Nike'S Helplessness? Is UNIQLO Changing Its Course?

At the end of last week, an epic confrontation ended on a tennis court. Argentina led by Del Botero was the first to win the Davis Cup trophy in history.

In the history of the Davis Cup over 100 years, Argentina should be the most pathetic team.

They used to be the runner up in 1981, 2006, 2008 and 2011 years. The men's tennis in this country seemed to be branded with a cup of seal.

Now, the eagle on the Pampas grassland has finally seen the moon.

The end of Davis Cup means a season of professional tennis.

In retrospect, this is indeed a memorable tennis season. In addition to the Argentina men's net of "a thousand year old daughter-in-law", many people have welcomed their career for the first time.

The most striking thing is that men and women ranked first in the year's end. They changed into new faces. Gobel's Grand Slam held two crowns and one Asia this year, breaking Serena Williams's rule over women's tennis circles. He has been regarded as the lowest achievement among the "big four". Murray also began to rush ahead after the Rio Olympic Games.

Federer's age and physical condition have become the bottleneck that he can not change. He failed to rank in the top ten at the end of the year. When was the last time?

The same problem is placed in front of Nadal. They still have reasons to insist, but whether they can wait for the return they want is really a big question mark.

Of course, for this year's Djokovic, the 2016 season is equally significant, because he finally broke the French open window paper.

Losing the world's first place is not terrible. In the future, what he has to do is prove that he still has the ability to rule the men's tennis world.

We used to complain about the lack of surprises in professional tennis.

On the one hand, we expect new people to rise faster; on the contrary, the era of the big four still makes us forget.

This confusion and confusion exist not only in the hearts of fans, but also in other tennis practitioners.

The sponsors of marketing will feel a little confused.

Last weekend, tennis professional website tennisworldusa exposed the news, Nike threw an olive branch to Djokovic, ready to use a sky price contract to Serbia people to account.

It is reported that Nike opened a contract worth 30 million euros for two years for Djokovic. If it goes on the line, Djokovic will surpass Federer and Sharapova and become a new leader in Nike.

In fact, this is not the first time Nike has launched an attack on Djokovic.

As early as 2012, Serbia people just passed a nearly unassailable 2011 season, and they are also in the first peak of their career. At that time, Nike was interested in signing with Djokovic.

Only half way out of UNIQLO, with annual endorsement fee of 8 million euros cut Hu.

Besides the direct economic benefits, Xiao De also obtained the distribution rights of UNIQLO in Serbia. It can be said that such a price has been directly pursued by Federer.

In addition, at that time, Nike had Nadal, Serena Williams, Sharapova and other superstar resources, which is unlikely to pay such a high price for a superstar.

Nike always attaches importance to the tennis market. Compared with other brands, Nike takes the lead in the number and quality of its spokesmen.

However, as time goes by, with the declining competitiveness of Federer and Nadal, Serena Williams is also in the twilight years of her career, and Sharapova is beset by drug abuse. Nike's resource advantage has almost disappeared.

On the contrary, Adidas has become a model of spending money to do great things. Although the star flavor is not enough, the Legion of the Legion in 2016 obviously has more fighting power.

In terms of men, Bertie joined the Adidas camp. Tim, the representative of the younger generation, also rose rapidly, becoming the biggest discovery of ATP this season. In terms of women, Adidas also formed its own group advantage. In addition to the most eye-catching performance of Gobel, Harry and muskuruzha also ranked the top ten, and these gorgeous performances were eclipsed by Nike.

Of course, we can not ignore UNIQLO and Under Armour. After all, the top two men in the world are dominated by these two brands.

In short, the tennis market with a hundred schools of thought contended, but Nike gradually became a supporting role, which is obviously not directly proportional to its huge investment.

In this case, if Nike wants to get instant results, it can only make contributions to star resources, while Djokovic becomes the only possible breakthrough point.

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UNIQLO spent a lot of money signing Djokovic, frankly speaking, from the result, this is definitely a cost-effective investment.

Since 2012, Serbia people have ranked first in the world for a long time, and show absolute dominance in the arena. The number of Grand Slam has also increased year by year, which has brought inestimable marketing value to UNIQLO.

Some may say that UNIQLO has no reason to give up Djokovic.

This is true, and even if Xiao De finally changes, it is not necessarily because UNIQLO has doubts about the future of Xiao De, but more is determined by brand positioning.

Let's not forget that UNIQLO is still a fast fashion brand, not a sports brand.

These brands have frequently crossed sports in recent years and have achieved good results, but market volatility will still affect their overall strategic deployment.

From a macro point of view, fast fashion brands generally do not regard advertising or endorsement as a long-term brand marketing mode, most of them are only phased strategies.

When the market environment is good, the brand will adopt a relatively radical and open marketing strategy.

Among the fast fashion brands, H&M and UNIQLO are the most typical. They all choose to cooperate with sports stars.

However, with the fashion industry and retail industry entering the cold winter, the days of these brands are beginning to become tense.

This year, H&M ended its cooperation with Bertic and Beckham.

As for UNIQLO, it has begun to focus on fashion trends.

Last month, the new series of Uniqlo U met with the public. Not long ago, the fast selling group of UNIQLO parent company proposed a plan to revive the cowboy business.

So it is no surprise that UNIQLO really reduces investment in sports marketing.

In addition, in the context of the Tokyo Olympic Games, UNIQLO will be more likely to concentrate on local players.

According to "SportsPro" released this year's most marketable athletes list, Jin Wei became the only tennis player in the top ten.

In a sense, it is not difficult for people to understand that UNIQLO chooses Kam Kam kyu. After all, the sponsorship fee of tens of millions of euros per year is not a small sum for UNIQLO.