Adidas: By Running Jedi Counter Attack, Action Is Taken Simultaneously In Three Aspects.

The marathon competition from one sponsor overnight to the current one vote is hard to come by. Business opportunities in the running market have already broken out.

In 2011, a total of 22 marathon events were held in China, up to 39 in 2013 and 55 in 2014.

According to preliminary estimates, in 2014, about 75 thousand people completed the whole marathon in China, and about 110 thousand people completed the half marathon.

The marathon and related activities (horse, half horse, 10 km, mini run, family run, lovers run, etc.) are about 600 thousand people.

The annual marathon race has covered about 300 million of China's TV viewing population.

The scale of the sports industry directly led by the Chinese marathon in 2014 was about 30 billion yuan.

Who can turn a blind eye to such a huge market?

In 2010, Gao Jiali came to greater China as senior vice president.

At this point, Adidas's share in China slipped to fourth. In addition to its old competitors, Chinese brands, Lining and Anta, are also at the forefront.

In 2008, Adidas and

In China, the market share is less than 1%, and a year later, in 2009, Adidas's market share dropped by about 4%.

Gao Jiali, the managing director of Greater China in Adidas group, described the situation at the time.

Adidas has drawn up a long-term plan of "five way to 2015" in order to open the path of pformation and pformation.

In the planning period, the whole company will be committed to pformation in 2011~2012, and 2012~2013 is committed to restoring and accelerating revenue growth. 2014~2015 has regained its market leadership status.

In short, it will become the leading sports brand in Greater China by 2015.

At the same time, the "road to 2015" also designed 15 modules, 5 of which are business growth modules, 7 are internal capacity growth modules, and 3 are capacity growth modules for customers, i.e. distributors.

Adidas moves in three ways:

One is category attack.

Faster market access through category combinations.

The two is to expand the emerging small and medium-sized cities.

Gao Jiali prefers to call them "future cities", that is, the fastest growing areas of consumers.

"China is one of the largest and most diversified markets in the world, and the" one size fits all "strategy will not work here.

Gao Jiali said.

Today, more than half of Adidas's new stores are located in emerging cities. It is estimated that 2/3 of growth opportunities will take place in four to seven cities. "The growing middle class in emerging markets will create more opportunities for us."

The three is the breakdown of retail stores.

Adidas was originally a sports shop about brands, but now there are women's stores specializing in women, NEO "The Stage", Adidas sports classic flagship stores, outdoor franchised stores, and so on. This is also a strategic adjustment under the trend of segmentation demand in the Chinese market after the maturity of consumers.

In order to raise the rate of selling out, Adidas changed the way dealers choose their products before, according to the sales data obtained from the national stores, it helped dealers to order products accurately.

Although this practice is temporarily unable to cover the whole country, orders for large 5%~20% dealers are purchased by the company, packed to the warehouse, and told the dealer not to open the package, directly to a certain city, to provide precise delivery in a specific form.

Future specific products designed for a particular store will also be sent in a precise way.

The pformation of infrastructure has laid a good foundation for the development of the company. At the same time, Adidas must exert itself on the basis of meticulous management to some rapidly rising categories, among which running is one of the largest categories.

What can "1% progress" bring?

The rise of the running market can be said to be a companion of urbanization.

German sports sociologists have put forward the concept of "sports in urban space", and the pressure of urban life can be dispelled through sports activities.

Running in sports is not only low cost, but also low demand for the venue. It has become the most popular sport in the city.

But to win the running race, a good pair.

Is the key.

In a sports equipment forum like tiger pads, the technical performance of a pair of running shoes is often split into details by opinion leaders.

As the general manager of Adidas group running category, Adrian Leek admits that running shoes development is more difficult in all shoes. The technological progress of sports footwear often starts with running categories. "If you can prove a technology on running shoes, the next technology can expand to basketball shoes or football shoes."

Initially, BASF took new materials to find specific developers, designers and engineers and asked them if they could use this material on shoes.

The engineers of Adidas tried it out and found that the performance of the material was not stable. However, two characteristics were enough to bring about revolutionary changes in running experience, one is good slow vibration performance, the other two is rebound performance.

Resilience can make running more efficient, but in the past materials, these two characteristics naturally contradict each other.

If we can further optimize the performance, this is an exciting material.

So in 2010, an innovative team of engineers and scientists from Adidas worked with BASF and finally launched Boost running shoes with the above two properties in February 2013.

When Boost was launched, the results of the store survey found that the conversion rate of consumers when trying shoes was 50% of the conversion rate from the original brand to Adidas Boost.

In fact, consumers are choosing different running shoes technology, EVA, Gel, Air...

Now Boost joined the war Corps.

As a record holder of the 15 kilometer road race in Britain, Adrian's experience is "let a consumer give up the familiar shoe type. It is not easy to change a pair of new shoes, especially in running categories.

The conversion rate of 50% has been proved successful.

The conversion rate brought by the foot feeling during the shoe test also needs to be tamped in the competition.

Adidas put forward the strategic goal of "1% improvement" for running shoes category.

