The Curtain Call Of "Jordan" And The Appearance Of Zhong Qiao: The Final Verdict Of The Case Of Star Michael Jordan V. Jordan Sports Has Been Settled

According to the national enterprise credit information publicity system On January 12, Jordan sports Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Jordan sports") changed its name to Zhongqiao Sports Co., Ltd.

After working with American basketball star Michael Jordan After several years of "Jordan" trademark competition, on December 30, 2020, the second intermediate people's Court of Shanghai made a judgment in the first instance of the case of Michael Jordan v. Jordan sports and Bairen trading company, which ruled that Jordan sports should stop using the "Jordan" trade name in its enterprise name and stop using the trademark involving "Jordan".

Nine years of lawsuits over the use of "Jordan"

Born in Jinjiang, Fujian Province, Jordan sports, formerly known as 1984 The establishment of "Fujian Province Jinjiang Chendai xibian Commodity Factory No.2" 2000 It was renamed "Jordan sports Co., Ltd." and "Jordan" was taken as the enterprise name. From 1997 At the beginning, Jordan sports has registered a series of trademarks about "Jordan", the categories involved Clothing, shoes and hats, fitness equipment, leather goods, advertising sales Etc.

Since then, Jordan sports performance has grown rapidly, especially in the 2003 Its business performance has increased 600% 。 At that time, the American professional basketball star Michael Jordan was also very popular on the court, and was also the idol of many young people in China.

In fact, the name of Jordan sports has been controversial.

Horizon has completed two survey reports in 2012. According to the survey results Among the respondents who had purchased Jordan sports brand products at that time, 93.5% and 78.1% of the respondents believed that Michael Jordan was related to "Jordan sports", and the most respondents thought that Michael Jordan was the "spokesman" of Jordan sports.

Relying on the way of "playing the edge ball", Jordan sports at that time had a strong popularity, and applied for listing for the first time in 2011.

However, on the eve of listing In 2012, Michael Jordan, a famous American professional basketball player, filed a complaint and lawsuit to the relevant authorities and judicial organs of China. Until this time, many consumers suddenly realize that "Jordan sports" has nothing to do with star Michael Jordan himself.

In 2012, Michael Jordan proposed to the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board of the State Administration for Industry and commerce to cancel 78 relevant registered trademarks of Jordan sports. After the application was rejected, he filed an administrative lawsuit with the first intermediate people's Court of Beijing. In the same year, Michael Jordan took Jordan sports to court, accusing Jordan sports of violating his right of name.

However, the first instance of Beijing first intermediate people's court in 2014 and the second instance of Beijing Higher People's court in 2015 decided that Michael Jordan lost because of insufficient grounds for appeal to cancel the disputed trademark of Jordan sports.

At the end of 2015, the Supreme People's court reviewed the series of Jordan sports cases. In 2020, the Supreme People's court made a final judgment, revoking the previous judgments of Beijing Higher People's court and Beijing first intermediate people's court, and rescinded the trademark dispute ruling of "Jordan and map". Finally, the final judgment of Shanghai No.2 Middle Court on December 30, 2020 will be obtained.

And Jordan sports in the long-term, ups and downs of the litigation period, the road to listing also stranded.

There is a risk of getting into trouble by "playing the edge ball"

In fact, influenced by the times and the economic environment at that time, in the past few decades, many clothing brands have adopted the "Star" or "brand-name" approach similar to Jordan sports, such as "ADI king", "new Baron", "Valentino" And so on, these short cut brands have indeed gained a lot of time dividends in a certain period of time.

In addition, in the view of some industry insiders, there may be another reason why the Ding Guoxiong family decided to choose "Jordan" in addition to the "near star". At that time, the "boss" of China's sports brand was "Li Ning", which was founded and named by Li Ning, a famous athlete in China. In addition, compared with other Jinjiang sports brands, such as Anta, noble bird, hongxingerke The name of "Jordan" is obviously louder.

