Chasing the trend is a feature shared by every generation when they are young, but for the post-90s and post-00s generation, the new domestic products are more like the spiritual convergence point between the international tide culture and the Chinese national culture.
Author| Walker
Edit | Egg Manager
“氪约” column planning | Liu Han
This article is a joint planning by X Bullet Finance
This is a pair of sneakers with bold colors and composition. Although some people have difficulty understanding the designer’s ideas, in the eyes of many players, this shoe is the best in the field of fashion shoes in recent years.
Picture / Li Ning official website
The key is that this ex-factory price of 899 yuan was once hyped up to about 3,000 yuan in the secondary market. Unlike previous shoe manufacturers who have started with Nike, Adi and AJ, this shoe is a purely domestic brand-from the domestic sports “old brand” Li Ning.
Of course, this misconception in brand recognition may be one of the important reasons why Li Ning’s shoes were exploded on the Internet.
It is no exaggeration to say that since 2018, Li Ning has transformed from a sporting goods company into a trendy brand. When young people talk about Li Ning,I don’t care too much about the sports function of its products, and I still like its design and the trend it represents.
Li Ning, who has been invited to Paris and New York Fashion Week every year, has also been recognized and accepted by the international fashion industry.
How did this sporting goods company, which uses the name of the prince of gymnastics as a trademark, and was founded and operated by him to this day, in the course of 30 years of development, when it was about to die for various reasons, how did it rebirth, make a new face, and start anew? Some world?
This issue has now become the focus of attention of industry, media and economic experts.
“Fan for the post-90s” completely defeated
Li Ning, who was born as a top athlete, is extremely sensitive to the sense of smell of sports business. Li Ning, which was just established in 1990, earned 15 million in sales during the Beijing Asian Games.
In 1992, at the Barcelona Olympics, Li Ning appeared as a special award-winning uniform for the Chinese sports delegation, ending the history of Chinese athletes wearing foreign sports uniforms at the Olympics. Since then, in the three consecutive Olympic Games, Li Ning has secured the top spot among sponsors.
From this time on, the red and yellow color scheme became the main color of Li Ning’s sponsorship suit for the national team. What Li Ning and the management team did not expect was that 28 years later, the young people who watched the growth of these Olympics and Asian Games called the red and yellow color matching jokingly “Tomato scrambled eggs” and linked it to the history of the country. Together.
This seems to be an antecedent of Li Ning’s rise in the later period of the national tide.
Sports marketing centered on top-level event IP, Li Ning only took five years to stand among the top domestic sports goods companies. In 1995, Li Ning’s operating income reached 360 million yuan.
According to the Southwest Securities Research Report, by 1996, the Li Ning brand’s annual marketing revenue was 650 million yuan, and the market share exceeded 13%. At that time, the combined annual sales of international sports brands Adi and Nike in China were about 4 100 million yuan, with a total market share of about 8%.
This gave Li Ning the idea of competing with Nike and Adidas in the international market. He began to look for CEO candidates and put all his energy on the development of overseas markets.
However, for Chinese brands at the time, “internationalization” was equivalent to a road that no one had walked. As a pioneer, Li Ning was under great pressure and risk.
Under the joint efforts of many parties, from 2001 to 2003In 2009, Li Ning’s revenue was 735 million yuan, 958 million yuan, and 1.276 billion yuan, with a compound growth rate of 31.8%.
In 2004, Li Ning successfully went public in Hong Kong. At that time, the entire company’s turnover exceeded 1.27 billion yuan, and the net profit reached 94 million yuan, far exceeding other domestic sports brands. The latecomer Anta had only 311 million yuan in total operating income that year.
In 2008, the Beijing Olympics achieved the wish of Chinese sports brands to take off. At the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, when Li Ning held the torch to ignite the torch with the image of a father chasing the sun, it also ignited the unprecedented enthusiasm of Chinese people for sports, and the brand value and influence of Li Ning’s company reached unprecedented heights.
In 2009, Li Ning’s annual sales revenue was nearly 9 billion, and it opened more than 10,000 stores. It has become a monopolistic sports goods giant in China.
However, a fact that cannot be ignored is that the huge sales that year were basically brought about by low-end products, and the sales of Li-Ning’s high-end products at home and abroad were not ideal-in 2009, Li Ning’s distributors in Spain are on the verge of bankruptcy, and the US stores have closed down successively, which has repeatedly suffered setbacks. As Southwest Securities mentioned, “Li Ning’s overseas sales have always been hovering at a low level.”
More importantly, as Nike and Adidas pay more and more attention to the Chinese market, Li Ning’s ranking in the Chinese market gradually declines.
