Author/ Author of "Finance and Economics" Weekly Wei Yining
Editor/Letter of Song
Flyer Liu Xiang stood on the field, the audience behind him hung a red banner that read "Liu Xiang refuel and cheer", the starting gun sounded, and he began to run hard. On the screen, the figure of Liu Xiang running is sometimes displayed, and sometimes the citizens who switch to warm up, run, and skateboard are even interspersed with the picture of a woman running on the street and jumping from the top of a moving bus.
This two-and-a-half-minute video is an advertisement endorsed by Liu Xiang for Nike in early 2006, and the focus of the advertisement is Nike's signature version of sneakers tailored for him by combining Liu Xiang's personal creativity, and Liu Xiang has also become the first athlete in China to have signed sneakers.
Liu Xiang was the hottest sports star of his time. With the historic victory in the 110-meter hurdles of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games and the breaking of the world record in July 2006, Liu Xiang's endorsement price increased to 12 million yuan, and the annual income reached more than 50 million, becoming the first person in China to endorse a well-deserved sports star.
At that time, the only sports star who could compete with Liu Xiang was probably his Shanghai compatriot Yao Ming.
More than a decade later, a new generation of sports stars was born. "Perfect idol" Gu Ailing, refreshed Liu Xiang's advertising endorsement cost record. After winning the Winter Olympics, Gu Ailing's advertising value soared to more than 15 million yuan after tax, holding more than 20 endorsements, with an annual income of 200 million yuan, becoming the most commercially valuable sports star rookie in China.
Domestic sports stars have been associated with advertising endorsements since 1984, when China participated in the Los Angeles Olympic Games in the United States. In the nearly 40 years since then, with the change of communication methods, the popularity of sports stars has become higher and higher, and the endorsement fee has soared from the initial hundreds of thousands of yuan to today's "sky-high price".
On July 28, 1984, at 4:16 p.m., the Los Angeles Olympic Games opened. 225 Chinese athletes came to the Olympic arena, which was the first time that an Olympic delegation was sent to participate after the founding of New China.
Coming to Los Angeles with the Chinese delegation, there was also a mysterious drink: the can of this drink, printed with traditional Chinese trademarks and athlete motifs, poured out, is a sweet orange-flavored juice. Its name is Jianlibao.
Jianlibao is the first functional drink in China to add alkaline electrolytes, and it was first born for the Olympic Games. In the 1980s, in order to help athletes recover their physical strength, the Guangzhou Sports Science Research Institute developed a functional drink, and hoped to achieve mass production and turn it into a mass drink.
Although television advertising was not widely available in China at that time, and most Chinese families did not even have television sets, the researchers' idea, and the bold attempt of Li Jingwei, deputy director of Sanshui Distillery, allowed China's domestic beverages to be combined with international competitions and sports stars for the first time, creating a sensational effect.
Before the 1984 Olympics, Sanshui Distillery conducted experiments for three months, and Jianlibao finally came out. In the Olympic Games, Chinese athletes who drank Jianlibao achieved excellent results, winning 15 gold medals, 8 silver medals and 9 bronze medals, ranking fourth in the medal table.
In the women's volleyball final on August 7, the Chinese women's volleyball team defeated the host Team Usa and won the championship in one fell swoop. During the break of the competition, a Japanese reporter found that Chinese athletes were drinking a drink he had never seen before, and after an interview, he wrote a press release titled "Relying on the 'Oriental Magic Water' to Attack Quickly."
Subsequently, Chinese reporters followed up the report and wrote an article "'China's Magic Water' Swept Los Angeles" and sent it back to China, published in the Yangcheng Evening News. The report on the transfer of export to domestic sales quickly made "China Magic Water" popular, and Jianlibao became the best-selling national drink in the 1980s and 1990s, even competing with Coca-Cola.
