Domestic Sports Brand Gradually Shows Global Ambition And Dialogue With Young People As Brand Core

Domestic sports brands are showing global ambitions, but it is not feasible to imitate Europe and America alone.

Zheng Jie, President of Anta group, said in an interview with Xinhua news agency that China's sports industry still has great room for development.

The key problems of the industry's management mode, management mode, input and output, and how to make the sports industry develop stably and healthily are still in the exploratory stage.

According to the notice of the State Council on accelerating the development of sports industry to promote sports consumption, the scale of China's sports industry in 2025 is expected to reach RMB 5 trillion yuan, an increase of more than 3 times that of 2016's RMB 1 trillion and 500 billion yuan, and the Chinese sports industry will usher in a golden age of market development. Therefore, Zheng Jie believes that the current Chinese environment is good for the whole industry, and the whole industry will develop towards a healthy direction in the next ten years. But he stressed that China's sports industry should not blindly and mechanically imitate Europe and the United States, because we have great differences in management mechanism and cultural mechanism.

With the endorsement of policies and people's attention and participation in sports and personal health, sports brand is developing rapidly.

Local sports brands began to explore their own development path.

At the beginning of its development, its path is similar to the market operation mode of sports industry in Europe and the United States, including sponsoring sports events, marketing, licensed commodity management, etc.

According to Anta, according to its IPO prospectus, Anta's revenue in 2006 was 1 billion 250 million yuan, nearly 2 times that in 2005, and net profit was 147 million yuan, 3 times that of 2005.

After ten years of listing, Anta's operating income in 2016 reached 13 billion 350 million yuan, the growth rate reached 20% in third consecutive years, and net profit increased 16.9% to 2 billion 390 million yuan.

The turning point is to sponsor the Olympic Games in China.

Since 2009, Anta has reached a strategic cooperation agreement with the Chinese Olympic Committee twice, becoming a 2009-2016 year Olympic sports apparel partner of the Chinese Olympic Committee, providing champion equipment for Chinese groups to participate in major international events.

In 2014, Anta sports further expanded its sports resources and formally signed a contract with the State Sports General Administration Gymnastics Sports Management Center. The two sides will carry out comprehensive strategic cooperation.

In 2014, Anta officially became the official NBA market partner and NBA authorized dealer, and sold the brand's full range of joint brand sports shoes and accessories products in stores. This is the first time that NBA has authorized the use of joint brand Chinese sporting goods company.

In 2017, Anta signed NBA star players such as Thompson, Garnett, Rondo, Parsons, Scola and so on.

In fact, Anta's series of moves are quite similar to those of Nike and Adidas when they became famous sports brands.

In the 90s of last century, Nike signed the NBA star Michael Jordan as spokesperson for the product. Michael Jordan's superb skills greatly promoted the popularity and professionalism of Nike.

Adidas relies on its "spikes", which are loved and supported by top football players, and is famous in the world cup, and has been working with FIFA since 1970.

In 2013, the two parties decided to renew their contract until 2030.

Sponsoring the right to use trademarks after competitions has made brands more competitive in the surrounding areas such as clothing and souvenirs.

Anta's competitor and gymnast Lining established the same name sporting goods company in the same period, and through Lining's personal influence, he promoted the territory by professional sports brand.

At the early stage of its establishment, Lining pioneered the establishment of a franchise marketing system in the whole country, and sponsored many Chinese sports delegations to participate in various competitions at home and abroad. For example, at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, it became the equipment designated by the Chinese delegation to receive the award dress and sign the world badminton tournament, and became the equipment sponsor of the Chinese men's Professional Basketball League (CBA).

In 2008, founder Lining lit the torch at the bird's Nest Olympic Games, which made Lining brand known instantly.

In 2009, Lining sold more than the German sports brand Adidas in the domestic sports market, second only to the American sports giant Nike.

In 2010, brand sales reached a peak of over 9 billion yuan, with more than 8000 stores in China.

But relying on sponsorship, celebrity effects and other marketing activities is not a permanent solution.

Like many classic domestic brands, Lining has experienced brand image aging and business strategy after his brilliant experience.

By 2011, the brand suffered a lot of backlog of stock. In order to stop the loss as soon as possible, Lining found that the expansion of the product, relying solely on the influence of celebrity influence and sponsorship marketing, decided to shift the target consumer group to the younger generation.

Around 2014, with the spread of Athleisure sports and leisure, the boundary between sports and fashion was officially broken. This not only meant that fashion brands began to launch sports style products, but also marked the beginning of fashion pursuit of sports brands.

