Adidas sports brand fast counterattack

A year ago, the Spanish team (sponsored by Adidas) became the eighth World Cup champion in history, at this time cheered victory, not only the Spaniards, but also employees from Germany's headquarters in Adidas - although the German team was just Spain eliminated. This trophy shattered the possibility of Nike's third consecutive championship at the World Cup (Brazil, Italy, 2002, 2006, Nike sponsored). 2008 financial crisis in the global sporting goods market slowdown, at low tide, the Adidas too need such a landmark victory against the rival Nike. Its 2010 semi-annual report was also quite encouraging. In the first half of the year, it achieved a total revenue of 5.59 billion euros, up 11% over the same period of previous year, achieving double-digit growth in almost all regional markets. With the World Cup, its football product sales reached a record 1.3 billion euros. But in the Chinese market, the news is frustrating. At that time, reports on the decline in sales in Greater China Adidas endless, once the star market is behind. In the first half of 2010, China's revenue dropped 16% YoY, making it the only region in the top six markets to experience negative growth. Even worse, adidas in the Chinese market not only lags behind the old rival Nike, since 2009, and even replaced by another old rival - Li Ning, its market share in mainland China, second place. However, only 6 months later, Adidas equalized the "score." According to 2010 earnings estimates, Adidas sales in mainland China is about 1 billion euros, and Li Ning's 2010 sales close. That same time, Li Ning company transformed into a "bad news": close 500 stores, the first and second quarter of 2011 sharp decline in orders and other negative news continues to spread. The adidas is gaining momentum, the first half of 2011 earnings announcement (Greater China first half operating income of 552 million euros, an increase of 38% in the first half, leading the rest of the world), Adidas Greater China Managing Director Gao Jia Li stressed that Greater China comparable sales revenue growth has exceeded "major competitors." Li Ning, the company issued a profit warning, said the group expects first half sales revenue fell 5% over the same period last year, net profit margin from 12.9% in the same period last year has shrunk by half. Channel is king For Adidas, in the summer of 2008 staring dumbfounded Li Ning as a trapeze to ignite the Olympic torch, just the beginning of a long nightmare. Subsequently, the news about Adidas dealer inventory began to backlog. Afterwards, Adidas admitted that it was too optimistic about China's "post-Olympic market". "This is not the issue of the adidas family, many of my colleagues have the same problem." With a baby's face, Adidas Greater China managing director Gao Jiali told "Chinese entrepreneurs." In fact, 2009 was a tough year for many sporting goods brands, with Nike shutting down its only own plant in China to reduce production pressure. Due to small profits, Nike and Adidas in China, one of the major channel distributors Daphne make the decision to evacuate the sporting goods agency; the same time, the two major brands of sports retailer Belle also had closed more than 300 stores. The crisis is also the best reason to make the change. In 2009, Adidas made a fundamental adjustment to the global architecture. Transformed the continents of the past continents, squeezed the management level, and re-divided the global market into six regions based on market characteristics: Western Europe, Emerging Europe, North America, Greater China, Other Asian Markets and Latin American Markets. In addition, Adidas launched a global channel changes, pay more attention to the establishment of self-service stores. The reason for this is that in 2009 the gross profit margin of the wholesale (distribution) business of Adidas was 41.6%, while that of the retail business was as high as 58.6%. Obviously, the retail business that exists in self-operated stores should be greatly developed. However, changing channels and adding self-owned stores - a directive common to the global marketplace - is subtle in Greater China. "We want it and we joined the store grow up at the same speed," high Skyline with carefully worded to deny "increase the proportion of self-employed stores across the channel in the" possibilities. The reason he is cautious is that Adidas China, which has just straightened out the channels, does not want this relationship to be re-damaged. In fact, looking at adidas China in the past two years to adjust to the crisis, in fact, only two things: contraction and price cuts. All this and the channel and dealer adjustments. First, the dealer team should be adjusted to allow some dealers who have lost their enthusiasm for cooperation to withdraw from the adidas system and patiently help them with cumbersome exit procedures. Second, to help dealers willing to work with Adidas to weather the storm. To this end, Adidas eventually changed the main brand does not cut prices, no discount strategy, allowing some areas distributors to discount stores to digest inventory. Even in some cities they are allowed to open discount stores a few hundred meters from the flagship store. In Beijing, the promotion has been done in some residential areas along