Arthur, A Japanese Sports Group, Wants To Become The Leader Of China's Running Market, Asics.

With the rise of the middle-class lifestyle in China, running is becoming a prominent school among Chinese consumers. Arthur, the Japanese sports group, wants to outperform Nike and Adidas, becoming the biggest player in the running market.

"We have always been a brand with a strong history of running. In the future, we hope to make Arthur the top runner in China's running market. My dream is to achieve it in ten years," Hiroda Yasuhito, President and chief operating officer of Arthur group, told BoF. "At present, the most important task of the group is to make our brand known to all, especially runners. Secondly, we hope that through a correct marketing strategy, we can cooperate with professional athletes in sponsoring the famous marathon race and occupy the market of running. He said.

This is a professional sports shoe enterprise founded by Kihachiro Onitsuka in Japan, and owns three major brands including Asics, Onitsuka Tiger (Gui Zhonghu) and Asics Tiger. Among them, Asics and New Balance, Saucony and Brooks are also known as the world's top four running shoes brands.

　　。

Whether it is in the know or happy running circle, the brand is always ranked first in the recommendation of running shoes equipment. Senior runners take delight in the classification of their different running shoes, Gel-Kayano and Gel-Nimbus's slow and stable functions, and how to carry out foot type tests to get better protection in sports. No matter what the chain's popular scorn chain (wearing Asics people despises other people wearing shoes) is true or not, Asics has always been ranked first among the most popular running shoes in Shanghai marathon and half marathon competitions between 2016 and 2018.

But the Arthur group wants to win this fierce market competition and needs to run faster.

In recent years, the group's performance has continued to decline, as of the second quarter of June 30, 2019, the results showed that group sales decreased by 2.9% to 187 billion 204 million yen compared with the same period last year. The group attributed the decline in performance to weak sales of clothing and equipment, and despite the strong sales of Onitsuka Tiger, the strong yen has also affected its final performance.

At the end of last year, in order to reverse the situation, the Arthur group announced the restructuring of its business structure and revised its five-year strategic plan, and its business focus shifted from lifestyle to professional running category. This is one of the core strategies for reversing performance. While focusing on the US market performance, it will accelerate the growth of the Chinese market. At present, the Chinese market is next only to the fourth largest markets in Europe and America and Japan. Arthur moved part of his product planning and development work to Shanghai last year, and plans to set up a regional headquarters in 2020.

It is estimated that the sales volume of group Greater China will exceed 40 billion yen this year. In the Chinese market, Asics wants to step in the national fitness policy hotspots and run hot craze, and launch the strategy of matching local star athletes in marketing, sponsoring the local marathon race, and accelerating the development of e-commerce.

Hiroda Yasuhito told BoF that the focus of the main line brand Asics will be on the expansion of the two or three line cities. He believes that the volume of the group in the Chinese market can reach 100 billion yen, of which the electricity supplier revenue can account for half of the total.

According to Euromonitor data, the market volume of China's professional sports shoes is expected to grow by 10% in 2019 to 56 billion 300 million yuan, and its growth rate in the next five years will also exceed the overall growth rate of sports shoes, exceeding 49%. Nike and Adidas still occupy about 16% of China's footwear market share, followed by Sketchers (Skech), Anta and Lining. According to the analysis of Ou Rui consulting, in 2018, the market share of Arthur group in China is expected to be 0.2%. However, the group said in a recent interview with BoF that the ratio was 2.5%.

"For the millennial generation, sports shoes are not just a pair of shoes for exercise, but a symbol of a famous athlete, representing a popular culture or a fashion declaration," wrote Footwear in China, published in April this year.

"It is expected that the whole market will develop in the direction of top players to consolidate and integrate their market leading position, while products without branding and poor quality will be eliminated." Kelly Tang, an analyst at Euromonitor, told BoF: "however, because of the increasing diversification of consumer demand, niche brands still have market opportunities. Taking Lululemon as an example, the company has achieved two digit growth while focusing on the high-end market segmentation while accurately positioning potential consumers, thus highlighting the difference and uniqueness of the brand.

Arthur's brand is also a typical niche from the market share and positioning, and in the huge volume of Chinese market, the niche market still has great potential in Lululemon.

"The Asics brand around me has a high utilization rate in the running group. This kind of" craftsman sense "in the single field of deep drilling has become the most important gene in the formation of its brand image, so that when we mention it, there is a sense of being small and stylish," said Lu Zhenzong, editor in chief of Hypebeast, Joseph Luk.

For Asics, the positioning of performance highlights the leading position of Gel technology, called "black technology", in the field of earthquake mitigation. It even exceeds the Boost technology of Nike's Zoom and Adidas, which is more popular, and can become the key to its tight encirclement.

But from the point of view of marketing or channel, Asics has not yet produced a strategy that has more advantages than its competitors. Whether consumers will be attracted by the technology cards they are playing is still waiting for time to observe. In China, the lack of football, basketball or even tennis is a super star in running field. It is difficult to achieve the conversion rate. Although the group hopes to cooperate with professional athletes, small micro opinion leaders (Micro-influencer) in the field of quasi professional or runners are also worth digging and infiltrating.

