Basketball Shoes Trigger Queuing Rush Behind: Anta's Brand Division Explore

In July 13th, it raining for a day in Shanghai. Early in the morning, people queued up in front of the Yu Garden shop in Anta, Shanghai. After considering the weather reasons, the team was moved into the store. In the afternoon, there were nearly a hundred people queuing up. What they are waiting for is the Anta KT4- "reward" basketball shoes launched at half past four p.m. the same day.

KT is a basketball series specially built by Anta for NBA star Clay Thompson. In the past NBA season, the Thompson warriors three won the championship, which not only became the highlight of Thompson's NBA career, but also made his endorsement of Anta brand shine.

From the initial KT1 to this year's KT4, Anta basketball team has become very familiar with the development of KT series products. According to Cai Zhiben, general manager of Anta basketball department, this year, KT is expected to exceed 1 million pairs of sales of basketball shoes.

Anta and Thompson have become a typical case of Chinese brand cooperation with overseas stars. But success is no accident, behind which is the transformation story of Anta basketball team and Anta brand.

　　 Spokesperson effect

The "return" basketball shoes, which are on sale, are just like the name of Thompson, who extended the Jinzhou warriors with a top salary of $190 million to express their gratitude to the team and fans, especially the shoes that were jointly launched with Anta.

The whole shoe of the "reward" shoes was designed by newspaper. The contents were from Thompson's endorsement newspaper, EAST BAY TIMES ("East Bay times"). His left foot was in English, his right foot was in Chinese, and his photo on the outboard was printed.

This design is inspired by a habit of Thompson, who likes to read newspapers when he breaks in the locker room. In fact, in the Internet age, fewer and fewer people read newspapers, but Thompson used to read the newspaper to calm his mood.

Cai told the twenty-first Century business reporter that after discovering this habit of Thompson, they felt it was a very real personality trait and wanted to turn it into a story. Then, there are "reward" basketball shoes.

This is actually a microcosm of Anta's operation of the "Thompson" star IP. Li Ling, vice president of Anta group, said that the spokesperson strategy of Anta is to dig out the story behind it and form a good interaction effect with its own brand.

"After Thompson and Anta worked together, such as last year's China trip, Thompson wore a straw hat, fanned a big fan fan, ate Lanzhou noodles, and shared a bicycle. A real Chinese character came out, which made Chinese consumers see more vivid Thompson. "Li Ling said.

Another example is that in March last year, Anta launched KT3-Rocco in a shoe store in San Francisco, USA. "Rocco" is actually Thompson's pet dog's name, and Anta designed it as a main element of a shoe. The final result proves that this new design concept has been recognized by consumers, and has caused the phenomenon of foreign consumers queuing up to rush to buy Chinese sports brand products.

Based on the development of Thompson's personal brand, Anta also tasted the sweetness from it. When asked about the investment return of this spokesperson, Cai Zhiben did not provide specific data, but he said frankly that it was "absolute high return". As a result, it is also an important task for Anta to continue to excavate the star IP like Thompson.

This summer, due to Thompson's injury in the finals, Anta's activities in China will focus on another NBA player and Celtic striker Gordon Hayward. According to Cai Zhiben, Hayward will open the China line in early August, and is expected to face face-to-face interaction with fans in Beijing, Zhengzhou, Guangzhou, Xiamen, Shenzhen and Shanghai.

"The first thing we need to do is to copy the successful experience of Thompson in the past to Hayward, increase his connection with Anta brand, and increase the popularity of Chinese fans." Cai said, "Hayward has never been to China before, and is also very excited about China's trip. So we will prepare many interesting events this time."

According to the reporter, Hayward is still a competitive player. He doesn't even lose some professional players. Therefore, in his China trip activities, there are expected to be some content related to competition.

In addition, Anta is also striving for some other quality NBA players, such as this year's draft champion Williamson Williamson (Zion). A few days ago, Anta announced that it had joined the Zion's contract negotiation team. So far, at least 9 sports brands were fighting for Zion, and the amount of Anta's contract was quite competitive.

In this regard, Cai Zhiben told the twenty-first Century economic news reporter, "about Zion, we have very close, deep and many exchanges on both sides, but the final result of this matter is now I can not say that there are various possibilities. But in the process of communication, what they see is the awakening of Chinese brands and the Chinese market, and their influence in the world is very different from that before, because the stars have been seriously thinking about the cooperation with Chinese brands.

　　 Brand division

Anta made the first limited sale of shoes in 2017. Those shoes were called "GOLD BLOODED", which sold 99 pairs in 3 cities. According to Cai Zhiben, the whole team was very nervous at the time, because there was no bottom in mind. I am not sure whether these 99 pairs of shoes could be sold out.

Compared with the sale of 66 cities and tens of thousands of pairs of limited shoes, the change of Anta basketball team is obvious. Behind this, it benefits from the exploration of Anta brand in the category system mode.

Li Ling told reporters that six years ago, Anta made an attempt to separate the basketball team into a business unit, and put the planning, design, marketing, terminal, retail, supply chain and other links to the overall management of the division.

In the past, the different categories of Anta were mostly the form of big shoes and big clothes. The Department was mainly responsible for the related planning, and then handed over to the shoe clothing Commodity Center to complete the research and design, and after the product was released, the marketing and promotion of each group and brand center were completed.

But with the change of the consumer market and consumer behavior, this mode also exposes a problem that is too far away from consumers. The success of the basketball team has also verified the feasibility of the division's model. Therefore, since the end of last year, the Anta brand has launched a structural adjustment. Apart from the existing basketball category, the three major categories of comprehensive training, running and sports life have also been upgraded to an independent business unit.

It is learnt that under the new framework, every category except for production can be completed within the various departments. Li Ling said that this is an active change made by Anta brand. The aim is to enhance the determination of every category of Anta brand to respond to market changes and grasp the ability of consumers. This is also the core of Anta's "value retailing".

According to Anta's latest data, Anta brand retail sales in the first half of 2019 will grow by 10%-20% over the same period last year. In addition to Anta brand, the whole Anta group also owns other brands including FILA. It is disclosed that sales of other brands of Anta group increased by 60%-65% compared with the same period last year.

It should be noted that the financial data of Anta group does not include the performance of the amfein group, which has just completed the acquisition in April. Li Ling said that amamfin and Anta were the two financial systems and did not carry out consolidated statements. In a short period of time, AMF will remain independent.