After Running, Nike Concentrated All Resources On Basketball.

"Kobe...

Bryant... "

On the evening of July 31st, in the long tone of Chen Chien-chou and Eric, Kobe trotted to the stadium of Jiangwan stadium in Shanghai. Behind him was the slogan "basketball does not ask for its origin."

This is the first time Kobe has returned to the stadium since he was injured in December last year to receive cheers from fans.

Before that, 30 small players had already made their debut, but the last time he played, he instantly captured the hearts of the fans.

"Where Kobe goes, where is his home."

On the media table, most reporters stood up. This is Kobe's ninth visit to China. He took part in most of the activities.

That's true.

In the 2800 seat Jiangwan gymnasium, many aisles are crowded with people.

Some fans who failed to enter the stadium shouted Kobe's name outside to cheer him up in another way.

In the half hour before that, tickets were sold to 500 yuan by ticket dealers, and even to 1000 yuan.

This event, called "playing the role of fame", is a basketball reality show produced by Nike brand.

Nike hopes to activate more and more young people to like and participate in basketball sports. Just like running, basketball can become a fashion, or even culture, and gradually become popular.

Over the past few years, Nike's most popular running sport has been ignited and exploded, and has become a fashion sport accepted by many Chinese people.

Nike has also enjoyed the bonus of running popularity: in recent years, sales of Nike running shoes have reached two digit growth.

How to make

As a mainstream value? Nike has been thinking about various ways.

Huang Xiangyan, senior communications director of Nike Greater China, said that when Nike was promoting running, it was found that more and more people participated and had a good experience.

In order to attract more people to play the role, Nike has used the most important resources.

For example, NBA stars Kobe, James, Carey Owen, Anthony Davis, mainland China coach Wang Fei, star Yi Jianlian and Taiwan film actor Janine Chang.

In order to increase the spread, Nike asked all the players to upload a 30 second video to show their skills and stories.

These videos were uploaded to Nike's official new media such as WeChat and micro-blog.

"From the best athletes to the grassroots, the sport will take root," said Yuron White, vice president and general manager of basketball business in Nike Greater China. "One of my goals is to get more athletes to come here and make it NCAA or NBA. This is our strategy."

Every player has a story.

In fact, the NBA Star China trip will be held every summer.

The activity led by Nike and Adidas has been in the history of nearly 10 years.

At first, these stars attract fans' crazy pursuit everywhere, and naturally bring about the growth of product sales.

Chinese brand PEAK has made the "NBA Star China trip" the best. For a while, PEAK signed three or four stars in China's major cities.

But in recent years, such activities have reached the bottleneck stage.

And this summer is even more different.

Because of the Brazil World Cup, all the attention was attracted by football.

Brands must come up with a different way to attract more and more picky young audiences.

"In the past, in the middle of the stage, the stars were the only stars, but now these grassroots players can be stars like the stars."

Huang Xiangyan said that the basketball network reality show is the basketball version of "good voice in China", so that more grassroots players who like basketball have a stage to show themselves.

In order to get more significance and dissemination value of the "fame" activities, Nike, which is proficient in marketing, will launch its launch date in June 27th.

This is NBA's draft day. Every year, more than 60 new people are selected to enter NBA to start their dream journey.

Nike chose to launch the "hit the shots" on this day, and obviously wanted to combine more with draft.

This activity includes sea election, promotion, decisive battle and so on.

The decisive battle was held in Wukesong, Beijing in August 16th, and 3 young players came to Spain. They were also regarded as the number one champion.

In addition, in order to make this activity more interesting, when Durant released the 7 generation of war boots in the United States, Nike invited some domestic media to follow the report.

Since then, some media have written: "in order to help youngsters improve their athletic performance, this summer, Nike basketball also introduced two excellent basketball shoes, KD7 and Nike Hyperdunk 2014."

However, even though Nike has prepared well, it still faces many challenges in the strong attraction of the world cup.

You know, from June 27th to July 25th, most people's attention is in the world cup.

So, Nike launched the most grass-roots coaches, let them encourage young players around to enter the competition.

"We did a bit hard in the first half because the world cup had taken too much attention, and many people submitted applications after July 25th, but we were too late."

Huang Xiangyan said that the final contest collected 3700 applications, "there are still some follow-up sent, but there is no way."

The greatest feature of these players is that they have a basketball related story besides their outstanding skills.

For example, Zuo Baihao, a 33 year old athlete from Hongkong, was diagnosed with giant disease at the age of 26 and left the Hongkong track and field team.

He did not complete the operation, and he always took medicine.

This situation did not change until he found a better job.

He had another operation in February this year, and the effect will not be known until September.

