China'S Sporting Goods Explore Brand Breakthroughs, Change Consumers' "Too Soil" Cognition

< p style= "text-align: center" > < img border= "0" align= "center" alt= "" src= "" /uploadimages/201402/14/20140214085028_sj.JPG "/" < > > "

< p > local a href= "http://sjfzxm.com/news/index_c.asp" > sports goods < /a > the great development of enterprises is nearly ten years.

From the original Lining, double star and other old enterprises to the later a href= "http://sjfzxm.com/news/index_c.asp" > Anta < /a >, PEAK, Hongxing Erke and other Jinjiang enterprises, the sales scale quickly broke through to 1 billion, 2 billion and 3 billion, the development momentum was very strong, and the trend of replacing foreign brands was very strong.

But ten years later, the development of local sporting goods enterprises is slightly less stamina, some enterprises began to show signs of slowing sales growth, and some serious enterprises also showed that sales costs increased year by year, inventory levels gradually increased, and operating profits declined year by year.

The reason is that the consensus is: now is the era of "a href=" http://sjfzxm.com/news/index_c.asp "brand > /a". Consumers rely on brands to choose products. Local enterprises should carry out "brand promotion" to change consumers' cognition they believe that local brands are "too land".

In fact, local enterprises have realized this problem and made a series of efforts. Of course, they still need to make greater efforts.

< /p >

< p > < strong > the success factor of local enterprises < /strong > /p >

< p > the development of China's sporting goods market is very fast. The scale and capacity of the first, two and three markets begin to grow at the same time, which gives local enterprises the opportunity to develop.

Foreign enterprises such as Nike and Adidas entered China, first of all, based on brand building rather than sales growth.

Their strategy is to occupy the first level market, take the flagship store as the base, maintain the high quality and high price positioning, around the young generation of consumers, carry out all kinds of close to consumer activities, influence consumers' idea of purchase, and establish the brand awareness of consumers.

The foreign brand has a long-term strategic plan. It takes the top of the brand first and dives to the two or three level market.

When foreign-funded enterprises cultivate brand awareness in the primary market, local Lining began to exert force in the two tier market, and Anta and other Jinjiang enterprises began to exert themselves in the three tier market.

These enterprises are developing rapidly in their niche markets with similar products from foreign enterprises, good quality, more affinity prices and strong thrust of channels.

< /p >

< p > unlike foreign enterprises, the operation of early local enterprises is not centered on < a href= "http://sjfzxm.com/news/index_c.asp" > brand building < /a >, but mainly based on sales promotion and market share. The core strategy of marketing is "selling network construction".

Anta is a typical example.

Anta focuses on the development of the three or four level market, which is relatively weak in foreign brands and domestic strong brands, especially in the county level market and the rural market in developed areas.

In the strategy of store construction, Anta focuses on guiding and forcing dealers to surpass all competitors in terms of terminal number and terminal size, becoming the first in the regional market.

At the shop, you can say that you are spared no expense. If you do not open a shop, I will open a shop first; if you have a store, I will open two; you are a single shop (50 - 60 square meters), I will open double shop (100 - 120 square meters), or even flagship store (400 square meters above).

In order to speed up the opening up of stores, Anta distinguishes itself from other sports enterprises in the country in setting up a direct branch company in the whole country, and adopts the way of "provincial distribution agents + regional distributors" to develop the national sales network.

Under the guidance of these sales network construction strategies, the number of terminal stores in a short span of several years from hundreds to thousands, and then to thousands of homes, quickly occupied the three tier market.

< /p >

< p > the brand awakening of local enterprises was at the end of the 90s of last century, but this awakening was just a bud instead of a thorough understanding.

Our understanding of brand still stays at the "visibility" level, but far from reaching the "consumer value concept".

During the period, the common practice is to support the sales network by means of "the five Central advertising and two local sports stars", and continue to focus on sales promotion and market position.

The choice of celebrity endorser is relatively easy.

The Olympic strategy of Chinese sports has made a large number of sports stars who won Olympic gold medals popular, especially in sports events that people like to see, such as table tennis, badminton, gymnastics, volleyball, basketball and so on.

Local companies have hired Olympic gold medalists or potential winners as their spokesmen.

In 1999, Anta hired a href= "http://sjfzxm.com/news/index_c.asp" > Kong Linghui < /a > as the spokesperson of brand image. As Kong Linghui won the champion of the 2000 table tennis men's singles, Anta increased its advertising efforts to the central 5, when the amount of advertising was nearly 100 million yuan.

At the same time, Anta has widely used Kong Linghui's image in the store image building. In the unified store image, all stores must be checked and accepted by the head office from design and decoration, and the shelves and props are also manufactured and distributed by the head office.

The unity of the store image and the high-altitude advertising based on the image of Kong Linghui has greatly improved the market awareness of Anta brand.

Anta's early brand model was a great success. Anta entered a stage of rapid growth, and sales rose rapidly to 2 billion yuan in a few years.

