Anta Chairman Ding Zhizhong: History Of "Shoe King" Entrepreneurship

In 1994,

Co founded with my father and brother.

"Brand".

15 years ago, Anta had worked as a foundry for foreign brands, had done wholesale business, played a brand, sponsored professional sports events, established a sports science laboratory, made retail, listed in Hongkong, signed Francis, Scola, Wells, and formed a strategic alliance with the Rockets, making Anta stand out from the national shoe enterprises.

Today, Anta has the highest market share for three consecutive years, and sportswear takes the first place.

Entrepreneurship for ideals

Ding Zhizhong grew up in a shoemaking workshop and was interested in doing business. He hoped he could earn more money and make his life better.

He told reporters, "my biggest ambition at the beginning of my career was to have money to buy a motorcycle like anyone else."

It is Ding Zhizhong's original business motivation to hope to have the money to buy a motorcycle like anyone else.

He is located in Jinjiang, Fujian, Chen Dai town is a place prone to commercial cells.

Local people have a tradition of making a living out of the sea. Overseas nationals earn money, send capital back and bring market information and orders, thus giving birth to local manufacturing.

In the early 1980s, a group of shoe factories had sprung up in Chen Dai Town, Jinjiang.

Overseas Jinjiang residents brought initial orders for these workshops.

Local farmers Ding Zhizhong and Mu participated in a village run in Chen Dai town in the middle of 1980s.

The establishment of the factory.

Before and after 1991, he sold his family's grain, chickens, ducks and other things that could be exchanged for money, and raised fifty thousand or sixty thousand yuan under the assistance of his relatives. He set up a shoe making workshop alone, which is the predecessor of Anta.

According to the information provided by Anta, as early as 1987, Ding and Mu gave his son Ding Zhizhong 10 thousand yuan, and 600 pairs of shoes bought from the shoe factories of Chen Dai, so he checked them to Beijing for sale.

At this time, Ding Zhizhong was only 17 years old, and he had not graduated from junior high school.

Ding Zhizhong became one of the hundreds of Jinjiang people who sold shoes in Beijing in the 80s and 90s of last century.

He has set up a shoe counter in Beijing's most important shopping malls, such as Wangfujing shopping center, which is very popular in Jinjiang.

It is said that Ding Zhizhong has been marketing consciousness since then. He has learned to study the types of consumers and pay more attention to what kind of shoes have a bigger market.

According to a person familiar with Anta, Ding Zhizhong returned to Jinjiang in 1994 with a profit of 200 thousand yuan from Beijing, when the shoe factory was opened by Ding's father and brother.

When Ding Zhizhong returned to Jinjiang, he became deputy general manager in charge of marketing.

In 1994, after changing several factory names, Ding Jia and his son decided to unite the factory name and product brand as "Anta".

According to Ding Hemu, this brand contains "peace of mind, entrepreneurship and down-to-earth" means.

Two years later, Ding Zhizhong gained the lead of family business.

He became the general manager of Anta, and his father Ding Hemu formally retired to the second line; his brother Ding Shih had a mild personality and "did not like to be in the lead", specializing in production affairs; Ding Yali, a secondary school graduate and a financial school girl, took charge of the company's pocketbook.

"Very luckily, Ding Zhizhong had a very good father who gave him power early, and his brother and sister formed a very good complementary relationship with him, without fighting for power or fighting."

A person familiar with Anta said.

New exploration of grassroots boss

"The original Anta, without Lining's Olympic glory, did not support such a big consortium such as Jianlibao. Its starting point was too low, and it was a grass-roots enterprise.

Anta can develop to now, in the industry environment, there are many key nodes in the development of enterprises.

Looking back at the growth of Anta, Ding Zhizhong believes that Anta has seized several major turning points in the development of the industry and the market.

In the mid 90s of last century, a large number of state-owned sports goods brands collapsed in China, such as Binxing, Huili and so on. The only big China is Lining.

In Jinjiang, almost all sporting goods enterprises are doing international brand OEM business.