Jianlibao was the first brand to rely on international events to increase its popularity and sales, at that time, there was no concept of sports star endorsement in China, but Olympic athletes drank Jianlibao between competitions, which was equivalent to collectively becoming the spokesperson of Jianlibao. At that time, television was not yet popular, Jianlibao used the form of advertising pictures to publicize, "the event has me, the national drink Jianlibao" advertising and athlete photos printed together, Jianlibao and consumers' memories of the Olympic Games firmly tied.
In 1987, Jianlibao invested a huge amount of 2.5 million yuan to beat Coca-Cola's 1 million yuan offer and qualified for the designated beverage at the Guangzhou National Games. During the National Games, Jianlibao advertisements were plastered on the streets and alleys of Guangzhou, and at the closing ceremony, Jianlibao announced that it would send a can of drinks to each of the 80,000 spectators. Subsequently, Jianlibao held an order meeting, and in just two hours, an order worth 200 million yuan was finalized. At that time, Jianlibao advertisement appeared on CCTV, and the advertisement "If you want to be healthy, drink Jianlibao" resounded all over China.
Three years later, Jianlibao began to ask sports stars to advertise endorsements, spending 600,000 yuan to ask retired gymnastics prince Li Ning to record a 15-second TV commercial. On the TV screen, the Jianlibao can is swiped in front of Li Ning's familiar gymnastics movements, and the last shot of the advertisement is fixed on the silhouette of Li Ning holding up the Jianlibao can.
The ad was a huge success, and that year, Jianlibao's sales increased by 30 million yuan.
The success of Jianlibao has allowed more merchants to see the value of asking sports stars to endorse.
When television has not yet been popularized, companies often print the photos of endorsement stars on posters, advertising boards, and paste them on the streets and alleys, with the gradual popularization of television, watching TV has become a new entertainment method for urban residents, and more companies will not hesitate to spend a lot of money to put sports star advertisements on TV.
In 1999, Anta's boss Ding Zhizhong made a difficult decision to hire table tennis player Kong Linghui as a spokesperson at a price of 800,000 yuan per year, and then invested 3.8 million yuan in advertising on CCTV, which was two-thirds of ANTA's annual profit.
At that time, Kong Linghui had already won the Men's Doubles Championships of the World Table Tennis Championships and the Men's Doubles Championship of the International Table Tennis Federation Finals, but he was still one step away from the Olympic champion, so the market's response to TV commercials was not as enthusiastic as expected.
At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Kong Linghui and Sweden's Waldner played a fierce match for the men's singles title in table tennis. Kong Linghui initially took the lead, but later sprained his leg due to a movement error, and Waldner chased the score all the way.
Ding Zhizhong on the sidelines and Kong Linghui on the field are equally nervous, for the Ding boss who has gambled on the blood, whether Kong Lingjun can win the championship is related to whether his advertising can be successful and achieve a breakthrough in sales.
Luckily, he won the bet. Waldner, who scored too far apart, struck the last ball, Kong Linghui won the championship, won the Grand Slam, and kissed the national flag on his chest after the game, touching the hearts of countless Chinese spectators. Since then, Kong Linghui's "I choose, I like" advertisement has detonated the market, and ANTA's sales have reached 300 million yuan.
The success of ANTA has made other shoe companies in Jinjiang City, Fujian Province, pay attention to the effect of sports star endorsements, and the Jinjiang Municipal Government also hopes to replicate ANTA's successful experience and support and reward other shoe brands. Shoe companies such as Xtep, Jordan, and Hongxing Erke have asked sports stars to speak for them, and athletes such as Liu Guoliang, Fu Mingxia, and Wang Nan have successively appeared on the TV screen.
44 Jinjiang shoe companies have successively released advertisements on CCTV, because Jinjiang shoe companies originated in Chendai Town, many viewers joked that the CCTV sports channel has become "Chen Dai channel".
Various shoe companies have invested more and more advertising funds, asked sports stars to endorse, opened an in-volume competition, but in these shoe companies, ANTA's sales network is the most perfect, taking advantage of the opportunity of sales promotion, established a franchise model of store operation, agency store grading operation, specialty stores cover various cities, in terms of cost performance, gradually can compete with Adidas, Nike and other well-known foreign brands, stand out among many brands.
