Showing posts with label brand. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brand. Show all posts
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Can China's Big Shoe Brand Make Tracks in the U.S
A pedestrian walks past a Li Ning advertisement in Beijing on 2010
Bloomberg
Despite the growing political influence of China, try asking an American to name a Chinese company and you're not likely to get much of an answer. While South Korea has Samsung and Hyundai, and Japan has Sony and Toyota, in the U.S., China is largely associated with the mass production of low-end goods, with few of its own international brands. To battle China's reputation for cheap imitations, Li Ning has hired top designers from Portland's rich pool of shoe-design talent and placed its high-end sportswear in an airy showroom in a Portland's chic Pearl district. (See pictures of Olympic shoes.)
The products in the Portland store do not shy away from Li Ning's origins, highlighting apparel for popular sports in China like badminton, table tennis and kung fu — games you won't find front and center at nearby Niketown. Li Ning consciously decided not to shed its Chinese identity as it expands overseas, hoping instead to ride the growing influence of Chinese culture. Jay Li, the general manager of Li Ning USA, predicts that as Chinese soft power expands, China's tastes "will become part of the fabric of mainstream culture." Says Li: "When the tide starts to turn, we want to be one of the brands to bring a new, modern China to the rest of the world."
Even if most Americans don't know the Li Ning name yet, many will remember the man. After his historic 1984 performance, the tycoon leaped back into the Olympic spotlight — literally — during the opening ceremony at the 2008 Beijing Games. Suspended by cables, Li soared into the air and ran a slow-motion aerial lap around the Bird's Nest before lighting the Olympic cauldron in front of an estimated 4 billion television viewers — much to the annoyance of Adidas, which had spent some $80 million to sponsor the Games. (See pictures of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies.)
Less than two years later, Li Ning the company is still soaring. In March, Li Ning Co. reported a more than 30% rise in profit in 2009. Li Ning started his sportswear company in 1990, building it into a giant, with 2009 sales considerably more than $1 billion. With 7,249 branded stores in China, Li Ning has surpassed Adidas to become the No. 2 sports-apparel company in the country. Unlike an Adidas or a Nike, 99% of Li Ning's revenue comes from within China. But this won't be the case for long. Li Ning has signed a deal with Champ Sports, where 67 of its retail outlets in the U.S. will start selling Li Ning products. Li Ning Co. is also testing the waters in Singapore with a new showroom and has collaborated with Dutch rapper Ali B for a line of clothing in Europe. Jay Li says Li Ning will not rush its growth internationally, but he's confident it will become a global player. "We have aspirations to be a global brand, and we will eventually get there," he says. Jay Li isn't the only one who thinks Li Ning is poised to break out. The Credit Suisse Research Institute released a report at the end of February calling Li Ning one of the 27 "Great Brands of Tomorrow." (Watch a video about running barefoot.)
Just rebranding Chinese products won't be enough for Li Ning to compete globally. The company also needs to deliver products that will help its élite athletes excel, a process Jay Li says is "half science, half art." Li Ning runs a "Global Innovation Center" in the same building as its Portland retail store, where footwear designers and biomechanic engineers lured from the likes of Nike, Converse and Adidas mix with designers from Li Ning's Chinese staff. On the wall, the innovation center has two clocks — one set to Portland time and one set to Beijing time. "This fusion comes through in our products," Jay Li says.
Nike isn't shaking in its boots yet, but permanent dominance in American sportswear is never a shoo-in. When Li Ning opened its Portland retail store to the public for an hour on Feb. 15 for its grand opening, sneaker heads lined up for five hours to be among the first to own a pair of BD Dooms, basketball shoes named after NBA point guard Baron Davis. Jay Li admits they lined up "not because of Li Ning but because we have a world-class basketball shoe." (It probably also helped that Baron Davis himself was in the store giving autographs.) Priced between $99.99 and $149.99, a pair of BD Dooms does not come cheap, but the kicks have at least one high-profile fan. Davis says NBA superstar LeBron James asked him during a game, "Yo, B.D., why do your shoes look better than everyone else's?" The answer — a team of young, talented designers working for a Chinese company that has the cash to sign up an NBA star — could usher in China's first global apparel brand. As Li Ning's slogan says, "Anything is possible."
See TIME's Pictures of the Week.
