Sports Brand From Product To Idea Of Subversion Innovation

Speaking of Nike, what is your first thought? Running, basketball and sports shoes are Jordan, Liu Xiang and Li Na. If you react to them, you really need to re recognize this company.

In fact, we can't regard Nike as a traditional sport Brand Company long ago. You can regard it as a fashion of selling sports -- from concept to lifestyle, to the high-tech service company of supporting products.

While local sports brands are still battered by inventory, Nike is actively embracing the industry changes brought about by the Internet.

In Nike, inspiration will be reflected in many forms, including innovative products and various sports performance.

But in recent years, a global digital movement and fitness community has developed into the new inspiration core of Nike.

In October 22nd, 27 world top athletes including the two tennis Grand Slam champion Li Na and Olympic gold medalist Allison Felix gathered in New York to unveil the new spring and summer series of their Nike Women for Nike. This is also the first time that Nike has promoted the women's sports series so widely in the world.

The main driving force behind such an emphasis on female consumers and the growth of women's business is not only traditional data research or experience judgment, but Nike's discovery that its Nike+ Training Club application has been downloaded 16 million times, and 9 million of them are women downloading Nike+ Running applications.

Relying on the flag line sports community and digital platform "Nike+" is adjusting product strategy and sales goals, within Nike, this is not a special case.

A little earlier, in September 26th, in Shanghai, Nike announced the launch of a new Zoom Air series running shoes, which was different from the previous demands. Nike's main runner was "faster" and increased its running speed as the main selling point of its product. It even invited the Mo Olympic team of London 2012 and Farah Galen Rupp to share their experience with Nike running shoes.

Just looking for speed demand, it doesn't seem special at all. But before the new marathon boom in China, and with more and more young runners in, Nike's marketing strategy is pretty good.

Behind every new product or marketing strategy decision, unlike other sporting goods companies still rely on professional athletes, third party data research and other means to collect data, Nike's unique social sports platform Nike+ is becoming an important basis for Nike's new product design, marketing and other business decisions.

In the Internet era, Nike can not just be a traditional sports Brand Company, build its own online sports community, deeper and more directly involved in the lives of consumers, grasp their data, accurately grasp their needs, with their pulse to create a new type of more compatible with the characteristics of the Internet era, Nike is working to launch this digital revolution, and build itself into a fashion of selling sports -- from concept to lifestyle, to the high-tech service company of supporting products.

In Nike's latest running shoes promotion this year, why the main selling point is "running faster" rather than others? Through the study of Nike+ data, Nike found that, with the first phase of Chinese runners more concentrated on the 40 year old middle-aged people, they started to run differently because of their health worries. On Nike's social networking network, more about 19 year old runners, they formed their own young run groups, upload their own data, can they run faster, and speed pursuit became their main goal. Obviously, Nike's new season's product appeal is closely following its needs.

"Social media and technology have changed a lot for sports. Nike's main consumers are teenagers. We hope we can always catch their needs, but without Nike+, sports will be more and more divorced from today's lives."

Huang Xiangyan, senior communications director of Nike Greater China, said.

Nike+ is Nike's online sports community and digital platform. Its extended sports social network makes Nike's business model change along with the extension of this platform.

Today, Nike is no longer a traditional company selling sportswear and sports shoes. It is combining sports with the Internet to develop a new blue ocean beyond traditional business.

The addition of women's sports products to Nike is also based on the study of 65 million women in its digital community. "Sports and fitness are promoting a new pformation in a global lifestyle of women," said Mark Parke, President and CEO of Nike. In September this year, Nike analysts told analysts in the first quarter of 2015 earnings call conference that some efforts to cater to female consumers benefited the company, such as developing applications for women, and regularly updating selected series of women products.

"We hope that in the 2017 fiscal year, our revenue can increase by US $2 billion to US $7 billion."

He said.

"If Nike+ is regarded as an upgrade to the performance of sports shoes, it will greatly underestimate the value of Nike+.

The core value of Nike+ lies in the huge online community constructed. "

Huang Xiangyan said.

Zhang Qingze, founder of Beijing sports marketing consultancy, believes that the significance of Nike+ to Nike lies in that it will completely change the communication mode between companies and users, pforming the one-way voice of Nike in the past to live in the same community of companies and users worldwide.