As early as 2003, Nike took away Li Ning’s nine-year position as the “domestic market No. 1”; in 2004, Adidas also surpassed Li Ning, ranking second in domestic market share.
Unwilling to be reconciled to mediocrity, Li Ning started a new round of change.
In 2010, Zhang Zhiyong, then CEO of Li Ning, decided to reshape the brand. At that time, he believed that what Li Ning wanted to conquer was the post-90s young people market, and the Li Ning company established in 1990 also happened to be a “post-90s” brand, so he made a decision to build a “post-90s Li Ning” and lock the target customer group. For young people in first- and second-tier cities, they are moving towards high-end and younger, and they are benchmarking against international brands such as Adi and Nike.
In order to impress young people, Li Ning Company invited the most famous young athletes in China at that time, Wu Minxia, Zhang Jike, and Lin Dan as spokespersons, trying to combine the influence of these people with the attraction of young people born in the 90s to promote youthfulness. The further development of Li Ning strategy.
Picture / Li Ning propaganda poster
At the same time, Li Ning changed the logo, using LI-NING more instead of Chinese Li Ning, and also changed the slogan from “Everything is possible” to “Make the change”. In order to enhance the image, Zhang Zhiyong’s most direct strategy is to raise the price of Li Ning’s products across the board, raising the price of core products from 250 yuan to 300 yuan to about 400 yuan.
This is not only to connect with high-end international brands, but also to bear the rising cost of products, but such a radical strategy suddenly pushed Li Ning to the line of life and death.
After all, Li Ning hopes to impress the post-90s generation by changing spokespersons, logos and slogans, but this is basically impossible in the domestic market around 2010. At that time, Li Ning’s consumers were mainly post-70s, over half of the consumers. Between the ages of 35-45, these people have more spending power than the post-90s who are in the schooling stage of his fashion. Therefore, Li Ning’s post-90s strategy also “angered” old users to a certain extent and lowered their preference for Li Ning. Favorability and consumer desire.
This is reflected in the entire market level, that is, Li Ning’s defeat for the post-90s brand changes.
“Because the post-90s grew up watching the NBA, their love for Nike and Adi far exceeds their acceptance of Li Ning. In the past, for many young people, Li Ning was a “can’t afford Adi and Nike’s supplementary choice, when the price of Li Ning products is raised, the brand image has not been fully established. Therefore, many post-90s generations cannot buy Li Ning, and they will buy Adi and Nike at the same price.” Once at the Li Ning market Cheng Wen (pseudonym), who has worked in the Ministry for 5 years, said frankly to “Bullet Finance”.
In 2014, after implementing the “Li Ning post-90s” strategy for three years, Li Ning’s annual turnover fell year after year. Financial report data showed that Li Ning’s revenue dropped from 9.479 billion yuan in 2010 to 8.929 billion yuan in 2011. It fell to 6.676 billion yuan in 2012, a decrease of 5.8% and 25.22% respectively.
“The key point is that Li Ning was too radical at that time. Generally speaking, entering a new market must protect the old market, but Li Ning is like a bear breaking a stick, after deciding to focus on the first and second tier markets, he quickly gave up. The third- and fourth-tier markets have been established, and this has given Anta, Xtep and other domestic brands the opportunity to develop.” Cheng Wen told Bullet Finance.
Especially Anta, after the rise of Li Ning’s “strategic abandonment” of the third- and fourth-tier markets, it opened a multi-brand layout through a series of acquisitions. For example, in 2009, Anta paid a price of 325 million.Purchasing FILA’s trademark use and management rights in China, focusing on high-end routes.
Soon, FILA not only contributed more than expected operating profits, but also showed that Anta’s brand layout in the professional market segment is worthy of bet-Anta successfully acquired the world’s top sports equipment brand management group company Asia in 2018 Amer Sports caused an uproar in the industry.
“There have been rumors that Anta made a gold plaque and wanted to give it to Li Ning Company, because if it were not for Li Ning’s strategy change, it would not be the current Anta, and then Anta would successfully go public.” When talking about When this story circulated in the industry, Cheng Wen, who had resigned from Li Ning for two years, was still full of regret.
After a strategic mistake, Zhang Zhiyong took the blame and resigned in 2012. The successor was Jin Zhenjun from the investment institution TPG. Perhaps because of the investor’s identity, Jin Zhenjun paid too much attention to the performance of the business and financial statements, and implemented the strategy of “only channel reform, not brand combing”, which eventually ended in failure.
In 2014, Li Ning had been losing money for three consecutive years. Not only did the brand’s voice drop and the revenue volatility fell, it was also overtaken by Anta, not to mention being far behind by international brands entering China. Under such operating conditions, Jin Zhenjun decided to resign, and Li-Ning’s company suddenly entered the “darkest moment”, which was a life-threatening autumn.
