Chapter 12 Chapter 6 Introduction Strategy (2)

The premise of the more professional "Li Ning" transition from universal to professional is the industry's redefinition of the Chinese sports brand market.At the beginning of the company's establishment, in the face of this extensive market, "Li Ning" products tended to be "mass leisure", which was in line with people's understanding of sports at that time. In the first half of 2002, a survey conducted by Li Ning Company showed that less than 20% of people in China pursue specialization when purchasing sporting goods.Even when international professional sports brands entered China in the 1980s, they did not win consumers because of their functional subdivision and professionalism, but more because of people's pursuit of brands.

Chinese consumers often use a set of sports equipment to participate in all the sports they like.When major international brands, including Nike and Reebok, first entered the Chinese market, their marketing plans focused more on signing spokespersons and sponsoring comprehensive sports events to attract more consumers, without deliberately showing their professionalism.After the competition of sporting goods became more intense, consumers naturally began to pay attention to the specialization, humanization and high-tech characteristics of sports products. To specialize requires linking a company to a specific sport.For example, when mentioning Nike, people think of basketball, and Adidas reminds people of football. "Li Ning" needs to find its own project. What will it be?gymnastics.

For Li Ning Company, gymnastics will be the first consideration anyway.Li Ning himself is the prince of gymnastics. Li Ning Company became the sponsor of the Chinese gymnastics team in the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games.In fact, Li Ning has invested heavily in gymnastics: in June 2000, the company successfully sponsored the French gymnastics team.It was a coordinating measure of the company's internationalization strategy at that time.At that time, there was also an advertisement in which French gymnasts dressed in Li-Ning clothing drew beautiful lines in the air with gymnastic movements, and the response at that time was quite strong.

But difficulties are also evident.From a global perspective, gymnastics is clearly not a mainstream sport.The degree of industrialization of gymnastics in China is extremely low, and the number of participants is not large.However, if "Li Ning" wants to become an international sports brand competing with giants such as Nike and Adidas, it should find more industrialized sports. "China Fortune" magazine reporter Sun Yang introduced in the 2005 article "Li Ning: 14 years of groping to find himself", just like Wu Xianyong, the marketing director of Li Ning Company, said: "The marketization of gymnastics is relatively weak, and it has an impact on consumers. It is also relatively weak. The development of Chinese gymnastics is an elite-style operation system, while there are many gymnastics clubs in the United States. The clubs support this sport, which is a relatively popular mass sport." So for gymnastics, "Li Ning" finally decided to put The main focus is on the sponsorship of international teams, but it is not included in the main products.

Unexpectedly, the extension of gymnastics has expanded rapidly after entering the 21st century, including bodybuilding and yoga with many athletes.Nike, which seems to be far away from the topic of fitness, started the development of women's fitness series before the arrival of this trend, and signed almost all the most famous fitness trainers in the United States.However, "Li Ning", the sporting goods company most likely to do fitness, lost this opportunity. The next thing to think about is running. Studies have shown that Chinese physical exercise usually starts with running.Nike is closely related to basketball, and Adidas is closely related to football. Other brands positioned in the Chinese market that are related to running, such as Reebok, Asics, and New Balance, are still in a highly discrete state. Establishing a position in this field presents an opportunity.Therefore, running was identified by Li Ning Company as the most important area of ​​differentiated development, and most of the company's plans were formulated for running.In order to secure a presence in the Chinese running market, Li-Ning has undertaken extensive research and development to develop a core technology through which athletic shoes can be uniquely and recognizably shock-absorbing, supportive, controllable and ultra-light sex."Most customers don't really understand the technology we're putting into the new sneakers, but the new shoes look cool, and these improved features will have cool names. We need to pass that on to consumers," Ng recalls. The most important information is that Li Ning can develop and possess the core technology especially for Chinese runners." After the 2002 Football World Cup, Li Ning Company began to try the world's No. 1 sport - football, and hoped that in three to five years, it would be able to In this sport, he has entered the top three in the world together with Adidas.

"Li Ning" understands that people's emotions for products are not as good as fans' passionate worship of idol stars, so they need to find a suitable spokesperson.