The nine failures in the sports apparel Li Ning marketing

In just 14 years, "The Gymnastics Prince" successfully completed the transition from an excellent athlete to a billionaire. Nowadays, Li Ning has become the first brand in China's domestic sporting goods industry, and it has also been able to compete with world giants such as Nike, Reebok and Adidas in the domestic market. Despite this, the company's development in the past 14 years still has many failures.

The nine stages of nine diseases

First, the extensive stage

The extensive period is basically between 1990 and 2000. In 1990, Li Ning, who was praised by the world as "the gymnastic prince," began his Li Ning company's business operations with the 1990 investment sponsorship of the Chinese delegation to the Asian Games. And before the products were available, they sponsored the Chinese delegation to the Asian Games and set a precedent for the new strategy for the branding of sports products in China.

At that time, Li Ning did not have its own core position, and "famous gymnasts" was the biggest support point for Li Ning's initial establishment. Li Ning Company apparently discovered this short board and tried to pull its brand from the personal image of Li Ning. So in 1999, when Li Ning launched many leisure series products, the slogan proposed was “I exercise I exist” and hired Ying Ying as the spokesperson of her image. She Ying was the image of a fashion movie star and softened and blurred the Li Ning brand. , but still not a good reflection of Li Ning's sports features, but a single ride entertainment star car.

At this stage, Li Ning’s sponsoring activities also blossomed: 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, ​​1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, 1996 Paralympic Games, and 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. Li Ning’s sportswear has always been the standard equipment for Chinese athletes. Li Ning also sponsored the Chinese table tennis team, gymnastics team, shooting team and diving team all the year round to provide professional competition clothing for the four professional teams. It also sponsored some other provincial sports teams and various sports events. At this stage, although Li Ning has participated in many activities, he has never really exerted the maximum charm of sports marketing.

Symptom 1: There is less sponsorship for sports marketing

Sports sponsorship is only one part of sports marketing, not all of sports marketing. In fact, sports marketing is a complex system implementation process. It requires enterprises to properly position corporate products and corporate image while sponsoring sports, in order to make it consistent with sports culture, and to integrate the resources of the enterprise. Form, the sports culture will be integrated into all aspects of the company, forming a resonance of business and consumers. However, when Li Ning engaged in sports marketing, he did not hesitate to spend a lot of money on sports sponsorship, but he did not completely do other supporting work, such as new design of product packaging, other promotions and advertising support, etc., and did not play sports marketing. The best benefits.

In addition, Li Ning does not have the cost of budget-assisted marketing in sports sponsorship, which is inconsistent with foreign sports sponsors. For example, Nike takes a 1:3 strategy: they spend 1 million to sponsor a new event, and 3 million to promote the event. At this stage, Li Ning sponsored four national teams. When calculating the sponsorship fees, it did not consider the input of matching bonuses, so that the ratio of input to earnings did not increase.

Symptom 2: There is no marketing system for sports marketing

The pursuit of sports marketing is the integration of corporate culture and sports culture. It is a long-term, overall strategic plan for the company. The overall sense of sponsorship of Li Ning Company is rather messy and not systematic, which leads to short-term corporate behavior and incoherence of business strategy. The reason why Coca-Cola has become a world brand is inseparable from the fact that it has always supported world sports. Coca-Cola can be seen in almost every large-scale international sports event, but his sponsored activities are of a scale type, so Coca Cola Become spokesperson for sports. In this period, although Li Ning has an omnipresent sports sponsorship momentum, it has not formed a systematic combination and thus cannot achieve the best quality assurance of sports marketing. Sports activities are colorful, and Li Ning only needs a "color."

Symptoms 3: There are less corporate brand personality

During this period, although Li Ning's brand is converging on the transformation of sports, Li Ning is quite an international athlete. Therefore, his awareness is high and the brand has considerable value, which makes it a good start. But on the other hand, the simple understanding of the literal meaning of the Li Ning brand makes it easy for people to think of gymnastics and considers it to be a professional brand for gymnastic products. This is the imperfection of Li Ning as a spokesperson for her brand. However, the late Ying Ying advertising is also far from the professional development, especially with the sports marketing more distant. This is a misunderstanding and there has been no misunderstanding of change. This is a negative influence on sports marketing. It is also a negative influence on brand management and corporate strategic management.

According to the survey, “Li Ning” has spent 150 million yuan for the sponsorship of various events for more than a decade. They think they have a personality. However, as a result of the survey, consumers think that “Li Ning” is like a friend with an unclear personality around them. He feels that he is very kind and familiar, but he lacks a distinct personality.

