Adidas Lining: Nobody Wins.

Lining's timely abandonment of Olympic sponsorship can be regarded as a necessary "rational choice" for Chinese enterprises to grow, and it can also be a winner by avoiding other paths of Adidas.

In the marketing world, the loss of Adidas's leading position has always been regarded as a famous case of management failure.

At the beginning of 2005, Adidas won the seat of the 2008 Olympic Games partner with a larger competitive advantage.

Following a series of moves, it shows that Adidas wants to use the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games to get rid of the shadow of its loss in the United States.

Adidas's "defending title" does not mean the end of the 2008 Olympic equipment war, but the beginning of a new defending championship.

Even if it did not become the official partner of the Beijing Olympic Games, Lining and Nike and any other brand products could still appear on the Olympic Games in Beijing. The main way is to sign individual players or sign contracts with the national team.

Adidas is a frequent visitor to the Olympic Games, and Olympic marketing is the most effective killer of Adidas.

Since 1928, sports products have been provided for the Olympic Games.

Adidas also became one of the most successful sporting goods companies in the world through Olympic marketing.

However, after Nike's appearance, ADI's leading position gradually loses.

Prior to that, Adidas's performance in China has always had a German style of calm and low key - immersed in its own field, defending rather than attacking.

As a result, as the world's second largest sporting goods supplier, ADI has been quite restrained for decades in China after entering China in 1980s, and it is far behind Lining and Nike in terms of market share.

Therefore, for Adidas, winning the partnership status of the 2008 Olympic Games is undoubtedly the best turning point.

However, this was challenged by Li Ning Co.

As the most influential sports goods company in China, hosting the Olympic Games at home is undoubtedly an important opportunity for Lining to internationalize and specializes in the road.

Therefore, in order to get the tickets for the 2008 Olympic partners, the Li Ning Co insisted on the last round of bidding, while Nike chose to give up before the bid.

With the formal signing of ADI, "Lining" had to bid farewell to the Beijing Olympic podium. Since the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, officials, coaches and champions of the Chinese sports delegation have always been in the world wearing "Lining".

Lining, who has served four consecutive years as the Chinese athlete's award dress, is unable to continue the Olympic track of the national brand when he arrived at the door of the Olympic Games. This has some pain in the hearts of the Chinese people, but it also shows that the enterprise has begun to learn rational choice.

"2008 the Beijing Olympic Games will promote the development of China's sporting goods industry.

Every sporting goods company participating in the competition has different considerations.

Li Ning Co is a listed company. Besides considering the brand effect, we should also consider the rate of return on investment and the interests of shareholders.

Although we failed to win the bid, we will seize the opportunity brought by the 2008 Olympic Games by virtue of our unique competitive edge.

Chen Weicheng, chief financial officer of Li Ning Co Ltd, said, "Adidas is competing with Nike globally, so it wants global fame, but the focus of our company's business is China.

Why do we have to open up overseas markets?

The annual growth rate of the Chinese market is at least 25%, and our company is still very small in the Chinese market, so we must seize the market first.

As the sponsor of Olympic sponsorship, Chen Weicheng thought the cost of bidding was too high. Lining abandoned it for consideration of cost and gain. "Lining can put this part into other sports marketing."

"In addition to the strength of the company itself, based on the long and good relationship and connections between Adidas and International Olympic Committee and other governments, it is clearly beyond the funds that other sporting goods brands can not compete with them."

Strength spread Zhang Qing pointed out.

Adidas, an Olympic sponsorship frequent visitor, launched the Olympic marketing system and made the sporting goods industry enter the preheating stage. This contrasts with the cold marketing practices of many domestic enterprises.

After becoming a partner of the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee, Adidas immediately became the second largest market in the world after Adidas in terms of its territory.

In order to integrate global resources, Adidas launched a strong marketing strategy at the Beijing Olympic Games.

First of all, look for the most concerned concerns in the Chinese market as the starting point of Adidas marketing.

Since Adidas entered China in 1981, it has been sponsoring Chinese football.

After renewing the agreement with the Chinese Football Association until 2010, it will support all 7 national football teams.

The Chinese Olympic team will also appear in the Beijing Olympic Games with Adidas equipment.

But this time Adidas has lowered its attention to China's soccer game which has been repeatedly defeated and lost. It has invested millions of Chinese families in the Chinese women's volleyball, which has loved and won the title in the Athens Olympic Games, and has signed huge sums of money to sign the main sponsor contract for 5 years.

Secondly, Adidas has even begun to prepare a Adidas professional team, including global and local experts, who will work specifically for the Beijing Olympic Games, aiming to tailor products, equipment and technology for Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

Thirdly, Adidas is trying to expand the sales network by developing the key customer mode, which is similar to convening partners to join the chain.

Their key words are "cooperation" rather than just "joining".

According to the data of Adidas, at present, some key customers in China have basically owned 50 to more than 300 retail stores. These partners have independent management, resources and finance, and, with the support of Adidas, use Adidas's brand to create their own brand.

