Can We Use Newbalance To Stay In The "Third" Position?

As the Tmall Double 11 Among the exploding points, NewBalance ranked eleventh in the total sales list, ranking third in the sports category, and even won the championship title during the pre-sale period.

Double 11 this year Sports brand Strong performance, from the sales ranking, the "billion club" business camp has 6 sports brands, followed by NIKE, Adidas, NewBalance, Lining, Anta and XTEP.

As one of the exploding points of Tmall double 11, New Balance ranks eleventh in the total sales volume list, ranking third in sports category, and even won the championship title during the pre-sale period. Meanwhile, according to foreign media reports, New Balance and NIKE are listed as the most popular US brands this year. Other brands include apple, Nike Playboy and Skech.

In the sports brand, the dispute between the throne of NIKE and Adidas is no longer a new topic. As a rising star, Under Amour's threat to the two party is limited to North America and some parts of the country. While the war of domestic sports brands is burning fiercer with the Olympic Games, it is still limited in the global popularity.

In such a four field of smoke, New Balance quietly brews its ambitions with the ring of "presidential jogging shoes": take the world's first running brand and become the top three sports brand in the world.

Once lost the Chinese trademark, into the agent channel problem, this early in the last century has entered China's American brand is not going smoothly, now the use of e-commerce channels to help it to stay in the "third" position?

No hero

In the middle of this year, New Balance invited Jonathan Lee, the godfather of Chinese music, to take the 110th Anniversary advertising film "every step counts" and produced the cultural symbols of artisans' ingenuity. In fact, in 2014, Jonathan Lee photographed a 3 minute and 30 second advertisement for New Balance, using his personal language to describe his life experience as the founder of singer and handmade guitar brand. The two round of communication has been well spread around similar topics. "Every step counts" has been broadcast on Tencent videos for more than 5 million times on the 5 day.

Why does a sports brand choose ingenuity as a marketing point? "NIKE is like a hero," Li Yaohui, senior commercial director of New Balance Greater China, described the value of the brand she wanted to create for consumers in an interview with an online business reporter. "Compared to hero New Balance, she wants to convey a sense of warmth and growth to consumers."

The so-called brand image may be an indescribable but deep-rooted existence in the minds of consumers. The reasons why NIKE and Adidas can give consumers heroic images come from two aspects: first, their first sports status in the world and the heroic aura brought by the stars and teams signed by sponsorship; on the other hand, they are the competitive attributes of their strong fields, including football and basketball.

On the other hand, New Balance appears to be closer to "warmer man". As a very small number of product lines that still have factory brands in the United Kingdom and the United States, New Balance has a clear Anglo American production line, while other brands often eliminate such factories because of manual grinding and time-consuming and small production. The Tmall flagship store, which opens the New Balance, has an absolute advantage in the structure of its products, which is characterized by digital naming. However, due to its relatively less demand for skills and antagonism in running culture, more emphasis is placed on endurance and persistence. Therefore, compared with the marketing of heroism, it tends to be more emotional marketing and attract more young consumers.

Addition or subtraction?

With the popularity of running in the public and the changing trend, New Balance has been pushed to the spotlight.

According to the world clothing shoes and hats net, from 2013 to now, the annual sales growth of Tmall running shoes is nearly 100%. "If it's just a simple calculation of running products, I believe it should be almost the same as NIKE's turnover and at the same time exceed Adidas," Li Yaohui told reporters.

Despite a small amount of clothing accessories, New Balance is still relatively simple in category than NIKE and Adidas. The company is also aware of this bottleneck. Last year, Darren Tucker, Asia Pacific vice president, said in an interview that the brand is ready to meet new challenges and will march from jogging to comprehensive sports.

However, New Balance is always cautious in expanding its decisions and seems to be looking for some kind of balance. It entered the Chinese brand in the 90s of last century, and officially announced its entry into the football field in June 2015. It plans to double the revenue from football products to US $6 billion in 5 years, and its tennis, baseball and other peripheral products are still in the process of brewing. At that time, NIKE and Adidas had already been in the field of football, basketball, tennis, cricket and so on.

Now some brands have a myth that the more categories, the more styles, the more businesses. Li Yaohui does not agree with this view. "Lessismore", in his view, to adjust the product line is to improve the consumer purchase experience, thus making the entire product line, shop management and company operation professional and refined.

The addition and subtraction of New Balance on the product line began in 2011. At that time, in the face of lack of emphasis in marketing, the company had cut off a considerable proportion of its products. The purpose was to change the past running, fitness, tennis and other combinations, which led to the confusion of consumers' brand image, so as to establish brand recognition.

With Zara, UNIQLO and other fast fashion brands spreading in the Chinese market, the popularity of light pants and light sports shoes has been sought after by its retro leisure series. New Balance has taken the retro style as its main push. Many people become New Balance's fans and fans through a Hongkong love movie "Zhiming and Chun Jiao" released in 2010. In the movie, Zhang Zhiming, an advertising agency employee, plays a role of Zhang Zhiming, a pair of black frame glasses, stepping on a pair of New Balance M996 grey retro running shoes, a casual dress and a cigarette smoking and puffing style.

