Anta Marketing Strategy: Follow And Challenge

Introduction: when you face a strong enemy, what you can do is follow the low profile, then wait for the opportunity to attack and replace the leader brand.

In the history of marketing war, there are many successful cases following the following: Pepsi Cola used to be the most loyal follower of Coca-Cola, and now it has become Coca-Cola's most powerful competitor. KFC has always been the most difficult follower of McDonald's, and now it has become a hard nut to crack. When you face a strong enemy, what you can do is follow the low profile and then wait for the opportunity to attack and replace the leading brand.

In the marketing war history, there are many successful cases: Pepsi Cola used to be the most loyal follower of Coca-Cola, and now it has become Coca-Cola's most powerful competitor. KFC has always been the most difficult follower of McDonald's, and now it has become an alternative to McDonald's sleeping. It is usually a place with McDonald's. There will be Kentucky Fried Chicken. In the past, Japanese car brands have been following the American and German brands, but now they are nightmares of these two countries.

In sports brand, Nike and Adidas represent two different sports culture and sports spirit in the United States and Europe.

But in fact, we can always find the shadow of following Nike in Adidas, no matter from its marketing strategy or advertising performance.

For the global sporting goods industry, Nike has created a unique marketing method of sports, whether it is sponsorship of sports events, advertising and creative expression of advertising works. It has become a benchmark for competitive sports industry and a target to catch up with.

The new face of Anta advertising: near the end of 2006, the Asian Games in Doha opened the curtain. Almost all Chinese eyeballs were attracted to the TV set and locked in CCTV sports channel.

While watching the Asian Games, people are also concerned about a very unique advertisement: almost black and white advertisements, heavy sweat, failed again and again, once again, never to stop, "let the world's injustice bow before you."

The brand new advertising launched by Anta is considered to be a reinterpretation of the brand concept of Keepmoving.

The advertising works of the famous 4A advertising company, JW, have changed the characteristics of celebrity endorsement of Jinjiang sports brand. It seems that it has jumped from the past to the future, and it is refreshing.

In fact, Anta also stands out in a large number of sports brands in Jinjiang, Fujian, known as "shoes capital".

The advertising company of Nike is China's advertising agency.

In November of 2005, after Nike China moved away from W&K Wieden&Kennedy, JW received Anta's hydrangea.

Xu Yang, the brand director of Anta, admitted in an interview with "Chinese and foreign management" that hiring JV's advertising agency as Anta's advertising agency does have the consideration of learning Nike.

Xu Yang only received the post of Anta brand director in the second half of 2006. He had worked in the company for years of brand and planning, and later had a short working experience in JW.

The former is the proponent of Anta's "never stop" concept in 2005, which has now become an advertising agency of Anta, and has reproduced the advertising works for Anta.

From the early years, Ding Zhizhong carried 600 pairs of leather shoes north to the capital and sold them one by one. By the time Kong Linghui made the image endorsement in 1999, Anta's performance in the market has made Jinjiang's many OEM shoe manufacturers see the hope.

They began to choose celebrities as spokesmen and launched their own brands.

So CCTV-5 appeared as "Jinjiang channel": Jinjiang's sports shoes and sportswear advertisements almost occupied the whole CCTV-5 period.

If you have a chance to go to Jinjiang, you can find billboards everywhere, all the faces of celebrities, representing various kinds of shoes and clothing brands.

Soon after, Anta discovered that its voice soon drowned in many Jinjiang brothers brands as followers. Anta's middle and low end market was faced with attacks from many followers and market nibbling.

Seeking brand promotion has become Anta's inevitable choice, and it may be the only option.

If you look for opportunities in pursuit, talk about China's local sports brand, you must mention Lining.

All along, in the Chinese market, sports brands are divided into three echelons: the first-line brand represented by Nike and Adidas, the second-line brand represented by Lining, and the three line brand represented by Jinjiang brand such as Anta and XTEP.

There is a clear line between the first line brand and the second line brand, but there is a gray area between the second line brand and the three line brand.

This is a very subtle zone.

From the perspective of Li Ning Co's strategy all the time, Lining is making constant efforts to squeeze himself into the ranks of first-line brands.

Although in the high-end market has not been able to achieve, but because of the price advantage, Lining in the middle and low end market mastered most of the market share.

However, with the introduction of some private brands of OEM shoemaking enterprises in Jinjiang and other places, Lining began to face the low-end market from the three line brand while catching up with the first-line brand.

In recent years, Anta's sales and market share have begun to direct to Lining, and the layout of its stores has also formed a considerable scale.

In fact, in the early years, Anta had been Lining's closest follower.

In 1999, Lining launched the slogan "I exercise and I exist" and hired Qu Ying as the spokesman of his image.

In the same year, Anta hired Kong Linghui, the then red table tennis player, as the image endorsement, and launched the slogan "I choose, I like".

Because Qu Ying is a fashion star, far away from sports, neither in terms of popularity or in the spirit of sportsmanship, and with the endorsement product, Qu Ying and Kong Linghui are not comparable.

The slogan "I choose and I like" is better than "I exercise, I exist" in terms of memorability, and the former is undoubtedly superior to the latter.

Anta sneakers became popular and won unprecedented brand recognition at one stroke.

It was Lining's strategic error that gave Anta a chance to follow up and attack, and Anta began to eat Lining's market share in the middle and low market.

Anta, a follower who was not seen by Lining in the early years, has now become a terrible competitor.

Beginning in 2006, when Ding Zhizhong found that sales and market share of Anta products began to approach Li Ningshi, he was no longer satisfied with the status quo: people began to find that Anta began to attack major sporting events.

Let's move on to a benchmarking. If we only put forward the slogan of "never stop" in 2005, people can still find its shadow following Lining. In 2002, Lining put forward the brand concept of "everything is possible", which is from the hands of Leo Leo, an industry leader.

Then, when hiring the new advertisement produced by the company of JW, to reinterpret the brand concept of "never stop", Ding Zhizhong has shifted the benchmark from Anta to the two international brands of Anta and Adidas.

Ding Zhizhong said in an interview with the media: "do not be China's Nike, to be the world's Anta."

People will not forget, many years ago, Li Ning Co also issued a similar voice: "do not become China's Nike, to be the world's Lining."

These two heroic statements from the leaders of the two biggest sporting brand companies in China are only two words, but they are already easy to move. Although their brand is far from Nike, it is a long way to go.

Anta's targeting of Nike and Adidas is not just reflected in the dissemination of brand ideas.

In fact, we are now analyzing the strategic pformation of Anta. We can find that Anta is no longer the former "Wu Xia Meng" in sports marketing, including sponsorship of various sports events, choice of spokesmen for different series of products, organization of street basketball matches and public welfare undertakings.

Anta's success lies in its adoption of a robust challenge following strategy.

The challenge following strategy is an active strategy, and its purpose is to gradually increase the market share by eating the market of benchmarking brands.

When accumulated to a certain extent, keeping up with or even surpassing the benchmarking brand will become a substitute for benchmarking brand, or at least one alternative, making the brand share the same status in the consumer mental mode and the benchmarking brand.

With this strategy, enterprises often need very high brand learning ability, and need to balance the commonalities of excellent brands and their own brand characteristics.