In 8 Years, The Sales Volume Has Exceeded 10 Billion. How Can Li Ning Counter Attack The New Trend Of Domestic Products?

Once upon a time, Chinese consumers mentioned the sportswear industry, either Nike or Adidas. And consumers who choose to buy domestic brands will be labeled "soil" and "low".

However, since 2018, product design and innovation of domestic brands have made continuous breakthroughs and captured a large number of new generation consumers.

With the development of people's living standards, the demand for clothing has gradually declined. However, the more mature industry, there are always new opportunities, this opportunity is the sportswear industry.

Among them, one company has become the most popular company in the whole industry in 2019, opening up a new product category and going against the trend. This is Li Ning.

Li Ning is popular in China

Li Ning was once the number one sportswear industry, with a turnover of 9.5 billion yuan at its peak in 2010. After that, the turnover of the company in 2013 was almost $200 million.

However, by 2019, the sports brand, which was not popular with young people, suddenly became young and its turnover and share price rose rapidly. In 2019, Li Ning's share price tripled to 27 yuan at the peak.

What's going on behind this roller coaster ride?

In the past two years, Li Ning company has established a new national tide brand called "China Li Ning".

The creation of "China Li Ning" originated from the "China day" show at New York Fashion Week in February 2018. Li Ning invited Li Ning to participate in the activity. Li Ning wanted to take part in the event.

Li Ning selected seven designers and asked them to design 56 pieces of clothing in a month to participate in the fashion week. In order to make the brand more easily remembered by New Yorkers, the show series was named "China Li Ning".

The product is designed with the elements of the team uniform of Chinese athletes in the 1980s and 1990s, which makes people think of Li Ning's winning moment in 1984. The designer also printed "Chinese Li Ning" in traditional Chinese directly on the clothes, which was very conspicuous.

Unexpectedly, as soon as the photos of the show were released, all the major domestic media were ignited, and everyone paid unprecedented attention to Li Ning. All of a sudden, hot microblog search and wechat public account were discussing. Many years ago, users were spreading pictures of the show. Many people were asking, where can I buy such fashionable clothes?

The enthusiastic user feedback made Li Ning realize that the influence of this matter has exceeded their imagination. The concept models for Fashion Week soon sold out. The company immediately adjusted the products of the show to the conventional product line and continued to add orders. As a result, China's Li Ning sportswear continued to sell well, Li Ning later simply opened up the "China Li Ning" this new brand.

In this process, Li Ning received positive feedback from three levels

First, the demand for products is in short supply. The price rises from 300 yuan to 500-1000 yuan, and the gross profit margin and brand premium are both increased;

Second, Li Ning entered China;

Third, in the past, Li Ning was linked to cheap and old-fashioned. Now it is a label of fashion and fashion, and has unintentionally upgraded its brand.

The success of "China Li Ning" made the company break through 10 billion turnover for the first time in 2018, and is expected to continue to rise in 2019. When Li Ning peaked in 2010, he didn't expect that it would take eight years to cross the threshold of 10 billion yuan.

Resonate with young users

So why can Li Ning successfully counter attack by relying on only one show? This event has the element of luck, and of course, Li Ning's own efforts.

First of all, Li Ning was lucky to step on three tuyeres

1、 For new users, sportswear is a trend for young people and a label to flaunt their personality;

2、 Fashion trend, the global retro trend and fashion, is the introduction of elements from the 1980s and 1990s;

3、 The founder of Li Ning brand is the Olympic champion. It is the best intangible asset of the brand, which exactly matches the culture of the rise of Chinese goods.

Look at Li Ning's own efforts. In a short period of time to complete from design to product, testing the supply chain, channels and other aspects of cooperation, Li Ning Company in the development process, laid a solid foundation.

In terms of brand, Li Ning changed from advertising to speaking with products. In the past, Li Ning in the hearts of consumers, only sports dress, not fashionable enough, so young people don't like it.

The company realized this problem very early. In 2010, it did a large-scale marketing campaign with the theme of "Li Ning after the 90s", hoping to attract young consumers. At that time, several stars were invited to speak for the company, and the slogan of Li Ning, a post-90s generation, was also invited. However, it did not hold back the declining trend of the company's sales volume.

Why does the marketing of "post-90s Li Ning" fail? Because the way of dealing with users is still the old-fashioned slogan, asking stars to speak for them, and spending money on advertising everywhere. There is no way to resonate with young users.

Finally, relying on the new brand of "Li Ning in China", it generated links with young users and redefined itself.

Before the post-95s and post-00s, Li Ning did not have the burden of historical image. These young people did not know who Li Ning was, nor did they know that the brand had been in a low ebb. They only know that Li Ning's clothes are fashionable and popular on the Internet. They are willing to buy and accept Li Ning's new high-end image.

The best way to communicate with customers is to design the brand concept into the product. Because the product itself is the content, "China Li Ning" highlights the attitude of young people, supports domestic brands and highlights personality. Today's young people, shopping is not only to buy the product itself, but also to need a sense of identity.

The content attribute of products is an important trend of current consumption. Functional needs are greatly met, and people need spiritual things. At this time, if the product can help users complete the identity, then such products will easily become popular on social platforms.

What did Li Ning do right?

In the way of operation, Li Ning company has also made a change, from franchise to direct marketing.

If Li Ning had met the opportunity of New York Fashion week eight years ago, he would not have performed so well. It was the difficulties that later met that made Li Ning constantly complete self reform and lay a solid foundation.

In the past, Li Ning was a wholesale company, wholesale goods to dealers, through layers of agents, and finally sold to consumers by stores.

The brand logo is Li Ning's, but the store is the dealer's, and the dealer is responsible for the profits and losses. Although Li Ning doesn't have to take big risks, it doesn't receive much feedback from the market. Li Ning only knows the shipment volume, but does not know how much the goods are sold out.

In this mode, once the judgment is wrong, the problem will be very big.

After the 2008 Olympic Games, Li Ning misjudged once. At that time, Li Ning finished the last leg in the opening ceremony of bird's nest, which was a top-level publicity that other brands could not do, directly driving the peak sales of Li Ning in 2010 to 9.5 billion yuan.

But the company produced a lot of products blindly. Optimistic expectations, so that suppliers suddenly purchase too much, can not sell out of the goods into a backlog, suppliers no longer into new products.

When Li Ning goes out of the market, the stock price of Li Ning falls into a vicious circle.

At the moment of crisis, Li Ning made two important measures.

1、 Increase the proportion of direct marketing. Compared with 2008 and 2018, Li Ning's overall number of stores was 6000, with little change, but the proportion of Direct stores increased from 5% to 30%, and the proportion of online e-commerce sales also reached 30%.

2、 Painful stock handling. In 2013, Li Ning spent more than 1 billion yuan to buy back the inventory of dealers, and those whose proportion of new products was less than 60% were repurchased to make room for new products. Buy back goods are sold overseas at a low price.

In 2018, a series of challenges have been laid for the company's health, which has laid the groundwork for a series of healthy problems in 2017.

The ups and downs of the past ten years are not only the biggest test, but also the most valuable experience for Li Ning company. Let Li Ning harvest the cognition that product is content.

Today's brand upgrading is not only to shout slogans, but to really infiltrate the concept into the product, let the product itself as the brand endorsement, let the user from the heart like.