How Can Ding Shizhong Let ADI And Nike Sleep?

As the top decision-maker of this private company, Ding Shizhong works like a machine every day. Anta's slogan is "never stop". In a sense, he himself is the best spokesman for this slogan.

Even during the eleven period, he did not rest, but rushed to Chongqing, Chengdu and other regional markets. "Down market" is the habit he has developed over the years. Over the past two years, he has run more than 500 markets, including many county markets. In July this year, Ding Shizhong took part in a charity event in Xining, but also took time to patrol the local store, although he still had some altitude sickness.

"Chongqing is a region where counterfeit goods are broken out." Ding Shizhong turned the photos from his cell phone to the "financial world" weekly reporter, who was photographed on the high speed rail to Chongqing. He pointed to the photo of the passengers wearing Anta logo shoes, said: "these shoes are ten pairs of three pairs of fake goods, I was in charge of the regional market leader to call, to focus on the matter."

Not only Ding Shizhong, but most of Anta's executives went to shop at all levels during the eleven period. "The boss's style and spirit determine the spirit of this brand." Zhao said, "Anta is actually a brand built up by cock silk, relying on diligence and execution."

Now, the market value of this brand has exceeded HK $37 billion, which is more than that of Lining, XTEP, PEAK and 361 degree four. But Ding Shizhong did not intend to enjoy the fruits of victory. He still acted on everything and set an example by himself. The road before him is clear: to retain the position of Anta's domestic sports brand leader, and to become the first in the domestic market before 2020. This undoubtedly means that Anta has to cross the two international brands of Nike and ADI.

Ding Shizhong did not shy away from the ambition of exceeding Nike and Adidas, but he also said he would not challenge them in the other's mode. In fact, it is not necessarily a good result to imitate international brand entirely. In 2010, the core of Lining's radical brand remolding was to emulate Nike, but it turned out to be a big hit.

"Why does China have a serious homogenization in all walks of life?" the reason is that no gap has been found. In Ding Shizhong's view, the sporting goods market is growing all the time. For enterprises, the key is to find the right position, resist temptation and not blindly follow suit. "How can we compete with Nike and Adidas? We don't have much money, they are not as big as they are, and their brand history is not long. Anta's goal is the mass market, while the mass consumer is pursuing cost-effective. Half of China's people can't afford to buy our products. How big do you think this space is? "

Unlike many people who are not optimistic about sporting goods, Ding Shizhong is full of confidence in the industry. The reason is that he has traveled all over China's large and small markets. It has been found that in many three or four line cities, students are not playing basketball shoes when playing basketball, and the market demand should be large. "Sporting goods industry is the health industry, and China's share is still too low. In terms of sports shoes, people in Europe and the United States have four pairs to five pairs, and we don't even get one pair.

According to Ding Shizhong's goal, Anta wants to sell 100 million pairs of sneakers. He judged that China will have 500 million pairs of sneakers in the future, and Anta will sell 1/5 of them. "There are 1 billion 300 million people in China. If one of the 13 people buys Anta shoes, Anta can sell at least 100 million pairs, but now there is still a long way to go."

In order to achieve this goal, while sparing no effort in the layout of the mass market, Anta, which has taken many heavy resources, is also implementing multi brand strategy: the original Anta brand is still located in ordinary shops facing mass consumers, NBA brand occupies the channel of e-commerce, and FILA occupies high-end department stores.

Ding Shizhong revealed that with the increasing number of its brands, its internal structure is being restructured in order to adapt to the collectivization of multi brand management. However, Ding Shizhong has always been cautious about the idea of brand moving, because Lining's failure case is fresh in his memory. He does not want to take a bold way to remodel the brand, but hopes to acquire a foreign brand to get rid of the grass roots image of Anta. His reference object is Geely and Lenovo. The two Chinese companies acquired Volvo and IBM[micro-blog respectively, and finally laid the international market.

However, Ding Shizhong did not want to achieve that goal so soon. "We still need to be pragmatic. Brands need to accumulate time." He said he would not do things that he was not sure about, and he had to be fully prepared to do things. "We haven't failed until now. People say I'm lucky, but I can't be lucky in everything."

He is soberly aware that Anta, a local brand in China, has a clear gap compared with the international brands. In the short term, the gap between this quality and image is hard to be smoothed out, so the pace can not go too fast.

Let's focus on Anta. Basketball shoes In terms of the design and professionalism of Anta shoes, Nike is far inferior to brands such as Nike. "Although Anta has a broad mass base and lower price, Nike is too strong. The real players especially care about the technological content of the shoes." Zhao Ang, an employee of Anta, believes that Anta and its future rival, ADI, are in the recognition of brand image and high-end consumers. Nike Far apart, even worse than Lining. "I still think (Anta) is too grassroots, and Lining is almost the same. Now this concept is gradually changing."

An industry insider pointed out sharply. Anta brand The crux of the image is: "Anta's company is hard to lead the industry's innovation, basically it still stays in the stage of imitation + improvement."

Because of this, at various meetings of Anta, Ding Shizhong repeatedly stressed that the road ahead of Anta is still very long and can not breed arrogance and complacency. "Every time he meets, he stresses (not complacency)." Zhang Tao said that Anta has always been exceptionally cautious and calm about everything from Anta to brand management and upgrading to the daily routine of the company.

The only exception may come from the signing ceremony of the cooperation agreement with NBA in October 13th this year. On the same day, in the Century Hall of Renmin University of China, Ding Shizhong announced that he had taken the NBA resources and was full of pride.

"I guess Nike and Adidas's CEO can't sleep for a while. They are definitely studying how to compete with us in the Chinese basketball market. The same pair of basketball shoes, Nike and Adidas sell more than 1000 yuan, we sell 399 yuan, and we have endorsement of NBA brand, how can they sleep? "

Half a month later, in October 29th, the NBA regular season began, and for Ding Shizhong, the new competition began.