Ambush marketing hurt Adidas brand
When Wayne Gretzky lit the Olympic torch at this year's Winter Games in Vancouver, organizers didn't take any fashion chances. Canada's hockey hero was adorned in gear from an Olympics official sponsor, the Hudson's Bay Company.
Organizers had reason to be diligent with the clothing showcased at the torch lighting -- arguably the most impactful and symbolic moment of the Games. Because less than two years earlier, a Summer Olympics sponsor -- Adidas -- was successfully ambushed by rival athletic footwear and clothing company Li Ning.
Indeed, the threat posed to sporting events sponsors by ambush marketing seems to grow every year -- and ambush marketers will no doubt be targeting the next major event on the global sporting calendar, the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
When a firm invests hundreds of millions of dollars in a sponsorship, and many millions more on marketing efforts to exploit that sponsorship, it embarks on a promotional journey that may help establish it as the uncontested brand in its category: Consider Coca-Cola, Visa, and McDonald's as examples. At the same time, it exposes itself to an array of counter-attacks by competitors who have either chosen not to exploit the sponsorship opportunity, or who have simply not had the resources to do so.
Our recent study showed that the persistent effectiveness of ambush marketers leaves Olympic sponsors and those of other major sporting events particularly vulnerable -- costing them not only their financial investment, but also ultimately their customers.
We examined data from the 2008 Beijing Summer Games -- which saw Olympic sponsor Adidas ambushed by globally lesser-known Chinese company Li Ning. The Chinese company's namesake founder, Li Ning, was China's most decorated Olympian, and it was he who lit the Olympic flame at the 2008 opening ceremony.
Data collected after the closing of the Beijing Games isolated what we call the "Li Ning effect" -- being incorrectly identified as an official sponsor as a result of clever ambush marketing.
In the footwear category at least, Li Ning was the clear brand winner of the 2008 Olympics, in spite of the millions Adidas spent to secure a sponsorship.
Amidst the background noise of multiple sponsorships, this highly poignant event stuck in people's memory such that when they were asked to recall who the official sponsor of athletic footwear was for the Beijing Games, more of our respondents thought it was Li Ning than Adidas.
The return Li Ning received via its minimal investment in sponsorship -- lobbying, perhaps? -- was almost infinite. And while Adidas undoubtedly enjoyed some benefits from its sponsorship efforts, the company invested heavily to achieve these.
Given this, it needs to be reiterated to would-be sponsors: Don't naively put yourself in a position to be ambushed. Remember, large sporting events provide optimal venues and occasions for this to happen.
This does not mean that firms should abstain from sponsorship; large global events can provide superlative opportunities for marketing communication. However, walking into sponsorships and blithely ignoring the lessons from the Li Ning affair would be asking for trouble. If you do decide to sponsor a major event, anticipate and behave as though an ambush will happen.
While organizations such as the International Olympics Committee and various governments build protective walls around, and enact legislation for event sponsors in order to protect them from ambush marketing, ambush marketers have become increasingly cunning. Much like computer viruses that become smarter and more lethal as antivirus software becomes more sophisticated, today's ambush marketers don't merely resort to hanging banners outside a stadium or placing numerous ads in local newspapers. To this end, we offer seven lessons marketers should remember when sponsoring major events:
- Expect the unexpected -- ambush attacks won't come in a form you anticipate.
- Event organizers won't always keep their word.
- Don't rely on governments to protect you -- their own interests will always trump yours.
- Be constantly aware of the likelihood of an ambush.
- Remember that customers don't care -- they won't share your moral indignation regarding an ambush event.
- Don't overreact to an ambush -- it will only compound the problem.
- Sponsorship is only the first stage of marketing in an event setting -- a firm needs to be proactive in all marketing efforts and defensive in anticipating ambush.
---
- Leyland Pitt is a professor of marketing at Simon Fraser University's Faculty of Business Administration. Michael Parent is an associate professor of management information systems at SFU Business. Their study, Event sponsorship and ambush marketing: Lessons from the Beijing Olympics, appears in the March issue of Business Horizons. The study was co-written with Pierre Berthon of Bentley University and Peter G. Steyn of Lulea University of Technology.
Organizers had reason to be diligent with the clothing showcased at the torch lighting -- arguably the most impactful and symbolic moment of the Games. Because less than two years earlier, a Summer Olympics sponsor -- Adidas -- was successfully ambushed by rival athletic footwear and clothing company Li Ning.