This led to the follow up of other Jinjiang enterprises. The early brand building of local sporting goods enterprises basically followed the "central five advertising + Olympic star endorsement" mode.

< /p >

< p > < strong > the efforts of local enterprises in brand breakthroughs < /strong > < /p >

After the completion of brand building in the primary market, foreign enterprises begin to extend the product line and market coverage, and gradually enter the two or three tier market; and local enterprises are also not willing to be inferior to P, and strive to advance to the primary market.

The competition between the two groups, with the homogenization of products and prices, focuses on the brand.

The consumption culture of sports goods market has entered the stage of fashion and experience. Consumers first make purchase decisions according to brand rather than function or price.

It stems from the natural weakness of local enterprises in brand understanding. It is also inevitable that local enterprises are built on production rather than marketing, and our enterprises adopt more imitation and follow-up strategies.

But this imitation basically stays at the formal level.

{page_break} < /p >

< p > actually, since the beginning of this century, the strategy of foreign invested enterprises in brand building has changed significantly.

They pay more attention to the study of consumers' values and understand the experience of consumers' purchase and use process.

The principle of "experience economy" proposed by American scholars Joseph Pine and James Gilmore in 2002 is fully explained and widely recognized.

American scholars have revealed the change of consumption concept after twenty-first Century. Consumers are more concerned about the inner experience, concerned about their sense of participation in body shape, emotion and knowledge and their income, rather than external goods, services or simple brand awareness.

Under such a consumption culture, enterprises should emphasize "building around the consumers, creating activities and feelings worth remembering by consumers, and gaining psychological recognition of consumers".

Foreign enterprises have a deeper understanding of experience economy, and emphasize the "information and emotional interaction process between brands and consumers" in marketing strategy.

Take Nike as an example.

In terms of brand connotation, the concept of communication must be a symbol of youth culture and identity. In marketing activities, more emphasis is placed on event marketing which is directly related to consumers, such as more frequent star face-to-face activities, youth tournament sponsorship, national team and club sponsorship.

< /p >

< p > local enterprises lack the understanding of experience economy, but the imitation in form also has a certain effect.

First of all, local enterprises follow the foreign brands to be "close to consumers" events. < a href= > http://sjfzxm.com/news/index_c.asp > marketing > /a > especially sponsoring young people's events such as street basketball matches and extreme sports challenge competitions. Then, efforts to enhance brand involvement, especially changes in advertising slogans and advertising contents, are rather difficult. Anta is no longer a plain talk about "I choose I like". It becomes a more infectious "keep moving". Lining is no longer a narcissism like "I exist in sports or I exist" or "excellent in origin" becomes a more universal recognition.

It should be said that although this change is mostly from formal imitation, and because of the snag of local enterprises, it makes people feel nauseous. But we should be sure of the efforts of local enterprises.

In particular, Lining is worthy of being the leader of local sporting goods enterprises. They not only realized the trend of consumption experience, but also approached Nike on the outside of the overall marketing behavior, and they recognized the trend of brand globalization earlier.

< /p >

The process of globalization accelerated the opening of various regional markets. The development of information technology changed the way people communicate, and the frequent convergence of global cultural exchanges accelerated the convergence and convergence of consumer culture. P

In particular, since the beginning of this century, the cultural concept of sports and entertainment as the carrier, emphasizing self and showing individuality has become increasingly a global consumer culture.

This process accelerates the substitution of global brands for regional brands.

In the field of sports goods, because the connotation of brand has shifted from "emphasizing quality and function" to "emphasizing values and individual experience", this substitution is more significant.

Lining realized this earlier and began to try to move from local marketing to global marketing.

Although Lining's sales are still based on the local market, he has increasingly hired track and field stars and basketball stars with global influence as brand spokesmen.

But if local enterprises really want to grow into a global brand, they must enter the global market. On the one hand, they will occupy the market in developing countries and gain scale growth and share the cost pressure on brand communication. On the other hand, they must enter the US and European markets. For a long time, the United States or Europe still have demonstrative and radiation effects on other markets, and local enterprises attempting to establish global brands must seize the commanding heights.

Such opportunities exist. In the process of moving towards the M type society in the US and European markets, the differentiation of consumers is inevitable. A large number of low and middle consumption groups choose brands based on the performance price ratio. Enterprises like Lining have the opportunity to enter the market of developed countries, first of all, establish the positioning of mid-range brands, and then launch an impact on the high-end market.

< /p >

< p > < a href= "http://sjfzxm.com/news/index_c.asp > > Lining < /a > at the same time, we also know clearly that the brand of today is more and more supported by specific products.

The products in the field of sports increasingly emphasize professionalism and emphasize functional characteristics suitable for specific applications.

Just like in the field of basketball shoes, Nike's brand has air cushion technology as support. In developing the running shoes, Lining emphasized the support of "Lining bow" technology to the brand.