At that time, most of the sports brands were racking their brains to expand their brand awareness. In 1999, Ding Shizhong, the founder of Anta, invested a lot of money to sign Kong Linghui, the world champion of table tennis, and put advertisements on CCTV. For the first time, he started the marketing mode of "sports star + CCTV advertising", which attracted a number of Jinjiang brands to imitate. And special step and Delphi have also signed contracts with Nicholas Tse and Jay Chou.

Let the brand name be remembered by consumers, this is the biggest appeal of Jinjiang Sports brand at the beginning of the concept germination, Jordan sports is no exception.

According to public information From January 1, 2000 to May 18, 2004, Jordan sports invested 53.17 million yuan in advertising expenses, sports sponsorship and public welfare undertakings. By 2010, the advertising investment of Jordan sports in CCTV has reached nearly 70 million yuan.

And in this period, Jordan sports business performance is just like the sun. ? According to the prospectus released by Jordan sports in 2011, the company's revenue from 2008 to 2010 was 1.158 billion yuan, 2.316 billion yuan and 2.927 billion yuan respectively.

Perhaps in the previous "confrontation" with Michael Jordan, Jordan sports did not lose so thoroughly. However, it can not be denied that after the loss of the trademark infringement case, the forced renaming of Jordan sports will have a great impact on the development of the brand. ? On the one hand, consumers will greatly discount the impression of the brand that once had the behavior of "near the famous brand", and the consumption desire may be reduced; on the other hand, the brand will spend a long time and a lot of energy to re cultivate consumers' cognition, which may be a long and difficult process.

Where to go after the name change remains to be tested by the market

There is also a point to pay attention to is that it is not only the star Michael Jordan himself who brings "trouble" to Jordan sports, but also the Nike brand air jordan behind it.

As early as 1984, when Michael Jordan was still a rising star in the NBA, Nike made his own "Air Jordan" boots. In 1997, the air jordan brand was independent from Nike and gradually became one of the important sub brands of Nike. Nowadays, AJ has become the "God shoes" pursued by young people in China. On the trend shopping app, a pair of aj1 has been fried for more than 60000 yuan. Coincidentally, the years when Michael Jordan filed a lawsuit against Jordan sports also happened to be a period when air jordan's market share in China was expanding.

Now The brand image of Jordan sports has been damaged seriously, which not only damages the brand image of Jordan sports, but also makes the nine-year listing plan of Jordan sports become a mystery again. During the period when Jordan sports was involved in trademark disputes, Anta, Tebu, 361 ° and other domestic sports brand parent companies were listed one after another, which undoubtedly made Jordan sports more passive.

Take Anta, which is located in Jinjiang, as an example, the company has bought and bought many times FILA, Archaeopteryx parent company We have found an effective multi brand strategy from Anta in Jinjiang to Anta in the world. ? In the first half of 2020, Anta company achieved revenue of 14.7 billion yuan. In addition Li Ning is also relying on "China's Li Ning" gorgeous turn, in the sports tide card industry, revenue reached 6.2 billion yuan in the first half of 2020.

In contrast, without the support of capital market, the performance growth of Jordan sports is relatively limited, which can be said to be "in order". ? Compared with Anta, Li Ning and Tebu, the development of Jordan sports is somewhat backward. The only big move of Jordan sports in recent years is to spend 443 million yuan in 2020 to acquire the intellectual property rights and management rights of sports brand Umbro in China.

Perhaps in anticipation of the outcome of the lawsuit, in recent years, both Jordan sports official online stores and offline physical stores have started the process of "de Jordan", and the scope of application of relevant graphic trademarks has been significantly weakened. On Jordan sports official website, product promotion is mainly based on product name and brand image.

Industry insiders believe that In today's China Jordan sports, "de Jordan" is the first step to reshape the brand, but whether it can succeed or not is still unknown. In the past, Michael Jordan was intercepted by Michael Jordan, followed by Nike's Air Jordan. In addition, the domestic sports brand was in a fierce battle. After all, Jordan sports still needs to go on. As for how life is going, the brand can only experience it.

At this point, it suddenly occurred to me that after the name of Jordan sports changed its name, it has been quite influential in China "Jordan Cup" China sports equipment design competition Will it continue? Or is it also renamed? After all, this competition has been held more than ten times. ?