Can Guochao save the power back?
Writing | Ya Ting
Edit｜Perch
Krypton appointment column planning: Liu Han
This article is jointly produced by Krypton x New Eyes
Under the sweep of the country’s tide, the rebound shoes with labels such as nostalgia and retro have developed strongly.
According to public data, Huili’s sales volume exceeded 5 million pairs in 2018, and brand sales have doubled. In 2018, the sales of Tmall flagship store of Huili exceeded 200 million yuan, of which the sales of canvas shoes increased by 500%. The store’s sales have increased by more than 65 times in the five years from 2014 to 2018. In 2019, on Tmall Double 11, Huili’s sales exceeded 100 million for the first time, ranking fifth in the list of similar footwear brands.
As an old brand with a history of nearly a hundred years, Huili successfully regained the public’s vision with the help of the national trend and the east wind. Recently, the domestic products of popular science and grass planting on various social networking sites In the outfit, Huili is one of the important members.
So, can Huili continue to maintain its current growth trend, explore the high-end, and even become the next Converse and Vans?
Based on this, this article will analyze the following 3 aspects:
· From inception to prosperity to decline, what are the opportunities for returning to the market?
· How far can you go out of the circle by virtue of your feelings and the national tide?
· What is the difference between Huili and Converse, and what is the real reason why it is difficult to become a high-end?
01
A century-old brand, ups and downs several times
The origin of the Huili brand can be traced back to 1927 when a company called “Yichang Rubber Manufacturing Factory” on Tangshan Road in Shanghai Soon after its establishment, its small factory was renamed “Chint Rubber Factory”. This is also the past life of Huili.
By 1935, Chint Rubber Factory officially registered the Chinese “Pull back” and English “Warrior” brands. Pull back means “power to return to heaven”, which means a great power that can overcome difficulties; while Warrior stands for “warriors, warriors, and fighters.” Whether from the Chinese name or the English name, you can see the vision of Huili at the beginning of its establishment.
In fact, Huili once had his own highlight time.
In May 1956, Huili customized a 565-style classic sneaker specifically for the national basketball team to participate in the Olympics. Once it was launched, it immediately became fashionable at the time. The symbol of, has been sought after by the public. In 1984, the Chinese women’s volleyball team won the Los Angeles Olympic Games champion.
This unintentionally created a celebrity-level advertisement for Huili, and Huili became the focus of the Chinese people at that time.Chinese national sneakers.
It can be said that the fame of early Huili is closely related to China’s sports industry.
At its peak, the supply of 20 to 30 million pairs per year is still in short supply. The sales volume of the back in the 1980s is as high as 800 million yuan.” Riding a phoenix bike, pedaling back shoes, carrying a messenger bag, and holding up the seagull camera, “The hotness of back power can be seen.
Unfortunately, the good times did not last long. After entering the 1990s, under the policy of reform and opening up, foreign brands such as Adidas and Nike began to enter the domestic market on a large scale, and the commodity economy became increasingly prosperous. New domestic brands such as Li Ning and Anta have also appeared one after another.
Under internal and external troubles, Huili did not adjust the brand strategy in time, and still adhered to the old brand and old sales model, and the downward slope was inevitable.
02
Rejuvenating opportunity for strength
2008, coincides with the Olympic year. With the wave of domestic brand sentiments, Huili finally waited for the opportunity to rejuvenate.
During the Beijing Olympics, the Crown Prince of Belgium, the Deputy Prime Minister of Denmark, the President of Mongolia and other foreign dignitaries showed great interest in resilience. Many foreign athletes also expressed their interest in resilience. Greatly sought after. Under the enthusiasm, the sales of Huili counters suddenly increased from less than 10,000 to more than 300,000 per month.
Later, the Olympic craze faded, and Huili became more and more popular with consumers. Especially in recent years, the sales volume of Huili has shown an astonishing increase.
Xin Mou analyzed the reasons behind it, and believes that there are three main points:
First, after 2015, generation Z (people born between 1995 and 2009The consumption power of new consumer groups represented by the group) gradually emerged. Different from consumers of other ages, the consumer groups of Generation Z have their own unique consumption concepts.
The “Tencent Post-00s Research Report” mentioned that the young consumer groups represented by post-00s grew up in the country’s prosperous age, and their cultural self-confidence and ethnicity The recognition is much higher than that of other groups. More than half of post-00s believe that foreign brands are not a bonus item.
