[Depth] New Balance New Brun: A Professional Sports Brand That Wants To Be Placed Behind Nike And ADI.

In order to break the limitation of tide brand, New Balance announced a brand-new brand idea in 2018, making every effort to play its own "100 years professional sports brand".

This old desire for running shoes is undoubtedly its profession.

Sales are comparable to retro categories.

It has been 10 years since the first New Balance CEO entry into China. Robert Demartini (Robert T. DeMartini) sighed, "10 years ago, no one talked about running in China, but now many people are talking about running.

I heard that yesterday there were 40 marathon events in China.

In fact, the number is not accurate. The day before Robert Demartini's interview with the interface news, there were as many as 52 marathons in the whole country in April 15th, with more than 260 thousand entries, creating a new record for the domestic marathon running on the same day.

According to the latest data of China Athletics Association, in 2017, the national marathon and related events reached 1100, and the number of participants was nearly 5 million, an increase of 78% over 2016.

However, in Robert's view, these milestone figures do not match closely with the old New Balance of running shoes.

"The Chinese market is very important. It is the fastest growing market in the past 10 years.

In 2009, our sales in China amounted to about $33 million, and the performance in 2017 has risen to $600 million, "Robert said." 95% of the market share has not been touched, and there is great room for development in the Chinese market.

In the past 10 years, under the impetus of sports fashion, New Balance has moved from elite to mass market, from cold to red.

However, with the popularity of retro tidal shoes, the old American professional shoes have never been able to import the image of "professional sports brand" into the Chinese market.

In order to break the limitations of fashion trends, New Balance announced the brand new concept of "Fearlessly Independent" in March 2018, and invited a group of professional athletes to shoot relevant advertising films.

Chris David, vice president of global marketing (Chris Davis), said: "in the past 112 years, we have been proud to build sports equipment that is suitable for comfort and enhance athletic performance. This year, we have launched a new brand concept, which has been interpreted by the famous athletes who signed the contract. It tells about the firm belief of New Balance over the past 112 years: it has become the leader in the field of sports to subvert tradition, inner fearlessness and independence."

New Balance is making every effort to play its own "100 year professional sports brand".

Obviously, the old American running shoes are not satisfied with the positioning of the tide shoes. Robert said that New Balance is actively seeking opportunities to cooperate with China's local tournaments. By upgrading the professional sports field, it will move closer to the Chinese market with great potential. The desire of New Balance is no doubt that the sales of its professional running shoes can match the retro category.

New Balance logo

"Running" into China takes 20 years.

When Robert Demartini joined New Balance in 2007, he came to China soon.

Robert was impressed by the past. He recalled that 10 years ago, he said, "nobody in China talks about running" - which has made a running shoe experience a bumpy experience.

New Balance was founded in 1906 in the United States marathon city of Boston. It started producing arch support devices in the early stage, and gradually became a sporting goods manufacturer based on running shoes.

This Centennial brand, together with Asics, Brooks and Saucony, is also known as the world's four largest jogging shoe.

In 1989, New Balance entered the Chinese market for the first time, instead of direct business, it was handed over to the exclusive agent, Yangjiang union shoe company.

In 1990s, with the emergence of a wave of China's market economy, New Balance has been progressing smoothly in the domestic market.

But trouble also follows.

In order to speed up the profit, agents expand their production and price, and launch a large number of poor quality products, resulting in the rapid decline of the image of New Balance.

In anger, around the year 2000, the headquarters of the United States withdrew dealership in the name of a dealer's violation of the rules and withdrew from the Chinese market.

Until the successful bid of the Beijing Olympic Games, a large number of domestic and foreign brands saw great business opportunities in sports.

New Balance is no exception. In November 2003, the US brand finally returned to the market in the form of direct battalion.

That year, when CEO Jim Davis visited China in person, he arranged an ambitious five year plan for Luo Peiping, general manager of China at that time. New Balance had to bring the new products to China for the first time, and became the first brand of Chinese jogging shoes in 2008.

The veteran brand in the European and American markets seems to think that the Chinese market is also going to win.

Contrary to expectations, after returning to China, the response of New Balance running shoes was extremely dull.

Due to the unsuccessful running market in China and the strong siege of Nike, Adidas and a large number of local brands, New Balance once disappeared and became a hot potato in China.