Anta abandoned the OEM export order route, began to enter the domestic market, and seized a good market opportunity.

This is Ding Zhizhong's first major turning point for Anta.

After taking a place, Anta adjusted its target to the top of the domestic industry.

In the domestic market where competition is not fierce, many enterprises at that time did not have a brand awareness. At that time, Ding Zhizhong looked at the huge potential of the Chinese market. If the enterprise wanted to be bigger and the top of the industry, it must brand.

In 1999, Ding Zhizhong held a high opinion on the board of directors, and finally signed Kong Linghui with 1 million 600 thousand yuan to endorse Anta. With Kong Linghui's "I choose, I like", it coincided with Kong Linghui's brave victory in 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. Anta was famous all night.

Until now, Ding Zhizhong is still very grateful to Kong Linghui, when Anta went public, he specially invited Kong Linghui to Hongkong.

However, the signing at that time did not seem so dramatic now.

The advertising campaign was made by Ding Zhizhong on top of the company's objections.

There was no obvious effect after the commercials were broadcast, and Ding Zhizhong was also somewhat uneasy.

But two months later, orders from all over the country began to rush to Jinjiang, and Anta's sales department was overcrowded.

"Brand" has become the second key turning point in the growth of Anta, which has also activated the brand awareness of a number of shoe companies in Jinjiang. CCTV sports channel has once been called the "Jinjiang channel".

Jinjiang is the shoe capital of China. Many enterprises here make shoes for their living.

Anta was also the sole sports shoe company at the very beginning.

Now Anta, according to Lai Shixian, chief operating officer of Anta, has accounted for about 44% of all sports products produced by Anta in the first half of 2007. Anta has become a truly comprehensive sporting goods company.

This strategic pformation was formulated by Ding Zhizhong in 2001.

This has become another important node of Anta.

After becoming famous, Anta began the way of sports marketing.

From 2002 to 2005, Anta began sponsoring the professional sports league in China, and was praised as "the engine of China league tournament".

By sponsoring and participating in professional events, the professionalism of Anta sports products has been greatly improved.

In this process, Ding Zhizhong also gradually explored how to enhance the core competitiveness of enterprises.

In 2005, Anta first set up the first sports science laboratory in the sporting goods industry in China, dedicated to the study of sports mechanics, and provided the basis for the research of Anta professional sports products.

Now, not only CBA, but also Anta's basketball shoes, with the recent signing of Rockets players Francis and Scola in the NBA arena, can not but say that there was no "pains" at that time.

The success of Anta's celebrity endorsement has sparked the imitation of the brothers in the city. The Jinjiang municipal government has also promoted Anta's experience in other enterprises' "duplication" and rewarded the rising brand.

For a time, there was a "brand making" movement in the area. CCTV-5 appeared dozens of advertisements for Jinjiang shoe enterprises, and CCTV-5 was also nicknamed "Chen Dai channel".

A group of well-known shoe makers, such as XTEP,

Del Hui, Hongxing Erke, and thus began to emerge from numerous shoes.

After the "tie up" with Kong Linghui, Anta's sales revenue grew at a speed like a rocket.

According to the data provided by Anta, from 2001 to 2006, Anta's sales revenue increased from 100 million yuan to 1 billion 250 million yuan.

Ding Zhizhong said: "Anta has just done the right thing at the right time, and has won the market opportunity."

In June 23, 2009, the Chinese Olympic Committee announced that Anta became the partner of the Chinese Olympic Committee from 2009 to 2012. This means that Chinese athletes will be replaced by Anta for many years in the 11 major competitions, such as the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and the 2012 London Olympics.

As a result, Anta has gained an important opportunity to comprehensively enhance product design and corporate culture, and has also become the first beneficiary of the "gold rights" that has been packaged by the Chinese Olympic Committee as a whole.

This is another marketing gamble of Ding Zhizhong.

According to the first half of 2009, Anta realized net profit of 608 million yuan, an increase of 40.1% over the same period last year.