A chance opportunity
Frustrated, the founder Li Ning came out again and took back the scepter of management.
Li Ning, who completed the knowledge reconstruction from the Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, did not completely abandon the management reform plan of professional investor Jin Zhenjun at this time, but chose its essence to strengthen the brand and product line.
On the one hand, in terms of finance and channel management, Li Ning fully retained the plan left by Jin Zhenjun, closing non-profit dealers and shops by reducing costs and increasing efficiency, so as to achieve financial health and sustainable development; on the other hand, , He not only changed the slogan to “Everything is possible”, he also increased his efforts to support designers and sports technology R&D teams.
He also believes that since the company has no experience in network operations, it should introduce a professional team to assist in management and operation. So he outsourced the entire e-commerce business, only requiring the price of the e-commerce company to be consistent with the offline price.
After these series of measures were implemented, Li Ning successfully stopped the company’s losses in just over a year. In 2016, it made a profit of more than 116 million and returned to the ranks of domestic sports goods first-line brands.
But at this time, Anta has secured its position as the leader of the domestic sports goods industry, Peak and Jordan are still catching up closely, and the degree of fierce competition is self-evident.
Just when Li Ning himself led the team desperately looking for a breakthrough, a crossoverThe invitation has completely broken the deadlock in the market.
In 2018, New York Fashion Week set subdivision themes, one of which was sports. However, because Nike and Adidas did not have relevant schedules and could not arrange for celebrity designers to design new products for the entire fashion week, the organizing committee turned its attention to Li Ning.
“When the invitation was received, the designer’s department was in an uproar,” Li Yiwei (pseudonym), who had just left Li Ning’s design department for more than a year, told Bullet Finance and Economics. “We were so excited that we didn’t sleep well for two days.” After all, going to New York Fashion Week is the lifelong dream of all fashion designers.
But to be honest, when Li Ning received the invitation, it was close to the end of 2017. “We still had several series of designs in our hands at that time, and it was difficult to spare extra time.” In Li Yiwei’s view, the company The cost of participating in this cross-border activity may not be the same as the harvest.
“Because the people who watch fashion and those who buy sporting goods are not the same group of people.” Li Yiwei told Bullet Finance that the entire company was still discussing for a long time, and finally Li Ning decided: “Go, even if it’s a successful one. Marketing activities are also good.”
“It was really busy during that time, because 56 sets of costumes were prepared according to the requirements of the organizing committee. We went through all the new designs and found that there were still nearly 30 sets.” Li Yi smiled To Bullet Finance and Economics, the color-matching suit of the tomato scrambled eggs became so popular in the end. In fact, it was a choice that the designer had no choice but to make up the number. It was to simply modify the tops and bottoms of different sets, and match them together. Together.
Picture / Li Ning’s official Weibo
When all the designs are in place, the company’s marketing department responded: “These well-made clothing designs are not in line with the settings of Li Ning sports goods, and may affect the brand image.” So after repeated discussions, they All the exhibited products were assigned to a new sub-brand called “China Lining“.
An interesting incident happened here. When the clothes arrived at Fashion Week, the organizing committee made another request.I hope to increase the proportion of Chinese elements in these costumes. “So, Li Ning himself proposed at that time, or we would classify this very different design as a series called “Enlightenment”, which is now the very popular Enlightenment series. The reason for this.” Li Yiwei said.
She also revealed to “Bullet Finance” that in order to make the sub-brand “China Lining” quickly recognized by the public, and to reflect the Chinese characteristics, their design team simply sewed a large logo on the front of the clothes. position. “Unexpectedly, it became the new logo of this sub-brand, and it became an instant hit.” She said with a smile.
In 2018, “China Lining” landed in New York Fashion Week with the theme of “Enlightenment”. It changed from the previous serious and rigid, even with a somewhat earthy brand image, and completely ignited the domestic and international markets.
On the day of the New York show, the WeChat index of “Li Ning” soared by 700%. Three days after the press conference, the total number of tweets about Li Ning in New York Fashion Week exceeded 15 million.
“No one thought that over 200 sets of clothing prepared for the entire fashion week were sold out on the official website within two days, and orders flew in like snow flakes.” Li Yiwei recalled that time was The most fulfilling days in their design department.
According to Li Ning’s internal statement, “China Lining” prefers retro elements, which evokes consumers’ memories of Li Ning’s most glorious moments, and it is a national symbol when worn on the body, which reshapes the brand image and makes people Involuntarily produced a sense of national pride, accurately suppressing the faintly fluctuating “national trend”.