For the technological innovation in the field of sports goods, local enterprises can borrow the R & D capability of the first-class design laboratories in the world.

The highly specialized global division of labor has enabled local enterprises to directly utilize the global level of basic research and design. Lining is directly outsourcing the R & D work to the first-class design institutes in the United States.

< /p >

< p > < strong > growth obstacles of local enterprises < /strong > < /p >

< p > although objectively speaking, local brands can not escape the smell of "soil", we still have to recognize their efforts and should continue to applause and encouragement.

Because of the huge scale gap, the disadvantage of local enterprises will be further enlarged under the marketing trend of branding and brand globalization.

The brand of foreign-funded enterprises is stacked up by a lot of marketing expenses. Adidas only needs 1 billion 300 million yuan to win the sponsorship of Beijing Olympic Games, which is almost a year's sales volume of many local enterprises, but it can be shared by the annual sales of US $10 billion.

Challenging global sporting goods supremacy is a very difficult task. Fortunately, local enterprises have come up with strategies to carry out the assault by segmenting the market, especially the fastest growing market in the local market. Lining is focused on the field of athletics and basketball, and PEAK is concentrating on basketball.

< /p >

< p > but this effort is far from enough.

The external marketing environment is constantly changing. The opportunity to catch opportunities in a changing environment needs to rely on marketing capabilities. On the other hand, if local enterprises want to change their imitation strategy and completely get rid of the label of "soil", they also need to fundamentally solve the problem. They need to establish their own marketing functions that can compete with foreign enterprises, especially the overall marketing function with brand as the core.

< /p >

< p > local enterprises continue to operate in the past in the actual operation. The R & D department, commodity planning department, marketing department and brand management department undertake part of the marketing functions respectively. In the actual work, the overall marketing strategy is forcibly segmented, and can not be unified to the consumer level and competition.

In the design department, designers are passively busy every day in the product development and preparation of ordering products.

If we are able to see the taste of the target customer positioning and product mix strategy in the company's internal merchandising plan, in the actual ordering process, the original product strategy (commodity planning scheme) can not be implemented on the ground because the distributor re selects the product combination according to its own judgment standard.

More often, if you come to a store in a different brand of the same brand, you may see a completely different product mix (two stock), and even make people feel that they are two completely different brands.

Because of the existence of agent + distribution mode, the head office can not ask the store owners to fully implement the product strategy of the company, and acquiesce in the fact that the dealer chooses the goods independently, so that the product mix strategy will disappear from the start of the order.

The disappearance of product strategy further influences the development of a series of marketing strategies, such as target customer strategy, product promotion strategy, brand promotion strategy and so on.

< /p >

< p > in marketing departments, although almost all local sporting goods enterprises have so-called marketing centers (or marketing companies), they only have sales functions such as logistics, distribution and store management.

The marketing center is reduced to a sales center, and is always busy to urge agents (distributors) to purchase, withdraw money and complete the task of opening stores, and urge the production department to deliver the goods on time, so as to avoid providing the reason for the agent's refusal to purchase due to the untimely delivery.

However, the function of the important a href= "http://sjfzxm.com/news/index_c.asp" > marketing < /a > which cannot be effectively established by the marketing center can not be effectively established, including: the sales plan for different varieties, the entry strategy for the strategic market, the product promotion strategy, the price strategy (cost, profit goal), the product concept development, the linkage strategy between production and marketing, and the resource strategy (how focused companies resources are focused on key projects).

The lack of marketing function makes the sales link difficult.

The deterioration of inventory in the distribution link has gradually aggravated the contradiction between the head office and the distribution channel, and further worsened the profit level and cash flow of the entire supply chain.

< /p >

< p > in the brand management department, with the increase of the scale of local sporting goods enterprises, companies have divestied the original planning department from the marketing center, established the so-called brand management center, and placed it in a very high position in the company, which seems to complete the pformation from product management to brand management.

This business idea is understandable, but in actual work, the role of brand management center has not really played.

Its main job is the recruitment of spokesmen; the purchase of media; the shooting and putting of advertisements.

The change is confined to the original single spokesperson into multiple spokesmen; from domestic sports stars to international sports stars; from the central 5 main media forms to a variety of media forms coexist; from product advertising to brand advertising and product advertising coexist; from tens of millions of brand promotion costs to one hundred million or even several billion; that's all.

The brand management center and the marketing and design departments are disconnected from the distribution strategy and product strategy, which makes the effect of brand promotion further weakened, and the advertising cost increases year by year, while the promotion efficiency shows the opposite trend.

The lack of marketing function is the real source of local enterprises' "soil", and foreign brands have long been in the leading position, because their marketing functions are strong enough to constantly identify market changes and make accurate responses through the overall strategy.

At this point, the local enterprises should consider carefully, do not try to solve the problem of "soil" externally, but return to the internal marketing function construction.

The author will continue to explore how to interpret the marketing function of foreign brands and how to build the marketing function of local enterprises.

< /p >