"The sales of the stores are not up to the rent, and no dealer is willing to sell the brand because they can't earn money," Zhang Hongwen, former China general manager, said in an interview with the first financial weekly. Before 2009, its performance in the Chinese market was not satisfactory due to the long product line, insufficient marketing and the scale of the sales system.

This embarrassing situation lasted for many years. Until Robert took office, he released a new business plan in China and put forward a strategic pformation in Shanghai. He added a lot of marketing investment to establish a good relationship with young consumers aged 16 to 29, accelerating the innovation and research and development of technology, providing greater support for dealers and consolidating the running business.

In 2007, Robert released China's new business plan in Shanghai.

In 2011, when Zhang Hongwen took office as general manager of China, he targeted more to repair the internal problems, including reducing the product line of 2/3, establishing a Chinese market strategy dominated by jogging shoes, resolutely entering the market with the strongest product line, and standardizing the stocking and inventory cycle of distributors.

More importantly, New Balance catch up with their own good times.

After the 2008 Olympic Games, the Chinese sports market was gradually warming up, and the marathon movement began to show blowout.

The number of Marathon registered by the China Association of parks and field has increased by nearly 10 times in five years from 13 in 2010 to 134 in 2015.

The demand for sports market has been stimulated, and New Balance, a long-term focus on running shoes, has become a beneficiary.

2009 marks a turning point in China's performance. Sales grew by 40% to $33 million a year, with the growth rate of professional running shoes reaching 80%. In the same year, the world's first new concept shop opened in Qianmen Street, Beijing.

After that, the 100 year old brand began to really "run" into China.

At this point, it was 20 years since New Balance first entered the market in 1989.

New Balance becomes the shoe representative.

From presidential shoes to tide shoes

The popularity of New Balance started in 2012 - "running horse fever" promoted the sale of professional running shoes, but the contribution of life leisure products to retro products was even more prominent.

Chen Hong, 27, is the first Chinese customer to witness the popularity of New Balance.

The Guangzhou boy has been called "N boy" in Cantonese. Since 2010, he has had the first 574 pairs of classical models. Chen Hong has not counted how many he bought, "at least more than 70 pairs."

"Entering the early days of China is relatively small, fashionable, well matched with clothes, comfortable to wear, N reflective design, a lot of collocation choices, very cool," Chen Hong said a lot of reasons for infatuation with N.

In his impression, the biggest change of New Balance in recent years is younger and more advertising.

From the elite small group to the young mass market, such a positioning pformation is clearly reflected in the product and marketing level.

Jobs wears New Balance in public.

In the early days of China, New Balance liked to play such slogans as "presidential shoes" and "elite shoes".

Because Clinton, Obama and Jobs and many other politicians and business celebrities wear their shoes, the brand takes the elite line for a long time - positioning adults, not advertising, not signing with athletes, and being known as the shoes of elite class.

"A lot of posters in the shop in the early years were taken by people. They didn't see any stars. There was not much advertising in them," Chen Hong recalls.

Even in the US market, New Balance advertisements appear mostly in niche magazines or high-end audiences.

Only by telling the story of the company's history and technology, it is obvious that it can not arouse the interest of young consumers.

In 2011, after the adjustment of China's top team members, the 100 years old brand began to try to "lay down their positions".

The product line was first pformed, based on the strategy of jogging shoes, New Balance launched the "3+1" product layout in China, including professional running shoes series, classic retro running shoes series, Anglo American production series and children's shoes, putting all resources on the three running shoes product lines.

The biggest change lies in the differential positioning.

Professional functional running shoes continue to plough the running market to earn the dividends of the Chinese running boom.

The classic retro running shoes, which focus on life style, do not take the high-end elite route, but face the mass market dominated by young people.

New Balance may not have expected that betting classic retro is the best move.

Over the past few years, the trend of the global sports shoes market from functional equipment to sports fashion, including Adidas, PUMA and Vans, has become an outstanding representative of high performance.

The low-key old American brand is still on the road of marketing.

In the global market, New Balance has not changed the style of athletes, sponsoring top players in football, tennis and other fields, and invited many athletes to shoot commercials.

Chinese famous athletes, including Shi Dongpeng and Raytheon, began to appear in their brand activities.