In the global market, Adidas, as the beneficiary of this trend, quickly counterattacked. After struggling, Nike gradually loosened its sportsmen professionalism, instead of fashion oriented product design and star marketing. UnderArmour finally fell behind because it did not keep up with the trend in time.

Lining worked hard on the brand's own products, exerting its essence as the personal influence brand, continuing to tap the value of Lining's brand, and telling the Millennium generation about the brand stories that resonate with the brand.

Xu is capturing the trend of Puma in Paris fashion week under the leadership of Rihanna. Lining moves fashion to a higher level of strategy.

In 2018, New York fashion week, autumn and winter show, Lining became the first domestic sports brand to go on the international stage, breaking the traditional impression of the domestic brand of domestic clothing, combining the sportswear with the popular revival movement. At the same time, it injected the cultural background of the founder Lining's personal experience, and played the declarative slogan of "China Lining", which became a phenomenal discussion event of social media.

In terms of marketing, the brand has seized the "street corner" craze, co operating with designer brand PRONOUNCE, local rap singer and Debang express.

A series of initiatives catering to the millennial generation stimulated Lining's growth. According to the 2018 interim report released by the group, its revenue grew 17.9% to 4 billion 713 million yuan in the first half of the year, and net profit rose 42% to 269 million yuan.

The path of Anta is slightly different.

After the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Anta group was keenly aware that there will be new turning points in the Chinese sports industry. Too single brand structure will soon be eliminated by the market and begin to pform into multi brand groups. We should choose to dig deep into the professional sports field and expand the volume of our own body to meet the needs of consumers at different levels.

Since 2009, the group has begun to implement the multi brand operation strategy. In addition to its own brand Anta and children's sportswear brand Anta children, it has acquired Italy's top sports and leisure brand FILA, the old city brisk shoes brand Sprandi, the famous Japanese clothing brand Descente, the Korean outdoor brand KolonSport and other income bags, and announced in December last year that it plans to acquire the high-end outdoor brand parent bird Amer Sports to bet on the field of professional sports equipment.

According to the analysis, AmerSports's brand can not only make up for the shortage of Anta in professional and outdoor sports market, but also meet the gap of Anta in the middle and high-end price market, so as to find opportunities for market segmentation.

In the past ten years, Anta group has been able to fill the gaps in these markets by acquiring brands for different positioning and market segments. On the other hand, it absorbs the experience and professional and outdoor brand technology of mature brands, and initially forms three brand segments of the mass subspecialty sports, high-end fashion sports and professional outdoor sports.

At the same time, the group continued to innovate, focusing more on young people, attracting a millennial generation through a series of marketing activities, such as the "Crazy" series built with NBA star Thompson, holding 3V3 basketball matches for teenagers.

FILA launched a brand new young brand FilaFusion, and invited 90 star Wang Yuan as spokesperson.

Thanks to the expansion of its business territory and the launch of Anta DNA's innovative products, Anta sports increased its net profit in the first half of last year to 33.8% yuan to 1 billion 940 million yuan, and its revenue exceeded 10 billion yuan mark, and rose 44.1% to 10 billion 600 million yuan.

Despite the blurring of the boundaries between the accelerated sports brand and the fashion brand, Lining and Anta do not forget the essence of the sports brand. As The Nike AirShoe is like Nike, the sports brand wants to win the hearts of the people and needs unique technical support.

Lining's "Li Ninggong" and Anta's "flash energy technology", like the NikeAir series, will become a powerful weapon for both ordinary consumers and professional consumers.

In the interview with Xinhua news agency, Zheng Jie laid emphasis on the field of sports equipment manufacturing and the operation of IP.

But unlike the enthusiasm of European and American consumers for sports or major events, Chinese consumers' attention to sports started from the millennial generation. With the arrival of the upgrading of consumption, sports have gradually risen to the national vision, so neither the demand for professional equipment nor the enthusiasm for events is better than that of European and American consumers.

Whether it is betting the product's fashion to cater to the millennial Lining, or aiming at China's demographic dividend and absorbing overseas mature brands to widen the market segments of Anta, in the short term, it has found its own way of development.

However, the millennial generation is changing, and whether overseas mature brands will not be convinced in the domestic market is still unknown. No matter the increasing size of Anta or the increasingly fashionable Lining, it is necessary to find an ingenious balance between sports and fashion.

In the final analysis, how to form an effective dialogue with young consumers is the core of brand growth.