Ding Zhizhong has not believed that ANTA's success is attributed to advertising, but it is undeniable that his initial advertising strategy has made ANTA's brand image deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, obtained huge profits, and also provided the possibility of seizing opportunities in sales.
Countless celebrities have made endorsement advertisements for ANTA, but Ding Zhizhong revealed that he only hung a photo of one athlete in his office, that is, Kong Linghui, who originally made endorsement advertisements for ANTA.
Entering the 21st century, the price of sports celebrity endorsement ads has risen further, breaking through the previous 7-figure limit. In 2002, Olympic diving champions Tian Liang and Guo Jingjing endorsed Audrey Glucose Beverage, and the advertising cost exceeded 10 million yuan for the first time.
In the early days of sports star advertising, sports drinks, sportswear and footwear, but after 2000, other brands noticed the value of sports star endorsements, food and beverages, alcohol products, household appliances and even communication products began to ask sports stars to endorse.
Some brands favor gymnastics and divers with a healthy and light posture, especially fast-moving consumer goods such as food, washing products, alcohol, etc. Elegant and beautiful gymnastics and diving athletes can attract the attention of consumers. Before diving champion Guo Jingjing married into the giants, she once took over brand advertisements such as Blue Moon, and the advertising cost reached tens of millions, which can be compared with first-line film and television stars.
However, in the 2000s, the two sports stars who attracted more attention from consumers were undoubtedly Yao Ming and Liu Xiang. Basketball and athletics are not strong sports in China, so talented athletes like Yao Ming and Liu Xiang who can win glory for the country will naturally receive much attention in the spotlight.
In 2002, Yao Ming won the overall championship of the Chinese Men's Basketball Professional League, was elected the rebounding king and the block king three times, and was selected by the NBA Houston Rockets as a champion and became famous in one fell swoop.
After becoming a basketball star, Yao Ming endorsed only one sports product: Reebok, which has now been acquired by Adidas. In 1999, when Yao Ming's career was just beginning, Nike took a fancy to this big basketball player from China and judged that he would definitely become a basketball star, so he signed a contract with him for 4 years and 200,000 US dollars. For 19-year-old Yao Ming, this is a huge amount of money.
Yao Ming spent the first four years of his career in Nike sneakers, but in 2003, when Nike's contract expired, Yao Ming was no longer what he used to be, achieving a gorgeous turn from the beginning to the peak of his career, and Nike offered to renew his contract for 4 years and 1.6 million US dollars. James, who had not yet entered the league at that time, had signed a 7-year, $90 million contract, Yao Ming felt unfair, asked to raise the price to 5 million, the two sides negotiated the wrong price, and terminated the cooperation.
Soon, Reebok found Yao Ming, quoting 7 years and 50 million US dollars, at this time, Nike executives reacted, and then went to Yao Ming to talk about increasing the price, but Yao Ming still remembered nike's differential treatment of him and James, and categorically rejected Nike.
Yao Ming took over a large number of advertisements for world-renowned food companies, including Oreo, Snickers, McDonald's, Pepsi, Coca-Cola and so on. Being able to make PepsiCo and Coca, two Coke companies that have been fiercely competitive for 120 years, look for him at the same time, which shows Yao Ming's unique charm in the minds of Chinese consumers.
In China, Yao Ming took over the endorsement of China Unicom, Chinese Life, China Construction Bank and other large-scale communications, insurance, banking enterprises, the most well-known of which is the advertisement designed by Chinese Life: Yao Ming holds a basketball, with the advertising slogan of "if you want to vote for Chinese life", a pun on exquisite advertising, and Yao Mingshuang's heroic posture is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
Endorsement advertising brought Yao Ming a huge income, but for Liu Xiang, this income became a kind of shackle. Liu Xiang's endorsement advertisement was not signed by him, but by the competent authority.
