How Does Kappa Become The Leader In "Sports + Trend"?

The trend of sport driven by young consumers is deeply affecting the world.

Circle.

In this strong wave, Italy's 100 year brand Kappa, in the face of the increasingly strong young purchasing power of China's consumption upgrading, has firmly chosen the "trend movement" subdivision area to continue to deepen farming and constantly update itself.

According to the world clothing shoes and hats net, as early as 2002,

As a pioneer of the trend movement, China has entered the Chinese market. At present, the Hong Kong stock listed companies in China have all the rights and interests of Kappa in mainland China, Macao and Japan.

In 2017, veteran industry veteran Zhang Zhiyong became CEO of China trend group, pushing the pformation and development of Kappa in the subdivision of the trend movement.

Why is a hundred year old industry brand firmly targeted in the field of tidal power? What kind of strategic planning can we catch the attention and consumption power of young Chinese consumers? How can Kappa pform and upgrade the trend in the trend of "sports + fashion" and become the leader in this field?

Focus on the trend of sport and promote innovative driving force.

"The last turning point of the global sporting goods industry started in 2012 and 2013. In the past 6 years, sports category has been running smoothly in the global fashion circle. The most essential driving force for growth is the trend.

The real purpose of the trend is to expand the base of the consumers, "Zhang Zhiyong said.

He believes that cross-border is a typical feature of the trend. "Cross-border business logic is to integrate two irrelevant consumer groups. More attention brings greater purchasing power and more revenue."

At the same time, culture is also in the process of integration, collision, fission and innovation, which is the biggest driving force of sports category in recent years.

In recent years, Kappa has been frequently involved in different fields such as entertainment, music and art.

Trend driven can bring continuous innovation driving force to brand.

Industry forecast, Trend Sports Area

The scale could reach 100 billion yuan.

The choice of Kappa is not only an insight into the business trend, but also a change in the way of life of the younger generation in China under the environment of consumption upgrading.

Not long ago, Chen Chen, executive director and co CEO of China trend, said in a speech at the industry forum: "combining health, sports and fashion has become a new way of life and new needs.

The trend movement category fills the gap between function and trend, and becomes a potential subdivision area.

With clear positioning, what new strategic planning does Kappa have?

Stick to brand personality and innovate in inheritance

In Zhang Zhiyong's view, no matter how the business environment changes, we must always return to two basic questions: first, what is the irreplaceable asset of the brand? Second, who is the brand positioning?

"First, logo and brand personality should not be changed.

The history of Kappa is passion, individuality and publicity. "Alternative" is the DNA of brand. We should innovate in the inheritance of history, Zhang Zhiyong said.

In 2019, it was Kappa Omini (back to back) Logo creation 50th anniversary.

In the 70s of last century, a social and cultural change in pursuit of "passion, openness and publicity" took place in Italy. In this wave, Omini Logo came into being.

Since then, its classic back to back Logo image has witnessed every breakthrough in Kappa's traditional innovation.

For example, Kappa has been the first to push the "four side bullet" fabric's tight jersey for its sponsoring team. In 1984, as the official sponsor of the Losangeles Olympic Games, the United States track and field team, in addition to the use of new technology fabrics, Kappa also made a breakthrough in the design of "collusion" (linking multiple Logo patterns) into the sportswear design, leading the new trend at that time.

Decades later, the "sports + retro + street" style represented by Kappa collusion swept the fashion circle once again.

"Through these things, we can clearly see the unique DNA of Kappa. We need to accumulate on such brand assets, continue to be ourselves and become an independent brand personality," Zhang Zhiyong said.

Kappa's current core consumer group is a young generation from 18 to 35 years old, who loves fashion trends, likes to show itself and publicize individuality.

In order to get a better understanding of this group, Zhang Zhiyong often goes to Beijing and Shanghai's skateboard shops and chatting young people to chat. "They are independent and special, do not follow blindly, and show their individuality. This is particularly compatible with Kappa's DNA".

Chen Chen has made a more detailed description of Kappa's target user portrait: "now more young consumers are moving from buying a single sports product with certain functions to buying products that represent their ideology, lifestyle and personalization. The story behind their products and their attitude towards life are the main reasons for their purchase."

Four dimensions to upgrade and create new trends

Effective innovation should focus on the whole dimension of the younger generation's new life style.

Zhang Zhiyong said that in the next three years, Kappa will upgrade through four major dimensions, namely, product upgrading, digital operation exploration, channel form upgrading, and younger marketing matrix upgrading.

1, product upgrading:

The upgrading of Kappa products is more focused on the change of young people's psychological needs.

Chen Chen believes that, first of all, young consumers no longer blindly follow the so-called trend, and are more willing to spend on their own identity, such as paying for their idols, creative cross boundary cooperation and unique designers; moreover, they buy products no longer limited by changing season and just need to buy them because of their preferences, so the frequency of the trend sports products is faster. At the same time, in order to highlight their individuality, young people also prefer to buy a shop that buys a lot of cool personality products.

Last year, the 222Banda series released by Kappa not only continued the essence of the classic collusion, but also combined the popular fashion elements such as individual ribbon and cotton blended single sided material.

In addition, in recent years, cross-border cooperation between Kappa and a large number of well-known designers and artists has also made great waves among young consumers, such as the joint product with famous Japanese designer Kurashi Kazuki.