New Balance came to music Godfather Jonathan Lee to tell stories.

In the Chinese market, with Adidas as the representative, the marketing effect of sports brand cross-border entertainment attracts young people.

New Balance not only found music Godfather Jonathan Lee "story telling", but also collaborated with celebrities such as net red Papi sauce, Huang Zitao and Mark.

From the "ingenuity", "every step counts" to the "youth never fade" as the theme of the micro film, a part of the mood of the film has aroused heated debate.

In March of this year, Wu Lei, a 18 year old pop star, became a brand spokesperson. "Wu Lei's money" was placed in the prominent position of the official website. Obviously, the 100 year old brand hopes to become younger and more fashionable in China.

New spokesperson Wu Lei becomes "walking billboard"

"Good brands need to understand regional differences, but consumers also have many things in common, such as products that are high quality products that are in line with the trend of the world, and Chinese consumers are different from that." Robert looks at the brand pformation so that "I think in fashion industry, you always have to reinvent yourself, which is very important."

From the N shoes of Manchu street, the retro trend strategy of New Balance is successful, attracting a number of cities like Chen Hong.

After its popularity in 2012, the US brand in China for three consecutive years increased its sales to three digits, and the number of stores increased sharply, and gradually penetrated into the two or three tier cities.

The latest figures show that in 2017, China's performance increased to $600 million, and sales of lifestyle shoes were outstanding.

"In China, lifestyle products have always accounted for a high proportion. Historically, this is what people call classic. We have expanded it to a category called leisure sports," Robert said. "We have been concerned about its growth in China."

The New Balance store in Guangzhou's good Plaza is one of the most popular shops for young people.

The salesperson said that most of the people who came to buy retro shoes were named after the numbers. The three figure shoes were concave and concave enough, and the 5 was the entry-level retro shoes, with simple styles and many colors, and 574 of the classics were the most.

New Balance China's first lifestyle concept store opened in Shanghai.

In April of this year, New Balance China's first lifestyle shop was located in Nanjing West Road, Shanghai. In 2018, it will also open a number of exclusive stores of life categories.

With the taste of retro shoes, American brands choose to expand in the field of sports.

Professional market does not want to lose

What's interesting is that New Balance, a professional running equipment, has become an elite shoe in the United States as a politician's businessman, but has become a trend product in China.

Some consumers even misunderstand, "is this not a fashion trend card?"

Even if the profits of life categories are substantial, the US brand is unwilling to lose its professional status.

When the first lifestyle shop was unveiled in Shanghai, New Balance did not forget to let the tide makers experience the brand's shoe making technology, hoping that its professional side would not be ignored.

Robert also believes that "running is the source of all our products, lifestyle series, training series, football products, all from our running technology.

We have been a good running shoe company for a long time, and running series is our strongest product.

Professional sports performance series, New Balance takes Run Fast (fast running), Run Far (far away) and Run Fit (comfortable running) as the concept to divide multiple product lines, and has 6 kinds of width and 2 height shoes design. This is the selling point that the American brand is proud of.

"Our running shoes can help different types of runners, and most importantly, we are the leading brand of the world's most important sporting events," the CEO stressed. New Balance signed a contract with the New York marathon last year for 10 years, and sponsored the London Marathon to enhance its professional image through cooperation with the World Grand Slam marathon.

Outside the field of running, Rao Niki, a Canadian tennis player, and his sponsorship of Premier League football team Liverpool just entered the Champions League finals, all of which made New Balance win in the professional field.

But in the Chinese market, the image of professional running shoes is somewhat weak.

Previously, New Balance sponsored The Color Run, but the 5 kilometer series mainly attracted primary runners and entertainment factors were more obvious.

Robert said the sports marketing department is actively seeking cooperation with local major events.

New Balance lightweight training shoes

Apart from the fact that the old American running shoe genes can not be lost, the competitive market situation in China has also forced New Balance to remain sober at the time of holding.

This year, from Chen Hong's circle of friends photos, the N production rate at foot is reduced, and Air Jordan, Adidas Superstar, PUMA and Vans are occupying his shoe cabinet.

Chen Hong's last visit to New Balance was at the end of 2017. He said that there were more and more choices of shoes. Too many people in N were wearing a little "bad". Not only the market competition was fierce, but also New Balance still lost small dividends.

