Who Is More Yeezy VS AJ, Jordan And Kan Ke?

In the latest rich list of Forbes's latest hip-hop singers, Kanye West (Kanye West) ranked fourth in the fortune of $240 million, making its debut. Forbes believes that this has much to do with West's Yeezy empire. It is estimated that the sales volume of the Yeezy Series in 2019 will reach up to US $1 billion 500 million, and it will continue to grow.

What is the power of Yeezy? According to Bloomberg data, after nearly a year's launch of the Yeezy series, Adidas's P / E ratio surpassed Nike. And according to the previous statistics of NPD group, during the period from May 2016 to 2017, the share of JORDAN brand in the American sports shoes market dropped from 14.8% to 11.8%, or even once occupied by Adidas second of the market.

As the two most popular "personal" brand in the sports shoes market, the competition between Yeezy series and JORDAN brand has gradually entered the white hot stage. Josh Rubel Josh Luber, Stock X founder of the footwear trading platform, revealed that as at January 2015, Adidas had not yet released the Yeezy series, and their share in the second-hand shoe market was only about 1%, while Nike and JORDAN accounted for 96% of the total turnover of our website. But by October 2017, Adidas accounted for 60% of all transactions on our website, most of which were contributed by the Yeezy series.

The Yeezy series has allowed Adidas to win an important bargaining chip against Nike in the American sports shoes market. From the experience of West, he became a designer.

When West was young, his mother took him to see the Japanese cyberpunk animation "AKIRA". The shape changes and color matching in the animation gave him many inspirations. My father would go to the car show with him and let him be fascinated by Lamborghini. These childhood days foreshadowed his future design of the Yeezy series. "Everything I do has some Lamborghini color. Yeezy is Lamborghini in shoes." West said in an interview with Forbes.

In 2006, West had designed a shoe for Adidas, but he failed to sell it at the end. But in the second year, he worked with Bape to launch a shoe called Bapesta FS-001 "College Dropout" and added a symbolic element "dropout bear" on the side of the shoe. The pair of shoes is currently priced between $4700 and $150 thousand on Stock X.

Later, he became a coincidence with Nike. West once met Nike chief executive Mark Parker (Mark Parker) on the plane and showed his manuscript to him. "He thinks I'm an interesting guy." West recalls.

In this way, Nike will command West's income. During the five years of cooperation, West launched a total of 3 shoes, including Air Yeezy 1 and Air Yeezy 2. Despite the sale of Air Yeezy 2 on sale in 2012, West thinks Nike is just treating him as another star who is promoting the company. "That's the first pair of shoes that can reach the AJ level, and I want to achieve more. But at that time, Nike refused to pay copyright fees to celebrities. West said.

After learning about West's dissatisfaction, Adidas immediately negotiated with him and promised to pay royalties to him. In 2013, Adidas signed a contract with West. Forbes quoted the source of the contract as saying that Adidas can use Yeezy to name, produce and promote a series of products, while West can extract 15% of the total sales as royalties and promotion fees. The New York Times once reported that Jordan received Copyright Royalties of about 5% of JORDAN brand sales.

In February 2015, the Yeezy series was formally launched. The first boot is Yeezy 750 Boost "Grey" version. This shoe is currently priced between $1400 and $6091 on Stock X. This shoe is sold out quickly after listing. Then in July 2016, Adidas renewed the contract with West, and announced the establishment of a "Adidas + Kanye West" series, offering him a dedicated product line and independent store.

In fact, the historical mission of the Yeezy series is similar to that of Nike brand when it was first founded in Nike.

In 1984, Nike founder Phil Nate (Phil Knight) signed a new rookie Michael Jordan (Michael Jordan) at a price of $250 thousand a year. This is a big gamble. After all, James Voci, the James Worthy at the time, signed a contract with New Balance for $150 thousand annually, but Knight thought it was the best decision she had ever made. At that time, Nike was only a company struggling to sell running shoes, and they hoped to remold the company's image through cooperation with star athletes.

In April 1985, the 1 generation of Air Jordan was officially launched, which triggered a rapid buying boom. According to ESPN, the shoe has brought $70 million in revenue to Nike in one month. By the end of 1985, the JORDAN brand had generated more than $100 million in revenue for Nike. In 1984, sales of all products from Nike added up to only $65 million. The emergence of JORDAN brand has solved Nike's troubles.

