Deep Analysis Of The Reasons For The New Bai Lun'S Red Market In China

In 2003, New Balance entered the Chinese market. At first, it tried to use the concept of running shoes to communicate with consumers. However, it found that the reaction was plain, and once disappeared in the Chinese market.

However, after a few years, New Balance rekindled the flames of war, and the streets and lanes have a pair of "NB", almost becoming one of the most popular sports brands pursued by Chinese urban youth.

So how did this "king of jogging shoes" come from the United States to be reborn in China?

When the running trend hits

In recent years, jogging has played an increasingly important role in changing the way of Chinese national sports.

In the Baidu index, jogging was searched. The number of searches per day was 496 from the highest in 2011 to 1330 in 2014, nearly 3 times that of the former.

Zhang Hongwen, general manager of NewBalance China, explained: "experience abroad shows that when GDP per capita exceeds 15 thousand dollars, jogging will become popular.

And the speed of China's Internet development will only make this development advance.

In 2011, China is ushering in the country.

In the golden age, the thirty thousand Beijing International Marathon entries were fully filled within six days.

Therefore, the increasingly hot running craze has increased the need for runners to wear equipment for running, and New Balance, which has long focused on running since its birth, will certainly not give up this rare opportunity.

Because jogging is the label of "American president shoes".

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Zhang Qing, a sports marketing expert, points out that nowadays consumers often seek to upgrade their consumption in the process of buying shoes. They are no longer simply satisfied with the vanity of buying the brand, but will pay more attention to the intrinsic quality of the product itself and the position of the brand in this field.

"There is no way for an enterprise to distribute its strength evenly."

Zhang Qing believes that compared with Nike and Adidas's attempt to launch a comprehensive attack on football, basketball and running, New Balance has focused on running for a long time. In the first association of brands, Nike points to basketball and Adidas points to soccer, while New Balance is naturally linked to running.

Star effect is not common.

In recent years, you will find many stars such as Kim Su Hyon, Lee Hyolee, Shawn Yue, Yang Mi and so on, who are very fond of New Balance. They will even wear the New Balance shoes into the movie and TV dramas such as "stars from you", "Chun Jiao and Zhiming". This is undoubtedly a natural market catalyst for the brand.

It happens that at the same time, with the global warming of New Balance, especially in the United States, Japan, Korea, Hongkong, China and Taiwan, the choice of consumers in mainland China is more or less affected.

The trend of dressing trend -- the evolution of wide leg pants and straight pants to bottompants, shorts and nine pairs of trousers has made New Balance this easy to match shoe type become more popular.

Now, searching for celebrities and cultural effects on Taobao has made it fashionable for young people in Asia to become fashionable.

And there are more and more young friends who wear New Balance.

According to the data from FashionMag.com Chinese net, the fastest growth of New Balance is in recent years.

Its rapid growth in the past three years has increased by 14.6% in 2011, 12.2% in 2012 and 14.2% in 2013.

Its turnover in 2013 amounted to US $2 billion 600 million.

From 2012 to 2014, the number of New Balance stores in China expanded from 573 to more than 1000, with an increase of 75% and reaching two or three line cities.

Peng Yuhui, product manager of New Balance China, said that lifestyle shoes do sell better than sports performance in the two major footwear categories of New Balance -- more emphasis on running performance and more routine lifestyle design, because most consumers buy shoes not only for running, but also for their daily wear.

Focus on running shoes yourself.

However, for the attitude of "star and trend detonate New Balance", Jiang Chang, director of marketing in China New Balance, has different interpretations. He believes that "the trend of people's subjective preferences is changing, accidental, and can be created and continued."

New Balance can survive for hundreds of years, relying on something that pcends the trend.

Therefore, New Balance global CEO Rob Martini said frankly, New Balance will continue to focus on professional sports investment, as far as possible to enhance the sales of sports performance shoes.

"We spend about 80% of our brand marketing expenses on running."

In October 19, 2013, New Balance held the Color Run competition in Shanghai, which is a relatively short run of New Balance worldwide, which is only 5 kilometers, mainly used to attract primary runners. When it was held in Beijing in August, it attracted more than 20 thousand people, and the number of matches was also increasing year by year. Next year, Color Run will increase from 5-8 to 5-8 this year.

Rob Martini also said that the brand will continue to sponsor large running events, and the 2014 marathon sponsor is New Balance.

At the same time, New Balance is also subdividing the running shoes type and cultivating the professional running market.

Peng Yuhui said that from the beginning of this year, they also classified the running shoes from the perspective of design, mainly the sole design, which divided the sports performance products into three product lines: Run Fast (fast running), Run Far (far away) and Run Fit (running comfortably).

Transformation of mode into turnaround

When Zhang Hongwen took over the position of general manager of New Balance in China, he said, "New Balance is an undervalued brand in China. I saw an interesting challenge, similar to a kind of" bottom up "thinking, saving a depressed brand with a sense of achievement, but the key is where to start.

Zhang Hongwen still remembered the first time when she was in office, the first thing to do was to shop around China and cut off the products of 2/3 sold by New Balance to keep the display regular.

In the remaining products, he has established the "3+1" product strategy developed by New Balance in China: jogging shoes series, antique leisure jogging series, Anglo American production series and children's shoes, and all marketing and store resources are concentrated on these 3 product lines for promotion.

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In the "3+1" subtraction mode.

The next step is to enable New Balance to convey brand information more clearly, focusing on the pillar products to enhance publicity and communication efforts, enhance image and positioning, and communicate their selling points to consumers.

Each type of merchandise only publicize a key point, avoiding too complex commodity information to interfere with consumer choice.

At the same time, New Balance has made great efforts in the retail sales, training and operation of retail stores in the past few years. It upgraded the New Balance China stores to the packaging of different product lines and the vividness of store publicity, and at the same time, the way of display of products was more consistent with the habit of consumer shopping.

And integrate closely with online communication to form a complete brand experience.

For example, around the "three primary colors" online micro film plot, in the store to achieve and micro film theme and content consistent display.

Create an interactive experience by conveying a more complete story to consumers.

As Jiang Chang said, New Balance is not unknowingly fire, but because in recent years, New Balance has set clear and focused strategic goals in the world, moving towards the third major sports brand goals, and in strategic planning and resource investment.