In addition, Asics wants to develop a new class of users besides professional runners, and also needs to overcome a short board, that is, the appearance design. In the fashion world, the "ugly old daddy shoes" represented by Balenciaga has greatly broadened people's aesthetic appreciation of shoes. But Track and Track.2, which are similar to professional running shoes, do not set off a whirlwind like Triple S. In knowing a name, "Why are top runners generally ugly?" The problem is that ordinary consumers are puzzled about the design of Asics. Li Zhijian, a senior runner, explained: "because they are not equipped by the party, they are actually protecting your body, so there is no need to spend extra money to design what the appearance is." But there is no denying that Asics's shape has prevented its further expansion and expanded its market share. After all, running as a middle class movement also needs to match the aesthetic ideology of the middle class. This year, Asics and the British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood jointly launched two rounds of cooperation. In the second round of cooperation in August, a product of Huaqiao and a rather plain product was introduced.

However, the Arthur group did not put all the treasure on the Asics brand. They especially placed the hope of fashion on Onitsuka Tiger.

Once appeared in the classic Cult film "kill Bill 2" in the Onitsuka Tiger, reflects the Arthur group is also planning to enter the high-end and even fashion market ambitions. In the Asics group, Onitsuka Tiger has been growing at its fastest speed and has been regarded as an "enterprise incubation project" with independent marketing, product design, sales and other departments.

After the structural change of the group, the relationship between products and sales will become closer. For example, sports and fashion, professional sports and other departments will also be responsible for their sales volume, strengthen direct sales to consumers, and further enhance brand competitiveness. "After changing, the heads of each department will also be responsible for sales. This streamlined company structure is a more focused and more vertical model, and a clearer picture of the performance of various departments," Hiroda Yasuhito said.

At present, Onitsuka Tiger brand is strong in Japan and China. The Group expects sales in the 2019 fiscal year to increase by 12.4% to 48 billion yen, while the more independent Onitsuka Tiger can obviously operate the Chinese market more flexibly.

Two weeks ago, Onitsuka Tiger opened a brand independent store in Central Plaza, Shanghai. The 470 square meter shop is the largest flagship store in the world. It has 140 shoes and 175 costumes.

Onitsuka Tiger, which also maintains niche positioning with Asics, is almost the opposite of Asics in China. It will focus on more than 1000 yuan of high-end products and set up direct stores in first tier cities.

"After Japan and South Korea have successfully tried the positioning of high-end luxury brands, we want to bring this concept to the Chinese market. We hope to expand to a wider audience with fashion as the gateway. Compared with other high-end luxury brands, the unique advantage of Onitsuka Tiger is its wearing comfort, "Onitsuka Tiger chief Shoda Ryoji told BoF.

This opening shop also saw the determination of Onitsuka Tiger transformation. "Before we were often classified as sports brands in Chinese shopping malls, so this shop actually wanted to convey the fashion concept to consumers. Considering China's vast territory, we will continue to cooperate with the mall partners, but at the same time we will expand our direct store and maintain a balance between the two. One thing that is different from Asics is that we will not put ourselves on the floor of the sports brand, "Shoda Ryoji said.

Onitsuka Tiger X KKtP designer Kim Kiroic joint promotional film

In order to make the brand go closer to fashion, Shoda Ryoji revealed that it will launch more joint series based on classic Mexico shoes on the basis of Tmall 66 sales casual shoes. In order to celebrate brand 70th anniversary, the brand has recently worked with 7 designers, and Kim Kiroic, one of China's leading designers, is one of them. KKtP He believes that Onitsuka Tiger has been insisting on its original self, not blindly expanding new products and designs, nor pursuing the trend. "There seems to be something special and small in this busy market," Kim said.

Onitsuka Tiger is also a few sports brands that insist on not taking the trend line in the current sports shoes market, which is also in line with the overall quality of Asics group. In Lu Zhenzong's view, the brand has "oriental characteristics" niche positioning, but will capture those who do not follow the trend of fashion consumers.

Brand leader said: "we will enhance the fashion degree by making cultural influence. In 2018, we hired Andrea Pompilio, the designer of Italy for many years, as the creative director. His arrival made the brand richer in clothing and accessories products, and the brand's 2019 spring summer series was unveiled for the first time in Tokyo fashion week.

Although the Arthur group has made a clear positioning of the two brands, it does not mean that it can resist fierce market competition. Tang believes that the current consumers do not strictly distinguish the shoes that are matched by different clothing scenes, and are accustomed to buying products of all price ranges. Therefore, competitors Asics and Onitsuka Tiger face are not limited to the same price or similar homogenous brands. "Sportswear brand is competing with all participants in this field, even including non sportswear and footwear brands." "In other words, the footwear brand is fighting for the space of the consumer shoe cabinet," she said.

Lu Zhenzong also believes that brands need to have a deeper memory in this competitive market. "In the Chinese market, brands need to make better use of the market means to let everyone see the products, and often catch the eyes of new teenagers."