"They have an athlete who can change a sport once in a hundred years. He has not only become an indispensable part of sports, but also deeply rooted in the trend culture. " George Belgium, Professor of marketing and marketing at San Diego State University, said (George Belch).

JORDAN brand has Jordan, Yeezy series has West. As the most popular two star brands in the market of sports shoes, there are similarities in marketing strategies, namely, "rare goods are expensive". By limiting the volume of goods and the place of sale, the queuing buying boom is created, and the topic of conversation is created, so that the habit of "robbing shoes" can be developed by footwear fans. In a telephone conference of investors in November 2018, Adidas CEO Caspar Rothd (Kasper R rsted) once declared that "in the process of bringing new products to market, we will adhere to the previous strategy: let the new products remain scarce and ensure the publicity effect, but after a certain period of time, they will distribute a large number of products to the market."

Judging from the importance of Adidas to West and Yeezy series, they have the confidence to use this series to break the wrist with the JORDAN brand.

JORDAN brand has deep historical accumulation and plays a decisive role in the increasingly hot market of shoes and shoes. Moreover, according to Nike's earnings report, in the 2018 fiscal year, the JORDAN brand's revenue was close to $2 billion 900 million. If the Yeezy series achieves $1 billion 500 million this year, it will be about half of its competitors. But the Yeezy series is developing rapidly, and its popularity in the market is not too much to be desired. Rothd once admitted that the Yeezy series has relatively limited contribution to the company's finance, but it is very important for the brand fever.

Of course, the star's own aura and the ability to carry goods also determine the upper limit of its "personal brand". According to TMZ statistics, in September 2016, when West held a concert in Madison Square Garden, he sold a total of $780 thousand worth of Yeezy products, setting a record of second high sales for single day activities. As for Jordan, despite his retirement in 2003, he still tops the list of Forbes's latest NBA players' annual income of 130 million dollars. The second place is Lebron James (LeBron James), with a mere $32 million.

But there are great differences in the brand management between the two people. The most obvious thing is that West is good at using social media and net red and stars for publicity, while Jordan himself does not like social media.

West and his wife Kim Kardashian (Kim Kardashian) have enough appeal in social media. They are good publicity channels themselves, and the users of social media are more in line with the target users of Yeezy series. West also sent an invitation to celebrities such as Paris Hilton and net red to photograph them in the same costumes of Kardashian, and then upload social media. According to the fashion website Lyst, under the stimulation of this activity, the search volume of "Yeezy" on the platform increased by 45% compared with the previous week.

In addition, from West's departure from Nike to Adidas's Yeezy series of explosions, we can see that the two sports brands have different attitudes towards the combination of stars and sports brands. The spokesman for Nike is mainly athletes, while stars and entertainers are more involved in product promotion. Adidas is willing to embrace the fashion and fashion industry, willing to make products with stars and artists, and even set up product lines for them.

In fact, apart from West, Adidas has also worked with artists such as Farrell Williams (Pharrell Williams) and Beyonce (Beyonc). In April of this year, Adidas renewed the contract with Beyonce, and will also launch signature shoes, exclusive clothing and cooperation to revive the women's sports fashion brand Ivy Park for her.

This strategy has proved to be successful in the shoe market. In the secondary market, JORDAN brand and hip hop singer Drake jointly launched OVO joint sneakers and rap singer Travis Scott (Travis Scott) launched the "barbed" series, as well as Adidas's Yeezy series, the price increase is very obvious. "Some of the most popular shoes now are shoes that work with artists." Footwear News's campaign and outdoor footwear editor Peter Free (Peter Verry) stressed in an interview with Business Insider.

More importantly, compared with the athletes, the fans base of stars and entertainers is larger and wider, so that they can better accomplish the task of "carrying goods" and promoting brand publicity. And by collaborating with them, brands can also transfer the main battlefield of propaganda from TV to social media. Take West as an example. His twitter now has 29 million 200 thousand fans. Through this propaganda channel, Adidas can further approach the younger generation of consumers.

In 2020, the Yeezy series will further expand its product line and introduce the first basketball shoe. By then, what competition will Yeezy series and JORDAN brand compete?