This will undoubtedly greatly increase Nike's opportunity to understand consumers and enhance the user's viscosity.

A big background is that in the United States, sports and even professional sports began to permeate their daily life from the time they were small, forming a highly mature, stable and subdivided sports market.

In the Chinese market, all sporting goods brands are experiencing a turning point. The dividends of the times are fading away, and the new gold mines are still buried deep underground.

"Now the breadth of China's sports industry has reached a certain scale. What we need to do now is depth.

How much do Chinese consumers understand about a category or a sport? "Huang Xiangyan said.

Lining, the founder of Lining, a local sporting goods company, also believes that the next battleground of sporting goods will be pferred from field to field.

Nike+ may help Nike find its target customers faster, changing from 1% of sports elite to 9% of ordinary sports to 90% of potential consumers, as in the field of running, to make a sport or category more sophisticated and boost sales.

Big data

"September 13, 2014; duration: 1 hours; Journey: 11 km; consumption of heat: 623 calories; average speed: 10 km / h."

Helen is a faithful runner. This is her latest running record.

She is also a member of Nike+.

For Helen, running is no longer confined to the concept of exercise, uploading its running data and experience, sharing with friends and encouraging each other, turning the boring running into happiness, becoming a new extension of this sport.

For Nike, through the Nike+'s hardware, software and community's large platform, Nike can harvest a steady stream of user data every day. What can these data bring to Nike?

It is the figures uploaded by these runners that become an important basis behind Nike's business decisions such as product design, new product promotion, online and offline marketing, etc. it helps Nike find users and understand users through gathering information about user running, so as to develop marketing activities more accurately.

For example, through Nike+, Nike finds that most users run at night, so their R & D departments have added reflective materials when designing shoes and clothes, improving visibility and safety.

Also seeing the needs of runners for speed, Nike has added a new "Nike+ coach" function to the community this year. By tailored Nike coaches resources and top athletes' opinions, the exclusive running plan is customized according to the goals and abilities of each runner.

Nike's latest data show that Nike+ now has about 20000000 registered users worldwide.

Although in Nike's earnings report, the effectiveness of a product is still not reflected, but for the running business that has always been the top revenue runner, "Nike+ is becoming a new engine to drive the company's growth."

Zhang Qing thinks.

In the first quarter of 2015, Nike reported that its revenue grew by 15% in the whole quarter to nearly $8 billion, while in China, its earnings grew by 20% after deducting the effect of exchange rate fluctuations.

Nike+ is undoubtedly a milestone in Nike's digital innovation.

In 2006, engineers at Nike headquarters found that almost everyone in University of Oregon campus used iPod.

After contacting with Apple Corp, Nike+iPod's plan hit the nail on the head.

This gives Nike the first taste of the sweetness of the digital community.

After several generations of upgrading, Nike+ supports a variety of system downloads. Through mobile phones, runners can get their own sports time, pace, heat consumption, route and other data.

Now products that are extended through Nike+ are getting involved in more sports through more forms of carrier, such as Nike+Trai n i ng and fuelband.

Technological innovation also promotes the application of Nike's new business model, that is, "user + data + service + terminal."

The current consensus in the industry is that behind the Nike+ is the application of big data, which is to understand users' needs better by analyzing user behavior.

"We can not earn much money by selling smart shoes and clothes, but the data behind it have enormous imagination.

But how Nike can tap this treasure mine remains to be tested.

Although the business logic is not clear, it is surely one of the core competitiveness of Nike's future and competing products.

Yan Qiang, deputy editor in chief of NetEase, a senior sports industry veteran.

However, in fact, including Adidas, local brand Lining and so on have not ignored the attempt on the Internet, for example, Adidas and Lining have launched Internet based communities and clubs, but they are rather pale compared with Nike+. Yan Qiang believes that this is determined by the "gene" of the company.

"For sporting goods companies, this is a revolution, technology is not the key, and whether there is such a thinking, vision, whether to abandon the business that can also bring profits for themselves is the key."

He said.

Zhang Qingye believes that every enterprise has its own DNA, "for example, Adidas also attaches great importance to products and brands, but in its dedicated market has been more emphasis on R & D investment on equipment, and Nike.