In 2004, Liu Xiang won the 110-meter hurdles championship at the Athens Olympic Games and became famous in one fell swoop. In that year's Forbes China Celebrity List, Liu Xiang ranked 90th, earning 1.6 million yuan, in fact, when the Forbes list was made, Liu Xiang had not yet participated in the Athens Olympic Games, but only with the results of the World Athletics Golden League, endorsed the advertisement for Coca-Cola and Nike.
In the 2005 Forbes China Celebrity List after the Athens Olympics, Liu Xiang's value has doubled, and his position has reached the third place, with an income of 23 million yuan. In 2006, Liu Xiang ran another 12 championships, and by 2007, he had risen to second place on the Forbes China Celebrity List, and his income had doubled to 58 million yuan.
Liu Xiang endorsement of advertising, including Cadillac, Coca-Cola, Yili, Amway Nutrilite, Lenovo and other well-known brands at home and abroad, to the eve of the Beijing Olympic Games, Liu Xiang was placed high hopes, on the cover of the Olympic special issue of The Time magazine in the United States, everyone believes that he will be the defending champion at the Olympic Games at home in China, so he signed a total of 14 advertising endorsements, and the annual income reached 160 million yuan.
As a senior, Yao Ming once advised Liu Xiang in a serious voice: "Don't worry, don't be afraid, in this world, the only thing that can shake you is yourself!" ”
Yao Ming originally encouraged Liu Xiang not to be anxious and train hard, but he did not expect that this sentence would be a proverb in a way that no one wanted to see: before the Beijing Olympic Games, Liu Xiang injured his right Achilles tendon; in the Olympic Games, after the starting gun sounded, his right leg could not exert power, and he limped back to the rest area and gave up the game.
After the Olympics, Liu Xiang was paid a "waist chop", he went to the United States for surgery, removed the calcified substance and bone spurs of the heel, however, after three years of recovery, at the 2012 London Olympic Games, Liu Xiang jumped off the track with one foot and retired again.
Liu Xiang's two retirements have left him with thousands of accusations, and his injury does not allow him to return to the field, but he still cannot officially retire. He has a total of 17 big brand contracts, with a total value of 1 billion yuan, and the commercial contract states that the maximum amount of liquidated damages is up to three times, and if he retires before the contract expires, the field management center will have to pay up to 3 billion yuan in sky-high liquidated damages.
All contracts expired at the end of 2013, and in 2014, Liu Xiang did not sign any endorsements, and by 2015, he was finally able to announce his retirement.
On August 12, 2021, Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi, sent a Weibo message calling Su Bingtian a "Su God" and expressing his hope to run with Su Bingtian. Su Bingtian quickly replied, "I'll take you with me to warm up." ”
At this time, it was only more than ten days before Su Bingtian broke the Asian record at the Tokyo Olympics. On August 1, Su Bingtian reached the men's 100m final of the Tokyo Olympic Games with a time of 9.83 seconds, breaking his previous Asian record and becoming the first athlete in the history of Chinese athletics to reach the men's 100m final of the Olympic Games.
Su Bingtian suddenly became popular all over the Internet. In the era of mobile Internet, live TV broadcasts have been impacted by live Internet broadcasts, and many people are watching Su Bingtian's game on mobile phones. At present, the scale of mobile video users in China has reached 552 million people, and most young viewers are accustomed to watching sports events on online platforms and discussing them in real time on social platforms.
Although Su Bingtian failed to win the medal and only won the 6th place, he broke the Asian record and ran into the 100-meter final, allowing him to quickly enter the Weibo hot search, and the WeChat circle of friends was also full of Su Bingtian's heroic posture when sprinting.
Lei Jun, who has always been good at Weibo marketing, seized the opportunity and soon announced Su Bingtian as the spokesperson for his own products, snatching a wave of traffic first.