New Balance retro classic 574

Fashion trends are made up of many factors, including subjective preferences and periodicity.

Take the most representative Adidas in recent years, for example, the retail tracking data of NPD Group show that Superstar is the best selling sports shoes in 2016, and the sales of Stan Smith also increased 5 times compared with the same period last year.

However, since 2017, the heat of two small white shoes has declined.

NPD Group industry analyst Matt Powell explains, "every product has its own life cycle. Over the past year, sales of these two sports shoes have been growing at a very high speed, but it has not been realistic to maintain a high growth rate."

Such a law will also be reflected in the retro style of New Balance.

"New Balance can survive for hundreds of years, relying on something that pcends the trend," Jiang Chang, former director of China's regional marketing, said in an interview with "successful marketing" magazine.

New Balance will also need to enhance the sales of professional shoes when the trend products are in full swing.

New Balance China Online Official shop screenshots

Close to the Chinese market, there should be no electricity supplier.

Beyond products and marketing, channels are the winners of brand expansion in overseas markets.

In 1990s, New Balance suffered a lot in the channel.

Dealers privately expand production and lower prices, resulting in a rapid decline in brand image, and even therefore withdraw from the Chinese market.

This makes New Balance realize that only considering short-term returns and giving the business to the agent in full is a kind of injury to the brand.

After returning to the Chinese market, New Balance reintegrated the dealer system and expanded the proportion of direct sales.

The number of American brand stores in the United States rose from more than 300 in 2011 to more than 2800 in 2017, and more than 800% in 6 years, the successful marketing magazine reported.

This time, Robert's mission to China is the way to maintain.

CEO Robert came on the debut with Wu Lei, the spokesperson

On April 17th, Tmall super brand day, New Balance set up a flash shop in Nanjing West Road, Shanghai, and spokesperson Wu Lei and Robert came together.

This flash is known as the new retail pilot, while the online store stores smart shoes, while placing products under Tmall, it opens up online and offline.

In Robert's view, New Balance is going to increase the power of e-commerce in the world, which is more critical in China, where the Internet is developing rapidly. "I think China's electricity supplier market may be more complex than any other market in the world, and it will grow faster."

The annual report of the 2017 China electricity supplier released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences shows that China's online retail sales reached 6 trillion and 600 billion yuan, up 38% from the same period last year, setting the highest record.

Meanwhile, according to the report of the Ali Research Institute, in 2017, the share of Chinese brands in the global online consumer market reached 71%, and sports outdoor was one of the biggest categories of business opportunities.

The digital layout of many sports brands, in which Adidas increased its investment by 900 million euros in 2018, further shifted the channel to the online field.

The German brand set a goal for this year. In 2020, the electricity supplier sales increased more than doubled, reaching 4 billion euros.

In the 2017 fiscal year, New Balance China's performance was US $600 million, and the electricity supplier accounted for 22.4%, about 134 million US dollars.

Among them, Tmall platform is the highlight of e-commerce business.

Last year's double 11 Shopping Festival, New Balance ranked fourth in the sports outdoor sales list, second only to Nike, Adidas and Anta, and sold over 100 million in an hour.

"It has been seventh years since we entered Tmall in 2012. Our performance and performance on Tmall have always been good," Robert said. "Tmall is very important to us and may be one of the fastest growing partners in the world."

The biggest significance of cooperation between New Balance and Tmall is to get close to consumers.

Based on big data, the electronic business platform provides user portrait for precision marketing, and has become the main position to occupy the young market.

"The interaction between Tmall and consumers is different. There is no similar cooperation in other markets.

We have worked with Amazon and many other markets, but our partnership with Tmall has been more comprehensive and more closely related to Chinese consumers, "explains Robert.

In fact, in order to speed up the process of international electricity business, New Balance last year reached a partnership with Salesforce Commerce Cloud, an e-commerce provider, which operates e-commerce in various countries.

This means that New Balance does not need to build a technology team in every market.

New Balance Shanghai store

The electricity supplier has become the theme, but the US brand has not neglected the entity store.

In September last year, China's first brand experience flagship store opened by New Balance was opened in Nanjing West Road, Shanghai.

