Does Fashion Need To Embrace "Competition"? A Comprehensive Analysis Of 20 Latest Brand Cases

After 90 Wang Jiajun (alias), is preparing to start in 2019 New Year's Day second pairs of Lining "understand" shoes. Love this series, not because it has boarded the fashion week in New York, but in October this year, watching the "Heroes League S8 global finals" (hereinafter referred to as S8) live broadcast, found that EDG (EDward Gaming: a main team participating in the League of Heroes) players on the feet, all dressed in Lining's "understanding" series of sneakers.

"I didn't think of it! I searched the Internet and wanted to start the same paragraph." But let Wang Jiajun this "boy" still regret that, in early December, there was a joint signing of Lining by EDG in Shanghai. Because of his work reasons, he could not go straight to the scene, and bought the signature of "EDG director" Ming Kai.

For young people like Wang Jiajun, they may not pay much attention to the entertainment stars or fashion bloggers, but fashion elements appearing in the competition can touch them.

A few days ago, Lining group executive director, special China sports CEO Li Qilin, represented a competition club to appear in the 2019 season LPL (hero league professional league) appearance ceremony. His low-key appearance has released an important signal to the industry: Lining, the associated company of the group of Snake, has acquired the League of heroic League and become the new club.

The fashion sports group buys the electric club? Yes, the competition is accelerating the fashion industry with the help of the younger generation.

In its 2018 sports industry report, PWC said that the competition industry has surpassed football and become the most potential sport. Many overseas and domestic well-known sports brands, fashion trends and beauty brands are actively paying attention to and cooperating with the "electronic competition".

After all, fashion is a industry related to people and dreams. Those memories and experiences that can connect with young people will become the essential factors for the fashion industry to seriously consider and embrace.

Approaching fashion from fashion

Data from Newzoo, a third party research and consulting firm in Holland, show that sponsors' support is the largest source of revenue in the competition industry, accounting for 39% of total revenue. In recent years, the sponsorship industry has expanded from the initial gaming equipment manufacturers, networks and technology companies to food, cosmetics, automobile brands and sports brands in the consumer domain.

The official contacts between the Asia Pacific region's electric industry and fashion brands may be traced back to 2006, when the early development of the professional electric industry industry in the neighbouring countries, South Korea, the electric club and the sports brand, launched the uniform earlier. The SKT T1 competition in Korea signed a contract with the German sporting goods giant Adidas, which is the first time that Adidas has launched the electric competition uniform. At the end of the contract, SKT T1 also worked with Nike and NewBalance in succession, until recently its latest uniforms were printed on FILA's Logo.

When playing the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games in 2013 and 2017, the China E-sports national team wore the uniform Anta sportswear of the Chinese delegation.

In December 2, 2018, Adidas announced its cooperation with EA Sports, a game company, to create a special version of the competition fourth concept for Real Madrid, Manchester United, Bayern Munich and Juventus. Fans and football fans in China can buy them in the official website of the brand, the flagship store of the electricity supplier and the designated stores under the line. At that time, all four versions of the FIFA ONLINE 4 and FIFA 19 games were synchronized on the PC side.

A similar form can be seen as the beginning of icebreaking between electric and fashion brands. Through the light sponsorship of clothing sponsorship and brand exposure, the major sports brands have tried to "shock the electricity". But the costumes of the two sides are always more like traditional sports uniforms, and still have some distance from fashion.

On the other hand, in China, besides the regular patronage sponsorship, the local competition industry has been sparking with tide cards earlier.

In 2016, the Chinese women's Twins Flower Girls announced its cooperation with the US tide brand CHARISMATA. In the same year, the trend brand INXX and the LGD competition club held a summer uniforms cooperation.

INXX co-founder iron hand remembers the cooperation at that time. He recalled to "magnificent ambition" that in 2016, the two sides met and reached cooperation because of the matchmaking of intermediaries. LGD players' fans of the club are very enthusiastic about the cooperation, and both sides are satisfied with the design of the new uniforms.

The iron hand said: "electric power competition is one of the most striking emerging trends at the moment. Its player group is very compatible with the trend users of INXX. In addition, LGD is an excellent competitive team in the early stage of the world and has international reputation. Through cooperation clothing and peripherals, it helps INXX open up the electric circle group. In the future, we will consider more similar cross-border attempts."