At the end of 2021, Lei Jun realized his wish to run with Su Bingtian, and the two ran together at the Xiaomi Science and Technology Park stadium. Before the race, Lei Jun "let loose" said: "No need to compare, I am definitely the first, running in our Xiaomi Science and Technology Park, I am not the first and more faceless? ”
Unexpectedly, halfway through, Lei Jun fell and regrettably became the penultimate number one, and netizens watching the live broadcast played a laughing expression on the screen, and some people commented: "Like me in physical education class." ”
After the Olympic Games, Su Bingtian obtained 8 commercial advertising endorsements, including xiaomi, seven wolves, kangaroo mother, GAC Trumpchi, etc., and the single annual endorsement fee quotation reached more than 10 million yuan.
After GAC Trumpchi signed an endorsement contract with Su Bingtian, it adopted a joint product approach to rename the J10 version of the sports intelligent car Trumpchi Shadow Leopard to "J10 Flyer Edition" and reduced the price from 98,800 yuan to 98,300 yuan, which is consistent with Su Bingtian's 100-meter Asian record.
In addition to Su Bingtian, other sports stars emerging at the Tokyo Olympic Games have also received advertising endorsement contracts, shooting athlete Yang Qian, fencer Sun Yiwen, table tennis player Ma Long, etc., are all competing sports stars.
Chinese sports stars have been engaged in commercial endorsement for nearly 40 years, and the top stars have also changed stubble after stubble.
This Time in beijing, Gu Ailing has undoubtedly become the hottest sports star. Many brands bet on Gu Ailing before the game, such as Luckin signed an endorsement contract with her before the game, and launched a joint product Gu Ailing customized delicious "Blue Velvet Snow Latte", the top of the coffee covered cream sprinkled with blue algae extract light blue powder, creating a pure and cool effect of ice and snow.
On February 8, on the day of Gu Ailing's competition, Luckin even sent a series of Weibo, recording the time when Gu Ailing was ready to debut and jump three times, and congratulated Gu Ailing for the first time after winning the championship. Luckin is undoubtedly betting on the right treasure, the day Gu Ailing won the championship, many people in order to join in the fun, in the circle of friends with Gu Ailing advertising Luckin coffee.
Nowadays, for brands that need traffic, it is safer to ask sports stars to endorse ads than to ask traffic stars. The rollover of stars such as Wu Yifan and Wang Lihong has proved that if the traffic star "has an accident" one day, it will have a negative effect on the product. However, sports stars who win glory for the country generally carry out closed training, the living environment is relatively simple, the probability of negative news is smaller, and once they win good results in the competition, they will quickly become uncontroversial national idols, which can improve consumer awareness and loyalty more than traffic stars.
However, for sports stars, endorsement advertising also has certain risks, and once the product has quality problems, they will be dragged down. For example, in 2020, the financial APP endorsed by Liu Guoliang thundered, resulting in users whose interests were damaged to liu Guoliang's dissatisfaction, and finally Liu Guoliang publicly apologized.
There is no doubt that advertising endorsed by sports stars, although it can generate huge commercial benefits, is still a two-way adventure for businesses and sports stars. The attention and reputation of sports stars is highly dependent on competition results, and when there is a mistake in a major event, or a long-term inability to participate due to injury, the attention will drop rapidly.
Although brands and sports stars generally bet before the game when they cooperate, even if the company does not sign the endorsement in time before the game, it may catch a good time after the game.
Just two days after the opening of the Winter Olympics, another event rushed to the Chinese Internet hot search: on February 6, the Chinese women's football team defeated south Korea in the final of the Asian Cup with a 3:2 reversal to win the championship. According to the official website of the Chinese Football Association and the thank-you poster of the women's football team, there are currently only two companies in the list of partners of the Chinese women's national football team, namely Xiaohongshu and renrenche, a used car trading platform.
After the game, the long-neglected women's football team instantly became the focus of attention. Alipay and Mengniu publicly rewarded women's football teams with 13 million yuan and 10 million yuan respectively, and the Internet is also full of calls for brands to "invest more advertising sponsorship for women's football" and "give more rewards to women's football". The women's football team, known as the "sonorous rose", can win how many brand endorsements with this victory, which is worth looking forward to.
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