Coincidentally, Xinhuanet and Xiaohongshu jointly released the “Generation Z Lifestyle New Knowledge” that the post-95 consumer concept is “no longer obsessed with big names.” , But focus on real practicality and cost performance.
Generation Z’s consumer philosophy is “decentralized”, and there are very few “mass brands” and “national brands” in their minds. The impression is solidified, and the way they receive brand information is mainly through the sharing of online celebrities, KOLs, and friends around them.
Compared with foreign brands, local Chinese brands are obviously more familiar with the psychology of Chinese consumers and the way of playing the Internet. Domestic brands such as Perfect Diary and Ju Duo from Xiaohongshu are the best examples.
It can be said that the growth of generation Z consumers and the popularity of new consumption concepts are the key to the continued development of Jili.
Secondly, the maturity of online e-commerce business has also brought a lot of convenience to the development of Huili. Different from traditional sales channels, online e-commerce has large traffic entrances, low customer acquisition costs, and the labor costs required for management and operation are far less than offline stores.
In June 2012, Huili officially entered Tmall. Two years later, Huili gradually explored a new set of “terminal direct supply platform + e-commerce platform”. law.
Public data shows that in 2014, Huili’s e-commerce channel sales were 3 million yuan, and in 2016, Huili’s e-commerce channel sales exceeded 100 million. Yuan, online stores have become the world’s largest salesSingle shop.
The e-commerce platform brings more than that.
“Tmall can guide our design, production and pricing.” Yang Zhicheng, the head of the Tmall flagship store, revealed that the new products of Huili now go from design to online sales. It only takes about 3 months. The ever-increasing refurbishment rate has given Huili’s product customers the motivation to continue to buy, thereby creating a steady stream of revenue for Huili.
Finally, the resurgence of a new round of retro trend of domestic products has added fire to the back of the circle. Searching for #国潮# related topics on Weibo, Xiaohongshu and other platforms, you can see the shadow of Huili in almost every recommendation.
But it should be noted that, returning to the domestic market this time, it is more about taking advantage of the general situation and the trend. If you want to truly stand on the unpredictable market, you still need to start from the company’s own development, and consider how to further improve the competitiveness of the company, so that the old brand can truly radiate new vitality.
03
Does the old brand have new stories?
In recent years, the cross-border co-branding of major national trendy brands has become a new marketing gimmick. White rabbit toffee × Le Ding, Wang Wang × TYAKASHA, and even the Forbidden City × Oreo, Liushen × RIO. Only you can’t think of it, and none of these brands can’t do it.
Jaili will naturally not let go of such a good marketing opportunity. It has co-branded with Hulu Brothers, Big Mouth Monkey, and Feiyue. However, compared with the joint names of other brands, the joint name of Huili seems to be not so successful, the popularity is not high, and the sales are not as good as the original classic models.
If IP co-branding fails, continue to follow your own path of feelings. Emphasizing retro, returning to the national trend, back to the banner of “the light of domestic products”, in order to arouse the resonance of more young generations.
Picture: Promotional picture of the offline store of Huili line
As the saying goes, the harder you work, the more sad it is. It becomes very difficult for old brands to write new stories.
First of all, when you pull back, you need to be clear that there is nothing wrong with playing the sentiment card, but it is unavoidable that you always emphasize the sentiment to cause disgust. Young people are willing to pay once for their feelings, but there is no reason to always pay for their feelings.
Even if Huili can’t find new marketing points in a short period of time, at least he knows how to stop and stop on the path of feelings.
Secondly, you need to understand that Guochao is not a simple domestic brand + national style elements. To a certain extent, Guochao not only refers to domestic local trend brands, but also emphasizes the need to have its own design. The premise that a brand is called a trendy brand is often that it has its own unique design concept and culture.
The shoe design of pull back is still based on the foundation of the seventy or eighty years of the last century, and the overall style elements have not changed much. Although the design of the last century still seems outdated today, such repeated frying and cold rice can not help but make people question whether Huili still has the ability to create the next explosion?
The recent series joint name with Feiyue seems to be a powerful combination of two old brands of domestic products. I want to take advantage of the recent trend of the national trend to trigger a new hot topic , But the design of the shoes is really meaningless.