Looking at the world, with the increasing popularity of the competition clubs, events and even professional competitors, Deloitte expects that by 2020, the revenues of the global competition industry are expected to exceed $1 billion 500 million. At the same time, the way of cooperation between brand and electronic competition is no longer confined to clothing sponsorship, but deepened to product design, and extends to more categories and dimensions.

For example, the United States Chao brand Champion and NBA Philadelphia 76 people's Dignitas competition Club reached a cooperation in September 2018. Champion has become a sponsor of its official clothing while providing casual casual wear and sportswear products, and has launched a dedicated product line for fans of the team.

China sports brand 361 degree announced cooperation with QG electric club in March 2018. Not only has it released the uniforms, but also has released the accessories series products, 361 degree also announced that QG club member has become the 2018 Asian Games torch bearer, goes to Indonesia to participate in the Asian Games torch relay activity.

At that time, perhaps the Chinese electric club and the electric campaigners never thought that one day the fashion brand would extend their olive branches to them.

Fashion worries embracing electric games

Where can we find and touch a broader and younger consumer group? How to maintain emotional ties with young consumers is a topic that every fashion brand can not avoid.

Undoubtedly, in the traditional concept, electric competition has been labeled as "playing games" and "doing nothing". However, it can not be ignored that competition is holding more and more young people's attention and time.

In a report, DDT Deloitte audacious predicts that by 2020, the revenues of the global competition industry are expected to exceed $1 billion 500 million, and the number of competition fans will increase to 600 million.

Take heroes League as an example. According to the statistics of RoitGames, the American game company, the number of independent viewers in 2018 has reached a record 99 million 600 thousand, while the peak number of online users has reached 44 million and the average number of viewers in the S8 is 19 million 600 thousand.

This is only the flow of a game in the "heroic League" game, the development of the blowout style of the global competition industry, in addition to the huge flow and commercial value, there are a large number of "own idols" of the electric competition.

As a "non traditional" movement, today's competition is interacted with social and recreational activities. Young electric campaigners are frequently sitting on millions of fans, becoming the idol of a new generation of young consumers. The continuous activity and fermentation of social media has also raised the attention and visibility of the competition in the fashion world.

Perhaps many players do not know, in early 2016, the European Fnaitc Club famous hero alliance professional player Febiven once sent a picture in Facebook, said he made a group of photo photographs for the famous fashion magazine "VOGUE", or this marked the first time that the electric race player boarded "VOGUE".

In September 2018, TAG Heuer, the luxury luxury watch brand of LVMH, a luxury luxury group in France, announced that it became the top sponsor of the German Football League (Bundesliga, Bundesliga) competition, which was named "TAG Heuer Virtual Bundesliga".

The traditional impression of the competition in the fashion industry is being broken, and the real driving force behind it is the young "attention" and "consumption power" that the fashion industry is longing for.

In November 2017, Nike's brand Jordan Brand released LPL player Su Hanwei (Xiye night) and KPL player Chen Zhengzheng (Cat cat God) wearing two micro-blog shoes on its official micro-blog. The brand once told the media that this is a one-time brand showing cooperation.

Driven by China's booming social media, the influence of electric competitors has risen faster, and many competitors have already sat on millions of fans, comparable to the star KOL. For example, the hero League, Jian Zihao of China's RNG electric club, has micro-blog fans up to 3 million 450 thousand of micro-blog's fans.

In October 2018, Jian Zihao (Uzi) and James and others jointly appeared in Nike Basketball's LeBron James series advertisement "DRIBBLE&_____" (meaning many characters except playing ball). The advertisement he sent received 232 thousand forwarding and 9757 compliment points in micro-blog.

Compared with the cautious attempt of overseas brands in China's electric field, Chinese local sports brands are more comprehensive and thorough when they embrace electric power.

For example, the first official "electric shock" of Lining, a local sports brand, directly and boldly falls on the shoes of sports brands.

In October 2018, during the S8 global finals, the EDG E-sports Club of China's LPL (heroes League) professional league announced cooperation with Lining, who will become the official partner of the 2018 final of the League of heroes, and set the slogan as "China Lining & China EDG". The media and players are concerned about the "EDG" series of sneakers on the feet of activities and events.

As a brand of Chinese goods in the hearts of people, Lining has gained numerous eyeballs from the cooperation with EDG club, and has also washed away the consumer's aesthetic fatigue of the local brand, and has been successfully promoted to the hot topic of the young players. Priced at 899 yuan LI-NING * EDG joint V8 shock-absorbing running shoes in the official mall of Lining opened after sale, Lining added another fire, and continued to co produce EDG with EDG elements of sweaters and shoes. Since then, Lining has also opened the road of full cooperation with the electronic competition.