the metro in Tongzhou District. "In the second half of 2010, we also made a strategic decision to take stock-out to new levels in order to bring our stock levels down to a healthier and more stable level, allowing our channel partners to take their old Stock to get our new stock here. " In this way, the value of products sold by High Cali in the market is greatly enhanced. "So from the second half of 2010 to 2011, the comparable sales growth rate of our stores has surpassed that of our competitors." Who is the competitor, self-evident. Adidas paid the tuition to fully understand the rebound ability of the channel, and Li Ning company seems inadequate preparation. June 2010, Li Ning, the company started the motion for labeling, and a high degree of confidentiality, making all the dealers have been kept in the dark, for the new LOGO products will be listed without a large number of public knowledge. Dealers for the old Li Ning orders will have "fade out", neither mentally prepared nor financially prepared. This led directly to the mistrust between channels and brands. By the end of 2010, the orders of Li Ning brand orders in 2011 dropped sharply. In analyzing the reasons, Li Ning CEO Zhang Zhiyong boils down to two points: First, the sporting goods industry, the sluggish retail environment, resulting in the dealer's expectations more conservative; second, because the past over-reliance on distributors to promote growth model shop , Is not sustainable. The industry believes that Zhang Zhiyong analysis of the reasons are debatable. The reason is that the macroeconomic environment for sporting goods sales in 2010 has been somewhat improved from 2009. Li Ning in the most difficult in 2009 to grow beyond Adidas, but began to fall behind in the market recovery, obviously contrary to the laws of the market. On the other hand, in the current Chinese sporting goods market, dealers are still the most important market forces that can not be ignored. Especially if you want to go deep into the third and fourth tier cities to go. Insiders, Li Ning currently has more than 8,000 stores nationwide, including self-flagship store but 500 up and down, and the main function is to display products, the rest of the store in the hands of more than 2,000 dealers, these large professional stores, small To control the distribution channels husband and wife stores, Li Ning is still the most important profit transfer belt. In relying on distribution channels this point, Adidas Greater China and Li Ning is no different. Therefore, even if the global headquarters repeatedly stressed the importance of self-operated stores, adidas China also up and down, not to mention "to increase the proportion of self-operated stores," but stressed that both should be coordinated development. Eat a cutting-edge wisdom, adidas respect for China's distribution channels, we can see. Adidas is not unaware of the risks of a model of "over-reliance" on distribution channels. But this risk is not a simple "shock therapy" can be resolved. Increase the type of channel is a solution. Adidas in August 2010 authorized Taobao open online store, is a way to enrich the channel. The more central issue is how to cultivate channel loyalty and true control over the channel. "The principle of cooperation between us and our dealers has not changed fundamentally from the past, and the only difference now is that we have strengthened our cooperation with distributors and we measure them with a few indicators, such as what they purchase The way they sold to end consumers, their own investment in stores, how they can be more professional and run their stores more efficiently, etc. That's where we differ from other brands. " This explains Adidas's channel policy after the crisis. Although it came to China in early 2010, Gao Li believes that he has a certain understanding of the Chinese market. In the interview, Gao Raleigh suddenly got up with a smile on her face as a tricks to draw a map of China to show his "homework" done in the Chinese market. Unique to this map is a map of China, sketched out in red by himself and his team, which contains some of the core secrets of Adidas China. In this map, in addition to the administrative boundaries, but also full of criss-cross the solid and dotted lines. According to the demographic data and market intelligence analysis, Adidas divides China's second and third tier markets into saturated markets (solid lines) and opportunities (dashed lines). According to Adidas announced at the end of 2010 "leading to 2015" strategy. This strategy will have five engines to promote. One of the goals is to set up more than 2,500 stores in small and medium-sized cities by 2015 and to provide market segments with reasonably priced products to meet different consumption patterns in different cities. Adidas stores covered by the city will also increase from the current 550 to more than 1,400. Obviously, Gao Jiali hide in the corner of the table is a "counter-attack map" of Adidas in China. The importance of the Chinese market goes without saying. Herbert Hainer, Adidas's chief executive, has seen a dramatic increase in recent arrivals in China and once again called China "our star market" after the 2011 earnings release. He said, "In the next five years, we will create an ideal brand for Chinese consumers to