Indeed, the threat posed to sporting events sponsors by ambush marketing seems to grow every year -- and ambush marketers will no doubt be targeting the next major event on the global sporting calendar, the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
When a firm invests hundreds of millions of dollars in a sponsorship, and many millions more on marketing efforts to exploit that sponsorship, it embarks on a promotional journey that may help establish it as the uncontested brand in its category: Consider Coca-Cola, Visa, and McDonald's as examples. At the same time, it exposes itself to an array of counter-attacks by competitors who have either chosen not to exploit the sponsorship opportunity, or who have simply not had the resources to do so.
Our recent study showed that the persistent effectiveness of ambush marketers leaves Olympic sponsors and those of other major sporting events particularly vulnerable -- costing them not only their financial investment, but also ultimately their customers.
We examined data from the 2008 Beijing Summer Games -- which saw Olympic sponsor Adidas ambushed by globally lesser-known Chinese company Li Ning. The Chinese company's namesake founder, Li Ning, was China's most decorated Olympian, and it was he who lit the Olympic flame at the 2008 opening ceremony.
Data collected after the closing of the Beijing Games isolated what we call the "Li Ning effect" -- being incorrectly identified as an official sponsor as a result of clever ambush marketing.
In the footwear category at least, Li Ning was the clear brand winner of the 2008 Olympics, in spite of the millions Adidas spent to secure a sponsorship.
Amidst the background noise of multiple sponsorships, this highly poignant event stuck in people's memory such that when they were asked to recall who the official sponsor of athletic footwear was for the Beijing Games, more of our respondents thought it was Li Ning than Adidas.
The return Li Ning received via its minimal investment in sponsorship -- lobbying, perhaps? -- was almost infinite. And while Adidas undoubtedly enjoyed some benefits from its sponsorship efforts, the company invested heavily to achieve these.
Given this, it needs to be reiterated to would-be sponsors: Don't naively put yourself in a position to be ambushed. Remember, large sporting events provide optimal venues and occasions for this to happen.
This does not mean that firms should abstain from sponsorship; large global events can provide superlative opportunities for marketing communication. However, walking into sponsorships and blithely ignoring the lessons from the Li Ning affair would be asking for trouble. If you do decide to sponsor a major event, anticipate and behave as though an ambush will happen.
While organizations such as the International Olympics Committee and various governments build protective walls around, and enact legislation for event sponsors in order to protect them from ambush marketing, ambush marketers have become increasingly cunning. Much like computer viruses that become smarter and more lethal as antivirus software becomes more sophisticated, today's ambush marketers don't merely resort to hanging banners outside a stadium or placing numerous ads in local newspapers. To this end, we offer seven lessons marketers should remember when sponsoring major events:
- Expect the unexpected -- ambush attacks won't come in a form you anticipate.
- Event organizers won't always keep their word.
- Don't rely on governments to protect you -- their own interests will always trump yours.
- Be constantly aware of the likelihood of an ambush.
- Remember that customers don't care -- they won't share your moral indignation regarding an ambush event.
- Don't overreact to an ambush -- it will only compound the problem.
- Sponsorship is only the first stage of marketing in an event setting -- a firm needs to be proactive in all marketing efforts and defensive in anticipating ambush.
---
- Leyland Pitt is a professor of marketing at Simon Fraser University's Faculty of Business Administration. Michael Parent is an associate professor of management information systems at SFU Business. Their study, Event sponsorship and ambush marketing: Lessons from the Beijing Olympics, appears in the March issue of Business Horizons. The study was co-written with Pierre Berthon of Bentley University and Peter G. Steyn of Lulea University of Technology.
Adidas WatchesThe Classic Sports Fashion brand
As popular as Adidas is as a sports and fashion brand, Adidas watches are perhaps not quite the obvious brand to go for as you mainly associate the label with clothing and sports orientated footwear. In recent years however, Adidas watches have grown in popularity, particularly in the sports industry and have become renowned for being durable, functional and of course highly reliable. Indeed in the past year Adidas watches have proven to be a highly regarded brand with budget friendly price and the style adaptable to all ages.
Adidas Watches – Enhance Your Sports Performance
If you are a sports enthusiast, then you need a timepiece that will go the distance and support your active lifestyle. Adidas watches are the perfect choice as they serve these very purposes as well as looking super cool and stylish and are fantastic if you are a keen runner or generally very active. There are many different models in the range, some of which incorporate features such as an alarm, 10 ATM, an interval timer, a 200 lap measurer, shadow, timer, vent strap, referee mode, and even a training timer. There are also Adidas watches designed specifically for women and these include functions such as an alarm, 10 ATM, an interval timer, timer, vent strap, and 10 lap measurer. As well as styles for specifically men and women, Adidas watches also have some unisex models within the collection which are very much of a classic style and incorporate the same key features.