This expansion of the sales network model has achieved initial success.

At present, Adidas and its Chinese local retailers are expanding at the speed of opening 40 new stores each month, all of which are based on the fact that Adidas 53% products are all produced in China.

By the end of 2004, Adidas had more than 1300 stores in 250 cities in China.

In the Beijing Olympic marketing cycle, they will expand by 40 to 50 new stores in the current month. By the time of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the number of stores will expand to 4000 in 400 cities, and the total sales volume will reach 1 billion 200 million euros in 2010.

This means that Adidas will go deep into the two tier market, and this market is Lining's world.

"We really have plans to march into the two tier market, that is, medium-sized cities. We believe that there are also many consumers who want to contact and buy our products in this market.

Besides, this time I went to Beijing to find that our competition with local companies such as Li Ning Co has actually started.

In an interview, Sang Sang Lin, President of Adidas Greater China, expressed the ambition of the company. "Adidas will make full use of the identity of the 2008 Olympic Games partner, and rely on the rich experience of Olympic sponsorship, and closely integrate with many sports teams in China, and expand this influence to a wider mass consumer group, so as to achieve the new development of Adidas brand in China."

Lining avoids its edge. "Li Ning Co does not have no strength to compete with global brands in the Chinese market. For Lining, development is the main goal."

Chen Weicheng said frankly.

The first is to avoid confrontation.

A company that creates cash flows only in the Chinese market is not willing to fight with a multinational company, because Adidas has a long supply line in many markets.

Lining's handling of Olympic sponsorship is a wise choice. It does not win the bidding at all costs, but keeps the highest bid that it can afford.

Adidas and Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee, which won the bid, did not disclose the number of sponsorship fees. The general guess is 1 billion 300 million yuan.

"Reliable estimates should be at least half, but this is not the best way of sponsorship for Lining," he said.

Chen Jian, Secretary General of the Olympic Economic Research Association pointed out.

Li Ning Co's brand building strategy is to apportion the sponsorship budget on several specific small campaigns, instead of spending all the money on a war.

"We focus on individual athletes and individual projects that are directly related to our products," Chen Weicheng said.

14 basketball teams in the China Basketball Association and the China University Basketball Association wear Lining's TopGun professional basketball shoes.

Although NBA's Chinese star Yao Ming was sponsored by Reebok, in January this year, when Adidas signed the Olympic sponsorship agreement, Li Ning Co signed a 3 year agreement with the US National Basketball Association (NBA) in China to become the official partner of NBA.

Second, continue to segment the market.

Most of the international brands that have been in China for 20 years have priced their products between RMB 500 and 1000 yuan, "Chen Weicheng said." and we focus on products priced at 200 yuan -500 yuan.

International brands are mainly developed in big cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and we are doing business in small and medium-sized cities in addition to these big cities, because our products are more cost-effective.

This is our market segmentation strategy. "

Li Ning Co has 117 direct managed retail outlets and 253 special counters in China. In addition, 330 distributors operate about 3000 franchise stores.

This subdivision is also reflected in brand positioning.

"Nike's brand image is" cool, "and Adidas's brand image is high technology," Chen Weicheng said. "And our brand personality is" unexpected, passionate and confident. "

Lining's target audience is a 14 year old -30 year old young man. The chief financial officer said that in view of China's GDP growth rate of about 9% in recent years, the middle price market will be the fastest growing market.

"We estimate that the market will grow from 200 yuan to 20 billion yuan in size from 2008 to 60 billion yuan," Chen said. "In terms of sales volume, the market below 200 yuan now occupies about 57% of the whole brand sporting goods market.

We expect that by 2008, the proportion of the market will shrink to 40%, while the proportion of 200 yuan -500 yuan will rise to 30%.

Nike's concealed marketing has always flaunted its unique Nike. It does not particularly like sponsoring official events organizations. Whether they are facing the soccer world cup or the summer Olympic Games, their strategy is to take the star line and personalized marketing.

Nike's experience at various sports events tells us that the effectiveness of advertising does not depend on the amount of advertising spent. It does not become sponsors or the biggest winner of sports events, which is the magic weapon of Nike sports marketing -- hidden marketing.

Reebok Co is the official footwear supplier of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, but most people are mistaken for Nike.

The reason is that Nike set up the Nike experience center beside the Olympic city and Olympic Park of Coca Cola Co. It has carried out some activities of spectator participation, giving people free experience and enjoying sports enjoyment.

Nike hired a private parking lot. Because of its private property, the organizing committee could not stop Nike.

In addition, Nike has hired many college students to distribute Nike's chest Lanyard in the stadium to facilitate visitors to carry tickets.

When spectators with Nike logo appeared in the stadium, people began to misunderstand Nike is the sponsor of this Olympic Games.

Athens Olympic Games Nike bet Liu Xiang has been a great success. Now they are actively engaged in horse race enclosure. They have signed with 20 Chinese national sports teams, such as track and field and Chinese basketball, and at the same time begin to expand at 10 stores per week.