achieve qualitative growth." He firmly believes that Greater China will remain the major driver for the future development of Adidas. However, the mistake made by the opponent and the mistake he once made may all be repeated again. Adidas must be careful not to enter the same river. The complexity and diversity of the Chinese market is daunting, and any simple one-size-fits-all market positioning may be superficial. "For example, the concept of the so-called second and third markets, the salesman knows that opening a shop in Dongguan may be better than opening a shop in the best area of ​​Fengtai District in Beijing," one industry insider warned. The reconstruction of the channel is still continuing. In April 2011, adidas thought-provokingly set up a headquarters office in the west of Chengdu, a move that marks the completion of adidas's reorganization of Greater China's five major regions. "We hope that future sales and marketing teams will be able to get closer to our channel customers and end consumers, who can easily travel around the region to do a series of tasks whose job is to serve as channel customers on one hand and On the one hand, they also supervise and inspect the operation of the channels and retail stores, "said Gao. Cross-border worry For Adidas, knowing what your strengths are and when you can put a high profile on your brand's premium is obviously very important. In fact, 2009 is the small sports of sports, there is no major sporting events, in order to clear the inventory, Adidas allows some dealers to open discount stores is only an expedient choice. With the 2010 World Cup held, Adidas's fist product "genuine national team jerseys", etc., and immediately regained their arrogance, with the usual high price to wait for those who support the beloved team fans spend money on anything. Of course, its test can not be ignored - how to accurately grasp the increasingly complex and diverse needs of consumers, is the biggest test of every Chinese market players. In the sporting goods industry, there has always been a debate over whether to go "single-product" (one for a sport) or "single-product". However, Adidas executives think it is not only the boundaries of consumers' consumption of sporting goods are blurred (it is difficult to simply use the "A is a football fan, B is a mountain climbing enthusiasts," such a label division), even the boundaries between sports and fashion is also blurred. Yesterday's focus on the market segments and accumulation of experience, may become today to further change their shackles. "Consumers nowadays are beginning to experience complex changes in their spending habits, such as some being more new and willing to try new things and others who used to work on only one sport and may now work on multiple sports." A domestic sporting goods company, High Tube said the magazine. For example, a middle-aged and white-collar consumer may be a soccer fan himself, have the chance to play football, participate in badminton activities organized by the organization regularly, and go hiking with his family on weekends. Sports are not only a one-man sport, Increasingly become a social tool and means. Because of this, Adidas also started its own brand upgrade after the recovery in performance re-established itself in the Chinese market. Emphasize the relationship between products and products, between brands and brands, and no longer the boundaries of each other. In March 2011, adidas launched its newest global branding campaign called "all adidas". In addition to star football players star basketball in China, as well as Chinese consumers are familiar with Li Bingbing, Eason Chan, Adidas hopes to show their sports, music, fashion and other areas involved in the expression of brand sports, culture and life attitude. Adidas World Soccer Macy, for example, said: At the age of 11, Messi was diagnosed due to developmental hormone deficiency and hinder the growth of bone, but this did not stop his love for football, through hard work, eventually became the most outstanding One of the football players. And Li Bingbing as a female training dress spokesman, the whole pour fully understood as: "do everything is full of passion, this passion from the heart of faith." In fact, "all-powerful" across the age, gender, sports project boundaries, abstract a kind of sportsmanship, a life attitude. Obviously, in the future strategy of trying to attract consumers deeply, Adidas nowadays emphasizes more on integrating all kinds of sports resources instead of emphasizing one sports item or one type of consumers. "We want to be able to attract consumers by combining 'sports performance' and 'sports fashion', which is different from what we are competitors," explained Gao. However, every change means new risks. There is also some contradiction between insisting on self and cross-border. Known for providing rigorous and professional sportswear since 1920, the German company has now begun to emphasize the combination of fashion and sport, which means not only that it will work with KAPPA in the future Very successful) such brands to start more confrontation, but also means that it may also be in the global war with Nike and the President for lack of concentration and defend each other. After all, each extension of the brand content, is an adventure,