adidas's walls by sponsoring sporting equipment from various national sports teams.

The same is true of Nike Olympic Games in Beijing. Not only did it sponsor a large number of national sports teams in the world, but also the majority of China's individual sports delegations were networked, which made Li Ning Co suffer from Waterloo after the failure of Olympic sponsorship competition.

China participated in all 28 events in the Olympic Games, so that China has 28 single sports teams, while Nike has attracted 22 in one fell swoop, and Li Ning Co has just won 4.

This shows that most of China's individual sports alliances have poor sense of national brand, or too much money idea, coupled with the lack of international competition experience of Li Ning Co, which makes Lining have to lose again.

Lining failed to win more than that. In 2006, the Asian Games in Doha defeated the Chinese sponsors for the Nike company. However, Lining made a unique way for the CCTV reporters and presenters to put on "Lining costumes", making the Chinese audience sitting in front of the TV mistaken that Lining was the Chinese clothing sponsor, so that Nike, who had been heavily committed to sponsoring the Asian Games delegation, complained incessantly.

Now Beijing Olympic Games Lining's old trick is repeated, the Adidas that smashed heavy gold will also be like a needle blanket, but Adidas will not sit still, but decisive action.

In June 3rd this year, the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee held a press conference to "prevent the Olympic Games hidden market advertising behavior". After a week's meeting, Lining LOGO will disappear from the CCTV Olympic Channel, not only from June 10th, but also the guests will not need to wear Lining LOGO.

This setback has greatly upset Lining, because CCTV is only a media enterprise independent of the Olympic Games. The agreement between Adidas and the Chinese Olympic Committee can not cover the CCTV enterprise. Therefore, the agreement between Li Ning Co and CCTV is not against the law. If the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, the Nike company of the United States would protest or even sue.

However, with the constant political turmoil in the Olympic Games, the authorities did not want to offend the big international companies, and thus became the center of controversy in the international public opinion. Then they chose the ugly strategy to make the national brand "Lining" suffer.

However, Lining and his company will not be reconciled. Perhaps the conscience of the relevant departments is still there. Perhaps the Li Ning Co protest is very determined. In a word, Lining finally chose to obey the "overall situation", but the condition is that the Olympic torch igniter is Lining, and the parties concerned should give a lot of publicity.

However, in order to avoid unnecessary disputes, paraquat acknowledges that these conclusions are based on many inferences, and believe that many readers will be like a mirror.

It may be said that the last igniter was chosen by the state from eight candidates. It turned out to be just a smoke. Because Zhang Yimou said in an interview after the opening ceremony, Lining had trained for a long time for the air stroll ignition. It must be known that this is a very exhausting activity, so Lining has been set up as early as possible.

Obviously, Lining's role as the last igniter and his Olympic organizers and CCTV's propaganda is nothing but a compensation for Lining's unfair treatment under the pressure of Adidas.

For Lining, Adidas and Nike, the igniter of Lining is not only an honor issue, but a strong challenge and shock to Adidas and Nike, because Lining is not only Lining, he is also the image and trademark of Li Ning Co, not only the people all over the world are familiar with this person and his company through Olympic operators, but most importantly, the Chinese will often mention him and often mention his company and trade mark incidentally, which is exactly what Lining wants.