Kappa new product's listing rhythm and update frequency are also accelerating.

At present, the first store in the core business circle of the first and second tier cities will have to turn over the goods in the first 15 days.

Zhang Zhiyong explained: "these young people are not very sensitive to price, but they are especially sensitive to products.

Kappa will have a special team around this group to make quick and characteristic niche products.

To achieve high refurbishment frequency of "small batch flexible production", we must have rich content to support.

Zhang Zhiyong said that this year, Kappa will do more "product subcategories", such as summer core product T-shirts, and the design content is the main selling point, so that customers want to buy one every month, so they have to do well in cross-border and IP.

Kappa has also placed some products that are designed to be more innovative and unique in the newly developed buying channels, such as the cross border product preview with the well-known Japanese buyer's shop, attracting many cool young people who are fond of buying shop by the buyers in the GR8 shop.

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2, digital operation exploration:

"For the brand with the young people as the core target consumer, the number gets the world," Chen Chen said.

At present, Kappa's exploration of digital operation mode focuses on consumption analysis, quick response and expansion and optimization of channels for young consumer groups.

Building digital communication with young people is also laying the foundation for precision marketing.

For example, the membership pool of micro-blog and WeChat social platforms is the main source of Kappa's analysis of consumer behavior. After personalized preference analysis, it can push users and thousands of thousands of faces to product and marketing content.

Chen Chen pointed out that insight oriented and agile reaction are the two basic elements of Kappa digital operation.

"Insight oriented is based on data insight, using data to adjust business categories and quantity to provide personalized customer experience," she explained. "Agile response is to deal with all kinds of changes, accurately and timely analysis of consumer data, so that all aspects of better collaboration."

At present, Kappa has digitalized operation through digitalization of members, digitalization of stores, digitalization of stores, digitalization of shopping guides and large cargo cloud storehouse in series.

"Now our cloud storehouse is all on-line, no matter which store or regional warehouse is stored, the cloud warehouse central library can capture the sale and inventory situation in real time, automatically replenish the goods quickly and improve the efficiency of operation," Zhang Zhiyong said.

Similarly, the digital operation has provided technical support for intelligent store distribution.

Kappa will conduct data analysis based on consumers' purchases and concerns, and adopt different new product category supply and marketing strategies in different stores.

3, channel form upgrading:

Focusing on the core needs of young users, improving consumer experience in an all-round way is the main goal of Kappa's current channel upgrading.

The "white paper on Chinese new generation consumption", released by reporters in 2018, shows that although online consumption is fast and convenient, the immersion and interaction experience brought by offline shopping is more precious to young consumers living in the digital age.

Most of the new Kappa store coordinates are located in the shopping centres or trend shops where young people often infuse entertainment, dining and shopping. In the image of stores, they also highlight the trend movement style.

Kappa is going where the young people go.

Beijing's Sanlitun, Changsha's Kowloon warehouse and Hangzhou's Yintai (Wulin shop) are our first stores. This head shop will open to more than 30 this year, "Zhang Zhiyong said." besides, Ole's channel is also very critical. The proportion of planned ole will be more than 20%, and there will be a special ole strategy and special offerings.

On line strategy, in addition to the flagship store in the well-known e-commerce platform, Kappa also launched online products for drainage.

In 2018, Kappa invited three art and design organizations such as A Black Cover Design, TOYOYA, MOROCO Design to launch the "Player Kappa" series dedicated online, advocating the spirit of "players" who bravely express their attitudes.

4, younger marketing matrix upgrade:

In November last year, Kappa played a five day "trend Museum" flash shop in Taigu, Sanlitun, Beijing. Invited hip-hop musicians VAVA, young star Li Jiaqi, Cao Xiyue and others to participate in the whole sense of play experience to introduce the history of Kappa to young people, and opened the Kappa x WHIZ LIMITED NEW joint subscription.

"Building up the emotional link between the brand and the young consumers first will enable them to have a sense of identity towards the culture represented by the brand and products, so as to stimulate their consumption intention," Chen Chen said.

In order to influence the younger generation deeply, Kappa's current communication matrix focuses on several aspects, such as fashion media, commercial retail, interest marketing and fashion culture stars cooperation.

In addition to young marketing and upgrading through short term celebrity endorsement and fashion culture KOL endorsement, Kappa will also bind personalized trend events and resources to upgrade cultural marketing, such as participating in Complexcon trend exhibition, INNERSECT trend culture experience exhibition and DARGON STYLE 12TH competition with hip-hop community.

"At present, our strategic cooperation with the trend media is at a high level.

Of course, the media here is a broad concept, including influential media, opinion leaders and so on. Chen Chen said: "in the form of communication, we will also choose some special ways, such as flash shops and previews, which are popular among young people."

Zhang Zhiyong said, "Kappa was born in Italy in 1916. How to maintain a passion, youth and fashion for a hundred years is a topic that all generations of managers must tackle."

What is the next turning point of the global sporting goods industry? Zhang Zhiyong said that he would often be asked this question. Although there is no definite answer, he is very sure that the current Kappa must focus on the "trend movement" precisely. Although the future is unpredictable, in the trend of the tide, efforts to reinventer the tide will give us the opportunity to explore the next turning point in practice, and that is the real challenge.

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