At the same time, focusing on the IP of the League of heroes, Lining also launched a joint dress with the RNG competition team to enter the DOTA player group. Dress design combines Lining and RNG's LOGO, and uses the black / gold of RNG. In December 2018, the RNG team members appeared in the perfect DOTA2 ceremony held in Shanghai, wearing the "China Lining" sweater, Qi Qi, and once again attracted the attention of DOTA2 players.

The influx of female players makes the competition more fashionable.

Undoubtedly, most of the players in the competition are mainly male users. The cooperation between sports brand and electronic competition also falls naturally on the competition and players. This is more in line with the logic of the cooperation between traditional sports brands and large events, star players and athletes.

At present, male players tend to focus more on professional sports, such as team cooperation and Superman's role in games. But it is undeniable that most Chinese male competitive players still have much room for improvement in their personal image and fashion. As we saw in the NGA game community, the player commented, after a post for a spanboundary post, he wrote: "the brand clothes are good, and are dressed by a 200 kg people."

In 2017, the KPL (King ProLeague) king glory professional league match autumn finals was held at the Shenzhen Bay Sports Center, which could accommodate thousands of people. Even the organizers did not think that the female audience was very high. A large number of female fans were holding the lantern cards, fluorescent sticks, and wearing fashionable and delicate makeup to watch the match.

With the "King glory", "Jedi survival", "Heroes League" and other PC mobile Dual Ended games become a social life style, more and more young women are becoming active players in the competition driven by male friends, which makes the competition more imaginative in fashion.

When the traditional sports brand is constantly charged with electric games, and male players are the main target consumers, female players are becoming more and more fashionable.

Soon, we saw that the "beauty" brand in the fashion market was quickly admitted, and cut corners completely avoided the competitors and events, and concentrated on the direction of female players, game characters / heroes. When the beauty brand crossover competition, in fact, cross-border is a strong IP with a large number of young users' attention. Fashion is the mapping of human beings to beauty and dreams. The biggest attraction of games is their ability to dream and the sustenance of their characters.

In June 2018, Sephora, the world's largest high-end beauty retailer, announced its cooperation with the GIRLGAMER women's competition Festival, including the heroic alliance, the Royal war and the CS:GO event, which was sponsored by Evoloop Limited and progressive Electronic Sports Association of HKEX8203.

2017 heroes League global finals (S7), L'OREAL men become the global finals China special partner. Zong Guoning, general manager of brand management of L'OREAL China mass cosmetics department, once told the media: "where the users and consumers are, where we are going to L'OREAL men, the new carrier of electric games and games is one of the effective ways to contact the younger generation of consumer groups."

In addition, L'OREAL has worked together with the Yin Yang division to launch a cross border linkage called "sea Fairy" custom-made gift box, and used the role of "carp essence" as the spokesman of the customized gift box, and also achieved good sales results at that time.

Recently, a lot of players have been painted by Estee Lauder group's famous beauty brand M.A.C, "the glory of the king". M.A.C has chosen five female heroes who are popular among the players in the game. At the same time, it invited the 5 young sisters of the famous rocket group girl 101 to launch the five customized bullet lip balm. The products were sold out in the 2 seconds of the WeChat flash app store, and the two colors of Luna and Diao Chan were immediately sold out.

At M.A.C's stores, we saw that lipsticks used for display on the stage were sold out, and there were still many female players asking the store. What is even more interesting is that in the NGA game community, many male players are drying out of boxes because the order is to make up for their girlfriends.

In response to this cooperation, Weng Yanling, director of China's M.A.C market, shared "gorgeous ambition": "the average age of our very young female users is mostly between 18 and -24 years old, which is very high with the honor of the king. It is believed that such cooperation will have a positive impact on the whole group. "According to Weng Yanling, the cooperation can be deepened to the product, and it has been supported by Estee Lauder New York headquarters and Tencent group from the very beginning. This is a positive start.

Fashion is becoming a dazzling "player" in the competition arena.

As competition becomes a culture and social interaction, the fashion brands that come to think of it are also coming into being. The competition is not restricted by the venue and physical quality, and naturally wears more casual and casual. This just trample on the current trend of sports and leisure (athleisure).