In addition to the retro casual running shoes, New Balance carefully added on the product line and launched a series of products of different styles, such as the Yi Pu, the street and so on. What surprised the team, however, is that the bright colors and bold styles of the 574 class are also selling well in the Chinese market. In this year's double 11 Fashion Festival, New Balance launched its new low grade skateboard shoes in the world. Li Yaohui told reporters, "now consumers want to wear it more simply and no longer feel like heavy basketball shoes as before. Instead, the shoes that are flat and suitable match become more and more popular, and the skateboard shoes will become one of the mainstream of 2017.

Incremental war for women and children

In addition to the launch of the new product line, the children and women's market has become the frontline battleground of New Balance and other sports brands. Li Yaohui said that in the past few years, Tmall double 11 has ranked first in the sales of sports children's shoes.

It is understood that in the sale of children's shoes, New Balance double 11 pre-sale period is NIKE 2~3 times. There are nearly more than 900 stores of children's shoes and clothing in China, and will expand through electricity providers and continue to sink to the three or four line. "We need to know more about the needs of children's growth movement, regardless of the height of the arch, the height and width of the instep, and so on." In 2014, NIKE and Adidas scrambled to set up a special product experience store for women. Li Yaohui also said that the product line will consider making some growth in the direction of Yoga segmentation and clothing category in the future.

Besides children and women, it will also act on clothing. The latest vice president of clothing will lead to the future iteration and upgrading of clothing products and design. Li Yaohui explained why he attached great importance to the clothing sector: "in the past, a large proportion of shoes in China were in shoes, but now the consciousness of consumption is rising. No matter professional or leisure, sports should be consistent from head to toe, not just a pair of shoes".

Unlike NIKE's self testing platform, New Balance's electricity business started in Tmall flagship store in 2010, and online products were specially ordered.

In addition to serving as a channel, the electricity supplier is more important as a form of life for consumers. In Li Yaohui's view, the use of its characteristics to help brand analysis and understand user habits has become one of the important aspects of its existence. "Tmall is our best strategic partner on the electricity supplier. We expect that in the near future, we will be able to analyze consumers more accurately through cooperation, so as to guide marketing investment." He said that through accurate analysis of big data and the creation of user profiles, we can make an analysis and comparison of customer data and consumption figures of e-commerce outlets, and we can know the specific consumption segments and suitable consumers, as well as the commodities they prefer to use.

O2O2O= price shop, Ole, electricity supplier

At one time, New Balance, like some international brands in China, was deeply trapped in the vortex of brand names, and the channel problem of agents was once one of the shackles to hamper its development in China.

New Balance combed the offline channels until 2012. It is reported that it divides the offline market of Chinese market into 22 urban clusters and 28 key cities according to the city, and trains single dealers in the region, thereby avoiding vicious competition. Similar to the "irrigation" approach, the development of the lower level after the size of the key distributors increased. At the same time, according to the Push mode, according to the data of the number of stores and so on, we predict the sales volume of specific areas and specific stores in the next 18 months, so as to recommend the next month's orders.

The irrigation system has successfully reduced NewBalance to the T6 city cluster dominated by domestic brands (including counties in coastal developed areas or sub developed areas). From more than 300 in 2011 to more than 2800 now, the number of offline stores has increased by more than 800% in 6 years, and the annual sales volume in mainland China has increased by 3 figures in 2012~2014. Although the growth rate slowed slightly in 2016 due to the unstable supply chain, Li Yaohui said that the number of stores will be more than 3000 by the end of this year.

For offline retail market, the company will focus on Oteri J, a similar shopping mall, Outlet. "Many brands and businesses believe that electricity providers and entities are tied up. We believe that the third letter" O "of O2O2O is" ole ".

Indeed, in the past three years, Ole has risen in China. According to incomplete statistics, Li Yaohui has revealed at least more than 50 newly opened ole every year. The team has visited several ole group and has witnessed its strategic layout in the next three years.

However, for the rise of OLE, there is doubt that consumers' impression of the products sold by the ole will damage the brand image. In response, Li Yaohui responded to the operation and service of OLE store as the level of the price store, but the product line of OLE is different in price supply.

Today, consumption has shifted from past department stores and street shops to Ole, which can go all day to meet consumers' necessities. "Ole will be a form of life for consumers" in the future. In Li Yaohui's view, Ole should even be regarded as a main channel for the brand side. And the company will realize the O2O2O series through the positive price store, OLE and electricity supplier. "How to connect these three places is a very important goal for the next NewBalance in China."

Compared with product line, New Balance is more decisive in channel judgement. Because ole has different body sizes, up to 100 thousand square meters, the small is only 2~3 million. Next, the company will look for the appropriate ole store, which has a crucial impact on its offline strategic layout.

From the development of category to professional sports, to the preparation for women and children's market, and to the arrangement of online and offline channels and the layout of OLE, NewBalance can be said to be ready. Whether the "old American brand" can realize its ambition may not be far from the answer.

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