Chapter 51 Chapter Twelve

Bad things also have positive sides.The failure to become an Olympic sponsor means, in the view of optimists, that "Li Ning" has an extra huge budget, and "Li Ning" will soon plan to invest these budgets in other sports marketing projects. Li Ning must do more sports marketing around the Olympics. According to authoritative estimates, the output value of China's sporting goods market after the Beijing Olympic cycle can reach 3 billion euros, and will continue to grow rapidly due to the stimulation of the Olympic Games.Adidas once commented that the difference between this Olympic Games and other Olympic Games is that the Olympic Games "only in China will it become an important event similar to national sports".This all means that this is a great opportunity to deliver the brand to the world's largest consumer group, and an opportunity to expand commercial territory in an unusual way.Of course, this also means that the competition will be fierce.

One only needs to look at the actions of several multinational giants to understand the serious challenges Li Ning is facing.Adidas is the official partner of the Beijing Olympic Games, and at this point, it already has an advantage. 2008 will be the 80th year that this world sports giant has joined hands with the Olympic Games.Although Nike is still the leader in terms of market share, the Adidas brand has always been in a dominant position in international sports events.The three major events in the world, the Olympic Games, the World Cup and the European Champions Cup, are the traditional spheres of influence of Adidas. They have sufficient experience and reserves to fight the Olympic Games.Let’s take a look at Adidas’ determination: Adidas Group CEO Herbert Heiner once provocatively announced to the media that Adidas is going to use the sponsorship of the Beijing Olympic Games as “one of the most important weights” to achieve its goal of “becoming the The largest sports brand in China, the goal is to become the number one brand in Asia by 2010.Adidas has made full preparations for this, with detailed plans for brand dissemination and product promotion, including "brand recognition, sales of Olympic-specific products, and how the company motivates employees to become part of the Olympic Games." It can be said that Armed to the teeth.In addition to the strict market offensive planning, Adidas' cultural understanding of "China + Olympics" is also its sharp weapon. It decided to make an Olympic sports marketing that fully highlights Chinese characteristics. At the end of 2007, Adidas chose the location of the Olympic strategy conference to be the most representative place of ancient Chinese culture: Xuanwumen Tower, one of the eight ancient city walls in Beijing. "Cheer for Chinese athletes" became their slogan.These actions are bound to capture the hearts of more Chinese consumers.

Let's look at another competitor, Reebok.As an independent brand, it cannot share the Olympic sponsorship glory of its acquirer Adidas.But don't forget, they have Yao Ming.Beginning in November 2007, Reebok launched its largest theme marketing plan in the Chinese market so far, "Burning Yao Wulili", and this huge range of activities will run through the entire 2008.In fact, in 2007, when this activity was not carried out, Reebok's sales in China had increased by 45%, so Reebok President and CEO Paul Harrington expressed with confidence that China is Reebok's most important market One, he must fight well in the Olympic Games.

Speaking of Nike, the maverick brand has never been an eye-catcher for Olympic sponsorship.Adidas is a group brand. The team strength advocated by the Olympic Games is exactly in line with the characteristics of the Adidas brand, while Nike is a more personalized brand. It is outgoing and unique. People who wear Nike just want to look different from others.Therefore, Chinese consumers can see that this brand would rather form one-to-one contact with consumers through more activities and promotion of specialty stores, rather than contact with mass communication media such as the media, and will not show disapproval. The qualifications of Olympic sponsors are particularly enviable.But it would be a big mistake to think that it will not make great efforts for the Olympics based on this.

On the contrary, since Nike entered the Chinese market in 1982, it has maintained a cooperative relationship with the Chinese sports authorities and is also a partner of the Chinese Olympic Committee.What have these collaborations brought about?In addition to Liu Xiang and Yi Jianlian, Nike has already quietly sponsored 21 of China's 28 Olympic teams, including basketball, track and field, taekwondo, and tennis.In other words, according to the rules of the Olympic Organizing Committee, Chinese athletes may wear Adidas to receive awards, but most of the time they wear Nike to participate in the competition.

In fact, "Li Ning" not only wants to compete with Adidas and Nike for sports marketing resources.When the Olympic Games comes, more and more Chinese enterprises are aware of the charm of sports marketing. "Why do I see Liu Xiang hurdling every day?" A 50-year-old female spectator in Beijing, China asked her husband in confusion and distress, "Isn't he tired of participating in so many competitions?" In fact, Liu Xiang did appear frequently in Classic hurdles performed on TV - in commercials.Since he broke the 13-year-old world record in the men's 110-meter hurdles in Lausanne in 2006 with a time of 12.88 seconds and won the gold medal, the new Asian trapeze has become the best choice in the advertising industry for a while.The charm of sports marketing is that in a country like China where the economy has already started, it usually takes at least several years to build a brand, but sports marketing can help brands greatly shorten this time. Liu Xiang has been on the track and field in a short period of time Win the audience, with him, companies can quickly increase brand awareness.Therefore, this promising athlete born in 1983 has cooperated with Amway Nutrilite, Coca-Cola, Baisha Culture, Shanshan Men's Clothing, Maxima Automobile, Shengda Flooring, "Xiang" series motorcycles, Yanjing Beer, Yili, China Post More than 10 companies including EMS and Lenovo Group have signed cooperation agreements of varying degrees.These companies invested expensive production costs to produce commercials that put Liu Xiang and their own company logos on the same TV screen, and they spared no expense to use bombing techniques to broadcast them on major TV stations.This is why audiences in Beijing and even across the country can often see Liu Xiang.