ULT, located in California, USA, is a newly created brand with DNA as its brand. Its design style is oriented towards sports and leisure style. Its products include socks, hats, vests, T-Shirts, shirts, sweaters, jackets and so on, and the price is higher than that of general sports brands. ULT has cooperated with Versus Sports and eUnited of two North American competition clubs.

In China, stars who are good at creating "tide style" also smell business opportunities brought by electric games.

After Wang Sicong's iG (Invictus Gaming) won the S8 championship, LilBetter, founded by Rong Jiajun (jacketyung) and two other partners in Macao in 2005, and TIANC, founded by star Chen he, launched the championship commemorative series with the team. Some of them even had a high price resale.

Shawn Yue has also combined the fashion trend brand MADNESS with the MAD TEAM of electric game club to develop the concept of "electric wave tide card", so that fans can also dress up their favorite team's dress and become a new rising trend in the streets.

With the continuous fermentation of China's electronic competition industry, more capital is also coming into the market. The scale and experience of the competition are constantly upgrading under the heavy charge of Tencent.

For example, the 2017 heroes League S7 global finals, which was jointly built by game developers and Tencent, chose to hold a bird's nest in Beijing, which can hold 40 thousand people. At that time, the attendance rate was quite impressive, and even a concert was held on the day before the finals, so that the players could feel the BGM in the game. In the 2018 Royal glory professional league KPL- spring competition finals, many stars such as Lu Han, Lang Lang, Pan Xiaoting and so on participated in the star game.

Compared with traditional sports events, due to the low physical exertion of professional competitive athletes, they also have a longer and more perfect schedule of events, which means that the commercial value of electric events has more imagination.

Take the League of heroes as an example, its schedule has reached 300+ days, covering more than 90% of the whole year, more than traditional sports and entertainment programs. Many sponsors, especially sports brands, can enlarge the marketing value by taking advantage of the longer and less time limit of the competition.

In China, the industry which once was not regarded as a promising industry is threatening young people's social networking and entertainment. It has gained a higher commercial value under the rapid iteration of Chinese Internet giants, new generation business leaders and capital.

CEO Li Qilin, who is mainly responsible for the innovation strategy development and resource integration of Lining group, once told the media: "electric competition is a new industry with core value and future output of traditional sports. We are naturally concerned about this point, so we choose to buy a LPL Club directly. "

Fashion, perhaps, is becoming a magnifying glass and beauty filter for commercial value: from clothing to footwear, from the main functional uniforms to the street style, from the specialized line of apparel production to the fashion brand. All this, it is clear that fashion has become the most attractive hero in the field of electronic competition. It is worth looking forward to.

Analysis of related terms in electric games

Electronic Sport (Esports): a form of competition using video games. The most common form is organized multiplayer video game competition, especially between professional players and clubs.

MOBA: Multiplayer Online Battle Arena.

The League of Heroes: League of Legends, short for "LOL". By the United States RiotGames (fist game) development, mainland China Tencent game agent operation of the hero against the MOBA athletics online games.

"Knife tower 2" (DotA2): DotA, the core producer IceFrog of the map (IceFrog), is a MOBA game online game developed by the US Valve company.

"The glory of the kings": it is a MOBA mobile phone game running on the Android, IOS and NS platforms, developed and run by Tencent game Mei Mei studio group.

Counter-Strike:Global Offensive, or CS:GO, is a first person shooter developed by the US Valve company and Hidden Path Entertainment. It is the fourth piece of the counter strike series game.

Community events

League of Legends Pro League (short for "LPL"): the highest level league of heroes in mainland China is the only channel for mainland China to compete in the intercontinental, mid season and global finals.

League of Legends Champions Korea, called "LCK", is the Premier League in the Korean region. It is the only channel for the Korean intercontinental, inter season, and world finals.

In 2018, the world championship of the League of Heroes (S8), S is the abbreviation of season, is the annual grand competition of the League of heroes. The world finals is the highest honor, the highest gold content, the highest competitive level and the highest visibility in all league matches.

King Pro League (KPL) is the official highest standard professional competition of "the glory of kings". The whole year is the two season of the spring and autumn competitions. Each season is divided into three parts: the regular season, the playoffs and the finals.

NGA (Ai Ze Lars's National Geographic National Geographic of Azeroth, referred to as "NGA"): is a Chinese comprehensive gaming community.

Note: the games of all major game clubs include multiple games: Heroes League, Jedi survival: big escape, DotA2, King glory, CS:GO, watch pioneer, legend of furnace and stone, and FIFA.