This 1200 square meter store has a sports life scene design, with coffee drinks and comprehensive sports area. Customers can make an appointment in advance for free professional fitness guidance.

New Balance claims that there will be more open lifestyle stores in 2018.

New Balance, Mary and Halladay, a global leader in the whole channel, described the opening of the flagship store as equivalent to a huge billboard in Shanghai.

"We have increased the brand flagship store in the UK, Germany, Italy and Japan, which has a significant positive impact on local e-commerce sales," Mary Halladay said.

She believes that the real impact of the brand is not the conversion rate of 2% of the physical store, but not 98% of the sales pformation. The primary purpose of opening the store is not to sell directly.

It seems to have become the consensus of the major brands to push the growth of e-commerce and pfer the image with stores.

However, "N shoes" still have old troubles.

New Balance nearly 10 years of performance surge, enough to cover up the early bumpy past, close to the layout of Chinese consumers, the current New Balance did not do wrong society.

The last problem is their old trademark.

International brands generally believe that entering the Chinese market is a must.

In 1990s, New Balance used "New York".

However, its negligence is that the trademark was first taken by the Yangjiang union shoe company, and the US brand was closed in China.

New Balance did not become smart.

In 2003, it returned to the Chinese market. The brand was promoted and marketing by "new hundred Lun", which implied the brand new life on the basis of free plation in English.

But in 2004, Guangdong shoe company boss Zhou Lun applied for trademark "new hundred Lun".

and

It was successfully passed.

New balance

From the time point of view, New Balance used the new hundred Lun first, while Zhou Lelun registered the "new hundred Lun" logo.

At the end of 2007, the US brand complained that the "new brun" trademark of Guangdong enterprises was suspected of plagiarism and imitation. However, the court ruled that the objection was not based on the Chinese plation of New Balance as "new balance".

A legal profession told the interface reporter, "the trademark protection system in each country is different. China generally follows the principle of application first, including the basic principles of some countries such as the United States."

The US brand registered with a slow half auction is tripped on the same issue for two times.

Even so, New Balance did not immediately give up the Chinese name of "new hundred Lun" and use the name in all kinds of publicity and online stores.

With the popularity of brands and the mention of "new hundred Lun", people will only think of the old American brand rather than the Guangdong enterprise with this brand.

It is expected that in the hottest 2013 New Balance running shoes, Guangdong business owners complained to the Guangzhou intermediate people's Court on the grounds of infringing trademark rights and occupying their development space.

The court held that the American brand still insisted on the use of "new hundred Lun" when it knew that the trademark had been registered.

At the same time, from the court's financial evidence from the defendant, the profit of New Balance during the infringement period is as high as nearly 200 million yuan.

New Balance has to pay a heavy price for its mistakes in China. The first instance was sentenced to pay 98 million yuan, which was the highest intellectual property case in the history of the Guangzhou intermediate people's court.

New Balance continued to lose the second instance and was awarded a compensation of 5 million yuan.

Although New Balance will soon earn 5 million of the money it lost, the "new hundred Lun" that has achieved huge revenue has gone.

Until now, New Balance still has no Chinese name in the Chinese market.

In addition to the lack of a local name, the American brand is annoyed by the fact that there has been a lot of "N" trademark in China.

From Taobao platform to street shop, from first tier cities to county towns, New Balun, New Vsold, New Bunren, New Bairin, new Pak Lun leader...

There are ten thousand possibilities for N shoes. Everyone wants to make a windfall.

Today, New Balance, which has been imitated for a long time, has taken the initiative to prosecute some businesses suspected of infringement.

In August 2017, the US brand won a tort lawsuit in China, and New Boom was awarded a $1 million 500 thousand lawsuit.

After suffering the trademark, the old brand of the United States finally began to break through.

However, the N shoe market in full street still makes its helplessness.

New lead

In 2015, New Balance put forward an ambitious goal to enter the world's top three sports brands, the top two are Nike and Adidas.

Over the past three years, in the 2017 fiscal year, the United States, which has a revenue of 4 billion 500 million US dollars, ranks fifth, and is catching up with the PUMA and Under Armour of nearly 5 billion US dollars in the year ahead.

As for China

Robert is very cautious about his future goals. "I don't think there will be any ideal goals. We will always strive to do better."