Adidas Watches – Something for All the Family
Of course, style is a huge selling point and as well as being designed primarily to serve a purpose, Adidas is highly regarded as a fashion brand which allows people to look great whilst on the go. Adidas watches can be worn by adults and children and the brand is becoming increasingly popular among teenagers who like the vivid colours that the range has to offer. The Oddity Candy Adidas watches are a prime example of this. Some of the timepieces also feature a Velcro strap which is perfect for ensuring that the watch isn’t going to break within a month and great for kids! Adidas watches also look very adult and so children also like this appeal. At between £30 and £60, Adidas watches aren’t going to leave a huge dent in your bank account and therefore make the perfect choice for children and of course, if you yourself are on a budget yet desire a great quality and stylish looking timepiece.
Adidas watches offer a wide choice of models and you can be sure to find something for every age. Simplicity is the key and Adidas tend to focus on styling their watches with bright and cool colours and offering plenty in the way of features. Overall they are watches that will ensure durability whilst playing sports and will endure physical activity as well as enhancing your sports performance with some of the key features.
Adidas Watches – Enhance Your Sports Performance
If you are a sports enthusiast, then you need a timepiece that will go the distance and support your active lifestyle. Adidas watches are the perfect choice as they serve these very purposes as well as looking super cool and stylish and are fantastic if you are a keen runner or generally very active. There are many different models in the range, some of which incorporate features such as an alarm, 10 ATM, an interval timer, a 200 lap measurer, shadow, timer, vent strap, referee mode, and even a training timer. There are also Adidas watches designed specifically for women and these include functions such as an alarm, 10 ATM, an interval timer, timer, vent strap, and 10 lap measurer. As well as styles for specifically men and women, Adidas watches also have some unisex models within the collection which are very much of a classic style and incorporate the same key features.
Adidas Watches – Something for All the Family
Of course, style is a huge selling point and as well as being designed primarily to serve a purpose, Adidas is highly regarded as a fashion brand which allows people to look great whilst on the go. Adidas watches can be worn by adults and children and the brand is becoming increasingly popular among teenagers who like the vivid colours that the range has to offer. The Oddity Candy Adidas watches are a prime example of this. Some of the timepieces also feature a Velcro strap which is perfect for ensuring that the watch isn’t going to break within a month and great for kids! Adidas watches also look very adult and so children also like this appeal. At between £30 and £60, Adidas watches aren’t going to leave a huge dent in your bank account and therefore make the perfect choice for children and of course, if you yourself are on a budget yet desire a great quality and stylish looking timepiece.
Adidas watches offer a wide choice of models and you can be sure to find something for every age. Simplicity is the key and Adidas tend to focus on styling their watches with bright and cool colours and offering plenty in the way of features. Overall they are watches that will ensure durability whilst playing sports and will endure physical activity as well as enhancing your sports performance with some of the key features.
adidas largest brand centre opened
adidas opened its largest brand centre worldwide last week. located in beijing, china the building is
approximately 3200sqm and consist of four floors. the building designed by shop architects new york,
features protruding glass and mirrors intended to reflect movement of oncoming pedestrians and traffic.
each level offers consumers interactive experiences. whilst visiting the brand centre consumers can
test their level of fitness, how they balance on their feet, their speed and jumping ability. the instore
and website design, designed by start creative allows user to obtain this information, normally only available
to professional athletes. consumers can also compare their results to famous athletes and how they can
enhance their skills. new products and technologies designed by adidas especially for the beijing olympics
will be displayed in the olympic brand launch centre space. the adidas brand centre is part of a new
entertainment and shopping district in chaoyang, beijing.
read more:
http://www.shoparc.com
http://www.startcreative.co.uk
and website design, designed by start creative allows user to obtain this information, normally only available
to professional athletes. consumers can also compare their results to famous athletes and how they can
enhance their skills. new products and technologies designed by adidas especially for the beijing olympics
will be displayed in the olympic brand launch centre space. the adidas brand centre is part of a new
entertainment and shopping district in chaoyang, beijing.
read more:
http://www.shoparc.com
http://www.startcreative.co.uk
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