The 2018 financial report shows that the annual sales volume of a series of “China Lining” clothing exceeded 5.5 million pieces, with a sell-out rate exceeding 70%; the sales volume of the Wudao shoe series exceeded 50,000 pieces, with a sell-out rate exceeding 70%.
“Young people can now say that he does not buy Li Ning, but he will not say that he does not buy Chinese Li Ning.” This is when a media company was investigating domestic consumers’ attitudes towards sporting goods brands. The opinions of well-known marketing experts. Indeed, “Li Ning, the tide is up!” This is the deepest impression of current consumers of Li Ning, and Li Ning also took advantage of the trend and embarked on the national trend line, focusing on fashion strategy.
Because of an accidental opportunity and the rise of the national trend, Li Ning has gone from a “textbook-level failure” to being sought after by young people. Its destiny has achieved a 180-degree reversal and a fight. A beautiful turnaround.
New consumer enthusiasm ignited
In fact, in 2018, when Li Ning emerged during New York Fashion Week, he was called the “first year of the national tide” by the domestic economics circle, and 2019 was called “the rise of the national tide”.
Looking back at 2018, Li Ning followed the wind, followed by the Forbidden City and Dunhuang. Later, a series of CCTV programs completely inspired this wave-“I repaired cultural relics in the Forbidden City”. The Poetry Conference, the National Treasure, and the New Forbidden City, all became popular programs at the time; at the same time, Internet IP film and television dramas such as “The Twelve Hours of Chang’an”, “Ruyi’s Biography”, and “Celebrating More Than Years” rose in the wind. Movies that promote the spirit of Chinese culture, such as “Zha”, “The Wandering Earth”, and “Jiang Ziya” are also very popular.
Behind this trend is the iteration of a group of main consumers. Because the post-95s and post-00s are completely different from the post-70s, 80s, and 90s, and if you use traditional sociology to study, you can’t put a proper label on these people.
After all, these groups have different birth backgrounds and growth environments. Not only are there differences in the times, but they also have different outlooks on life and values, and their economic strength is also different.
But under the new consumer trend, they have commonalities, and these commonalities are actually valuable to every participant in the market.
In fact, when more and more Gen Z consumers are making their own consumer choices, they no longer one-sidedly pursue the show off and display attributes brought about by high prices. “Only buy the right ones, not the expensive ones. “Become a consumer trend.
In other words, the consumption of consumers in the past is spending money, and now the consumption of generation Z consumers is consumption itself.
Besides benefiting from the long-term popularity of the Internet, these young people have already learned to filter out those noisy and useless voices. At the same time, with the help of global interconnection, they have the ability to form their own opinions.
Before 2000, China was in an era when materials were scarce and imported foreign brands were rampant. Therefore, for a long time, consumers subconsciously advocated foreign culture. Hong Kong, Hollywood, Korean trends and Japanese style became the hot spots of consumption at that time. Typical portrayal.
But with the rise of China’s national power, more and more young people gradually understand Western aesthetics and culture, turning their heads and discovering that Chinese traditional culture is actually more attractive.
More importantly, contemporary young people are more and more daring to express their individuality. They believe in their choices and believe that those who understand their choices are friends.
Under such self-confidence, all things that can express their character and aesthetics can attract them; all behaviors that can show themselves are willing to participate; all lifestyles that can reflect attitudes will be actively pursued.
Therefore, in the essence of the country, they began to understand the civilization art that has been passed down for thousands of years, and understood the “light makeup and thick application” of oriental art. This is the aesthetics of the Orientals.
In fact, Li Ning’s successful counterattack this time is also closely related to this new consumer trend.
After all, withLi Ning, who has emerged from the development of China’s sports and economy, is a brand symbol of China’s development that is accepted by young consumers who are currently entering the market.
In many people’s subconscious minds, red and yellow sportswear is equivalent to China, the image of patriotism, and Li Ning. Therefore, when Li Ning launched a retro sweatshirt with a clear Chinese culture at New York Fashion Week, it instantly ignited the young people’s desire for a strong national image.
Under the influence of a wide range of cultural identity and strong cultural self-confidence, with the mission of reviving traditional culture, new domestic products and national fashion brands like Li Ning have produced tremendous penetration among young Chinese.
In the past, young people used to pursue “European and American trends” and “Japanese and Korean styles”, and how enthusiastic they are for today’s new domestic products. In fact, chasing the trend is a feature shared by every generation when they are young, but for the post-90s and post-00s generation, the new domestic products are more like the spiritual convergence point between the international tide culture and the Chinese national culture.
So, the story of the rise of “China Lining”, if nothing happens, will certainly be eulogized for a long time.
Because Li Ning was once a symbol of China.