The simple stacking of the two logos, the design of the astrolabe grid can make people mistakenly think it is an old model of the Vans family at first glance. After giving consumers a brief sense of freshness, what followed was the thought that the two were selling badly together, and they wanted to rely on the feelings of selling.A handful of young man’s wool.
Picture: Comparison of Huili and Vans shoes (Source: Huili, Vans official Tmall flagship store)
Whether it’s selling IP to create explosive models, or selling feelings to resonate, it can be regarded as trying hard to capture the attention of consumers, hoping that the old brand of Huili will get better Recognition of many people.
However, if you want to gain the recognition of the young consumer groups nowadays, feelings and IP alone will not work. You must have your own brand spirit and form a resilience Unique style characteristics can make the old brand of Huili have more new stories to tell.
04
High-end is difficult, and difficult to go to the sky
What the national tide has brought is a new wave of fried shoes.
According to data, the market size of fried shoes has exceeded 42.5 billion yuan. Among them, Nike and its sub-brand AJ alone accounted for up to 44% of the market share, followed by Adi, and Li Ning, which has become popular in recent years, is also in the ranks of the shoes. A sneaker sold by Li Ning was originally priced at only 1,000 yuan. A few months later, it was auctioned for a high price of 40,000 yuan, which was 40 times higher than the starting price.
When the stir-fried shoe circle was hot, Huili failed several times.
In May 2018, Huili launched a limited edition shoe named “Returning Power” with a price of 999 yuan. This move is considered to be a manifestation of Huili’s determination to enter the high-end market.
But embarrassingly, this limited edition sneaker full of resilience ambitions did not achieve the desired effect, and now the price of this shoe has fallen to 499 yuan.
Use Li Ning instead of Nike and Adi, and Semir and Smith Barney instead of Zara and H&M. With the efforts of young people, every brand can find suitable substitutes for domestic products . What about pull back? Why is it difficult for Huili to replace Converse and Vans and, like Li Ning, enter the high-end market?
An important reason is: Converse can only be Converse, while back force can be Nike, Adi or Vans.
It goes without saying. From the time when Huili returned to the public eye in 2008, the speech about plagiarism has never ceased.
In Zhihu’s search for entries related to plagiarism, some netizens think that “Jai Li is playing poorly with a good deck of cards”; there are even more radical ones. The remarks said that “the designer who is back to power will only plagiarize without hands or feet.” According to a post on “Yang Mi wears back to power” on Douban, because the shoe style is highly similar to Vans, the comments in the comments about whether Yang Mi wears back to power or wear Vans are endlessly arguing, and the scene is extremely embarrassing.
Behind this, what is exposed is still the brand’s own lack of design capabilities. Although this issue has been mentioned time and time again, but Huili has never given a positive response or made changes. In the long run, those fans who love and follow the Huili brand can only be heartbroken but helpless.
Not only the design, but also the quality of the pull back shoes. On June 23, 2020, the “Comparative Test Report for Plastic Slippers in 2020” released by the Shenzhen Consumer Council on its official website stated that The detected value of slippers plasticizer195286 mg/kg, which is 195 times the limit requirement.
In fact, this is not the first time that Jili has been found to have a quality problem. On December 31, 2019, the official website of the State Administration for Market Regulation showed that the bureau spot-checked 90 batches of children’s shoes produced by 90 companies in 4 provinces, of which 15 batches of products were unqualified, including children’s shoes under Huili’s.
Subsequently, the Huili shoe industry said that the company is fully cooperating with the Market Supervision Bureau to conduct further investigations and re-inspection work regarding the failure of children’s shoes testing, and promises to the company We will continue to improve the quality management system, continuously improve product quality, and allow more consumers to purchase satisfactory products.
There was plagiarism before and quality problems afterwards. If Huili wants to learn from Li Ning to take the high-end road, he still needs to work harder in design and quality.
In fact, Huili can have a history of nearly a hundred years of development, which just proves the thickness of its brand. After all, for an enterprise to go through a century, the core value of its brand must be able to support the development of the enterprise.
Furthermore, after returning to the market over the years, Huili has been paying attention to the laying of channels for product sales, and has built a relatively complete supply chain and channel system both online and offline.
Under the “national tide”, resilience is still worth looking forward to.