This is because, for a two hour marathon, a 1% increase means that the runner's time can be shortened by 26 seconds, and the 4 hour marathon means a reduction of 2 to 2.5 minutes.

This is also a great test for athletes who want to improve their performance.

The so-called "good work is the best way to do good," and the fundamental product advantage is very important. The runner will vote with his feet.

Because the commanding height of running shoe technology has always been a battleground for soldiers, leading manufacturers at a certain time can not guarantee a lasting advantage.

"We have a future research station, and we are still investing heavily in running shoes to ensure our competitive edge."

Adrian is very confident about this.

New opportunities for cool running

In the 80s of last century, there was running tide in the west, and Adrian was also one of the runners.

At that time, the general pursuit of speed was keen to participate in the 3 hour marathon. Many people were injured.

But now the trend of running is no longer emphasizing speed, but enjoying the process, especially enjoying the joy of running with like-minded friends.

"I think running is popular because there are running communities. People like to get together and seek common ground. After they run, they go for a cup of coffee together.

This is a common social phenomenon in Europe and America, which is healthier than before.

Compared with Europe and the United States, China's running market is not mature, the main difference lies in consumers' understanding of running.

"What we need to do is to let consumers understand the correct training methods and nutritional supplements, and choose suitable running products."

Therefore, building a community (cool running group), creating a Runbase and sponsoring marathon is an important means for Adidas to establish its influence in this field.

Since 2011, Adidas has been sponsoring a cool running group in China to deepen the Chinese people's love of running.

Adidas cool running Sanlitun flagship shop also attracts countless runners.

People not only share the harvest of personal running here, but also take regular weekly night running as a gathering point, and prepare for the North horse, the Guangzhou horse and the horse through the collective running training activities.

Cool running group is also equipped with professional physical fitness coach's guidance, many amateur athletes and enthusiasts here learned the correct knowledge of running, effectively avoid sports injuries, more importantly, together on the field, in the endurance and willpower moment can inspire each other, before running a close sense of belonging.

Of course, cool running group is also an opportunity for products to contact target consumers.

During the party, runners can experience Adidas's latest running equipment, feel the online and offline running experience, and test the fitness of the foot and sports shoes with special equipment.

Building interactive base with Runbase

Today, cool running groups from eight cities in China have accumulated more than 8 000 runners, including junior athletes and professional marathon athletes, ranging in age from 18 to 70 years.

In order to deepen the influence of the core city, as part of the global plan, Adidas launched the Runbase running base project, which is different from the flagship store. It mainly provides public running facilities to the public, including outdoor runway, exercise field, treadmill and services including running events and training courses per week. It is pformed from purely selling stores to community-based and service-oriented forms, interacting with customers, communicating and building trust with people, so that people can understand running culture, so this is not just Runbase, but also a Trustbase (trust base).

One of the scenic West Bank bases in Binjiang, Xuhui, Shanghai, is one of them, Adrian says, "the base is equivalent to our local hub, connecting different groups."

In Boston, Runbase is an important venue for organizing activities of the Boston marathon Association. Every few days a small activity will be used to influence runners. Cooperation is also one of the important ways of base development.

When John Hancock of Boston financial institution wants to organize activities, Adidas will introduce them to the running base.

"These people may know Google, but they do not know much about running. It is through these cooperation that we introduce our expertise in running and invite them to join the running club. This is our long-term plan."

Members of the Adidas running community will eventually realize the convenience of members.

In April 2015, Adidas announced its partnership with the Shanghai half marathon to become the official partner of the event and the only designated sports equipment supplier.

In 2015, Adidas signed a 5 year cooperation agreement with 2015~2019 in the Beijing marathon. The 2014 Beijing marathon is an important milestone in Adidas's running category, marking Adidas's sponsorship of the event for 5 consecutive years.

The advantage of becoming a member is that runners have more chances to participate in the marathon.

In addition, Adidas is also sponsoring the three major international competitions of Boston marathon, Berlin marathon and London Marathon internationally.

"These events help to show sponsors' products and brands, win consumers' trust and give them a very good experience."

"But as a sponsor, it's not just about communicating with consumers on the day of the competition," Adrian said. "It's important to maintain continuous communication before and after the competition."

For example, after the Boston marathon, players usually get two kinds of results. One is to check the results on the official website of the Boston marathon, but after that, they will be invited to do some related things, such as online questions and answers.

In addition, a booklet will be received by the contestants. The pamphlet will also invite players to take part in some other activities, such as the ten kilometre race or half marathon, which will be held in the near future, and keep in touch with the players without interruption.

So, after the marathon, the company's next round of consumer communication is about to start. "What sponsors do is 365 days a year of communication planning, not just during the competition, but this is very important."

Under a series of reform initiatives, sales of Adidas's running category are expected to double in 2020. BOOST and its upgraded version of Ultra BOOST only contributed 1 million 100 thousand pairs of sales in the world in 2014 alone, and the number of runners increased by two digits in the past 4 years. The Greater China region generated 1 billion 800 million euros in revenue in the past year.

Gao Jiali has achieved his 2015 strategy and is heading for the next ambitious goal.