"Let her daughter know how strong her father is."

Zuo Baihao, whose daughter is 7 months old, said he understood the deeper meaning of life through basketball.

Similar stories abound.

These stories have brought high click through rate through the spread of new media.

For example, Nike's first episode of the "call up" video has only about 5 million 700 thousand hits on Tencent videos.

"If I'm just looking for a story to grab the eyeball, I think Nike is not inclined to look like that.

Because in the end, he still wants to play. He still wants to play with his children. He has to show his leadership desire and show his team spirit.

So to be honest, he is still more realistic than the singing show.

Huang Xiangyan pointed out the difference between "playing famous" and other talent shows.

In fact, on the day of the launch, on the official WeChat and micro-blog of Nike, there were some basketball skills training at the same time, for example, two hits, shooting training, dribbling skills training, changing direction and under the ball dribbling, and behind and turning dribbling.

These training materials are made by the former Chinese basketball coach Wang Fei, and Nike hopes that more young basketball players will enhance their basic skills in basketball.

In the end, 3700 players went through the audition, promotion and so on. In the selection of Wang Fei, Yi Jianlian, James and others, 30 players got the opportunity to train with Kobe.

"I have always looked forward to having a combination of basketball and entertainment, so that more people like basketball."

Chen Chien-chou said.

He used to be a basketball player and later worked as a host.

Accept Kobe's training

The photos of 30 players in the Jiangwan gymnasium are hung above the side of the stadium, with a line written below: "basketball does not ask for its origin."

The lighting and the changing pattern of the LED stadium make it look like a concert scene. The 30 players have the chance to become the lucky protagonist.

Kobe gave special training to the 30 students who stood out, and then trained 5 to 5 of them.

He ran sweaty in the two half court, and finally picked out 3 outstanding players for 1 to 1 challenges.

In the face of the challenge, Li Guanyang, 10 from Xi'an Technological University, was defeated and had to accept 17 penalties in 1 minutes.

Kobe, who has gone through many scenes, has made another interpretation of the story: if a player is willing to challenge and shoot, he can avoid Li Guanyang's punishment.

Finally, No. 23 Lai Zhuxin throws the ball.

Kobe took off his sneakers and signed them to Li Guanyang. He repeatedly reminded him: "practice your left hand."

"Few people in China have received his advice, which is the biggest encouragement for me to train from small to large."

Li Guanyang, who signed the shoes, said that when Kobe took off his shoes, he wanted to show it to his parents.

He sighed and said, "Wow, really."

"From small to big parents are all academic achievements. I am really crazy about basketball and will affect learning. My parents want me to find a particularly stable job."

He sob: "all my efforts are worth it."

"This is a lifelong incentive for these young children."

Huang Xiangyan has been standing all night, and has worked in Nike for 14 years. She said, "no one will find this activity unsuccessful."

The most attractive part of the scene is the stadium laid by LED, which is called the "black mamba Stadium".

This is the first electronic screen basketball court in the world.

About two years ago, a similar LED basketball court had appeared in Germany, but it simply projected the circle and line on the court. This time, all training hours and routes were implanted into it, which could help players to train more.

"We thought we would try another stadium next year, but we fear that it will lag behind consumers."

Yuron White says Nike explains what it means to be "popular" through innovation.

An example is that in 2012, Nike designed Flyknit running shoes for London Olympic athletes, but later on many fashion week, many people wore this kind of shoes.

For this reason, in the US fast company magazine's selection, Nike became the most innovative company in the year because of its new vamp technology Flyknit and sports digital product Nike + Fuelband wristband.

"Nike is always functional and fashionable."

Huang Xiangyan said that innovation and fashion are mutually matched.

In her view, innovation will naturally lead to fashion, while consumers are very appreciating innovation.

So Nike will not design fashion for popularity.

"For us, all functions are in the front and innovation is ahead, and it will naturally create that popularity.

This is a very interesting thing. "

Huang Xiangyan said.

Of course, innovation is becoming more and more difficult now, because young people are all mobile Internet generations. Their perspectives and aesthetics are all globalized.

Huang Xiangyan is fortunate that Nike is an international company that can learn from foreign companies such as the United Kingdom and the United States.

"No matter what an innovative idea, Nike always tries first, it is to guide the industry and guide the development of sports industry."

Huang Xiangyan said that they had hesitated to start the LED stadium. "Finally, we tried our best. We must have a new try this year."

Fortunately, on the morning of the second day, in the morning of August 1st, the reporters were divided into 7 groups, each group of 3 people (the last group of two people).

Under the guidance of coach Qu Hongyao, the reporters first conducted warm-up training.

Warm-up ends