Second, the fine phase

Between 2001 and 2002, Li Ning realized his own problems in the first stage and he made quick fixes to make it into a refined stage.

When referring to Nike, people will automatically think of basketball; referring to Adidas, people will automatically think of football, and professionalism will continue to deepen the influence of sports brands. Thus, from the sponsorship of the Olympic Games delegation to professional sponsorship, Li Ning began to refine sports. Have to start looking to basketball, football. These elaborate processes once again demonstrated Li Ning’s determination to overturn.

In addition, promotion activities in overseas markets during this period are also conducted in accordance with the principle of mutual assistance and mutual benefit with local dealers, such as sponsoring the French gymnastics team, the Czech gymnastics team, the Russian college student team, and the local sports teams in the distribution area. . Li Ning began to quickly copy sports marketing and further accelerate the process of internationalization. Since these activities are in cooperation with local distributors, they avoid the mistakes of the initial "extensive" stage.

At the same time, Li Ning integrated and used a variety of channels and forms of communication: Before the launch of the TV image advertisement "May Issue", the use of introductory advertisements (newspapers, internet, mobile phone messages) to create interactive effects to attract consumers to pay attention to new advertisements: Lawn At the top, two bicycles were put side by side and put it into the goal. In the alley, the clothesline was traversed and drawn into the net so that the audience guessed what the stadium was. This move has paved the spotlight for television advertising. Next, "Possibility" wins. In addition to arranging POPs on the sales terminal to display related topics, assisted advertising is provided outdoors, in subways, and in magazines. The publicity video “Story behind advertisements” aired on cctv-5 was based on television commercials. The materials were authentic, persuasive, and appealing, highlighting the Li Ning brand's movement in life and the meaning of living in sports. From another side, the new image of Li Ning brand plump.

At this stage, Li Ning’s main problems are:

Symptom 4: Sports Marketing Equivalent Event Marketing

Event marketing is the use of a major event, through the "foreign" or "trend" to enhance the visibility of the company or product, and ultimately promote the sale of products or services. Event marketing is, in a sense, a marketing tool for sports marketing. The biggest difference between sports marketing and event marketing is the difference in guiding ideology. Sports marketing pursues long-term and integrity. Event marketing focuses on the event itself and lacks an overall view and strategic vision. Therefore, sports marketing is definitely not event marketing.

In 2002, Li Ning Company provided the one-piece match suit for the Spanish Women's Basketball Team to participate in the 14th Women's Basketball Championship. When the Spanish women's basketball team and the Chinese women's basketball team competed for the fifth place in August, the Spanish women's basketball team wore "Li Ning," while the Chinese women's basketball team wore Nike, and later the Spanish women's basketball team won, after which the news headline was ""Li Ning." Beat "Nike". In fact, everyone knows very well that the gap between Li Ning and Nike is very large. Nike’s global sales are 10 billion U.S. dollars. “Li Ning” was only 10 billion yuan that year, not a single level. News like this is a mistake. Both before and after the incident, they should try to eliminate these news. It will pull Li Ning into the vortex of event marketing.

Symptom 5: There is sponsorship but no unique personality

Sports sponsorship also needs to create distinctive marketing topics, brewing new ideas, new ideas, and new planning to guide consumption. The most typical example of “one penny support for Olympics” initiated by Nongfu Springs in 2001 was a model of sports marketing creativity. “One penny and one wish, one penny and one force.” This unique and innovative idea has mobilized the enthusiasm of consumers throughout the country. This planning was a pioneering activity in all enterprises supporting Beijing's bid for the Olympics and was supported by all the people concerned about sports. However, Li Ning's sports marketing has always been a simple form of sponsorship. Therefore, Li Ning's sports sponsorship needs innovation, so that everybody can use her skills.

Symptom 6: There is no sincere experience in sports marketing

Sports marketing must create an atmosphere of full experience. From Coca-Cola, we can also see that in the sponsorship of sports activities, we can see that they must not simply pay for two brands. In the stadium, the Coca-Cola Company is hotter than the full-scale distribution of Coke cups. Under the circumstances, they also distributed the "Coca-Cola" fan full of fans. The fans printed red Coca-Cola. They are all fans of the Coca-Cola. They are beautiful and spectacular. In addition, he set up sales halls both inside and outside the venue. He also carried out promotional activities and spreads at supermarkets. This is an overall experience of the overall system, not simply that you have come to this place to see my Coca-Cola company. Product logo. At present, Li Ning is lacking in this respect. This transformation is a painful process. Li Ning has not made breakthrough progress.