Luxury brands are crazy to show overtures to sports stars, marching into the sports field, making traditional sports brands shiver?
In the just-concluded Premier League season, Son Heung-min became the first Asian in the history of the Premier League to win the "Golden Boot" award with excellent performances.
In the face of such outstanding performance, many brands have set their sights on this world-class star with high commercial value, and even the high-end luxury brand Burberry has thrown an olive branch to Son Xingyu.
A few days ago, Burberry officially announced that Sun Xingyu became the global ambassador of the brand. Sun Xingyu's personal business value has been recognized again.
In fact, in recent years, many luxury brands have repeatedly shown favors to sports stars while giving entertainment stars titles, and have included many top athletes in the brand camp.
At the beginning of 2021, tennis Grand Slam winner Naomi Osaka became LV's global brand ambassador.
In 2022, Gucci spent a million pounds to sign Manchester City star Glalish.
Well-known watch brand Rolex has looked for sports stars such as "tennis superstar" Roger Federer, "ski beauty" Lindsay Vaughan and golfer Phil Mickelson to shoot advertisements.
According to the "2021 China Luxury Market Report", in 2021, Chinese mainland personal luxury sales increased by 36% year-on-year to 471 billion yuan. The Chinese market accounts for about 21% of the world's total luxury consumption from 20% in 2020, and by 2025, the Chinese market is expected to become the world's largest luxury market.
In the face of such a huge market, luxury brands have also accelerated the harvest of top domestic athletes.
Gu Ailing, a skier with excellent fashion, has a number of luxury endorsements.
Earlier, he became an LV brand ambassador and in May this year, he served as a runway model for the brand.
In September 2021, "Frog Princess" Gu Ailing became the brand spokesperson of Tiffany & Co. and participated in the filming of the brand's "520" series of advertising campaigns this year.
Table tennis Grand Slam winner Malone also became a Prada brand ambassador this year.
Dior embraced the e-sports competition that was loved by the "Z generation" and appointed League of Legends world champion Yu Wenbo as a brand friend.
In addition to inviting sports stars to act as brand spokespersons, luxury goods will also invite athletes to participate in brand activities or do related promotions.
Fencing champion Sun Yiwen has been invited to participate in Dior's brand activities.
When Prada held the "2022 Autumn/Winter Women's Fashion Show", it invited Olympic champion Gong Lijiao to watch the show in the first row.
In April this year, Burberry invited Winter Olympic champion Qu Chunyu to the Chengdu store to participate in brand activities.
Wu Dajing, who is also a speed skating champion, received the promotion of LV watches after the Winter Olympics and successfully "just ate".
These players themselves have their own champions aura, with indisputable achievements as endorsements, and their self-confidence, sunshine, positive energy, and influence in the field of sports are in line with the brand tone of many luxury brands.
Unlike the stereotypes of many people in the early years of athletes' dullness and woodenness, today's athletes, especially the young athletes of the "Z generation", are more confident in front of the camera, willing to show their personality, and their business ability in fashion is not worse than some entertainment stars.
This is evident in their big films for major fashion magazines.
(Wu Dajing's blockbuster for Fashion Health magazine)
(Su Yiming's cover for Zhizu magazine)
(Gu Ailing's blockbuster for Jia Ren magazine)
(Sun Yiwen's blockbuster for Red Show magazine)
(Trend magazine blockbuster shot by Sun Yiwen)
(Three generations of women's football players shoot the cover for Wonderland magazine)
Their expressiveness is no worse than some traffic stars. The confidence and perfect body curves displayed in front of the camera are not available to many artists.
The popularity of athletes is not worse than that of traffic stars. According to the "Annual Report of Sports Star Weibo" released by Weibo, in 2021, the cumulative increase in the number of fans of sports athletes that can be counted on the platform will reach 231 million, and the topics related to athletes have been listed on the hot search list 5865 times, and the total number of interactions with related blog posts will be 210 million times.
While athletes continue to create good results on the field, the public's discussion and love for them have reached new heights. This will naturally attract the attention of luxury brands.
In recent years, with the frequent overturning of entertainment stars, major brands have become more cautious and careful when choosing spokespersons. In contrast, the image of positive energy of sports stars is more deeply rooted in people's hearts and more secure, which also allows luxury brands to increase the option of athletes when choosing spokespersons.
In addition to the attractiveness of athletes themselves, luxury brands also want to enter the sports field through the influence of sports stars.
With the weakening of the impact of the epidemic and the increase in people's demand for sports and fitness, the field of sportswear has ushered in a small outbreak. The apparel market size in 2021 is 1.5 trillion US dollars, of which the sportswear field accounts for one-fifth of the total, at 38.4 million US dollars.
From a single brand point of view, the sports brand "upstart" lululemon, which started with yoga pants, will have sales of $6.25 billion in 2021, more than double the turnover of Saint Laurent, a traditional luxury brand specializing in fashion and beauty.
The strong performance of sports brands has also increased the confidence of countless people in investing in sportswear. Many luxury brands want to carve up the big cake of sports.
To this end, they accelerate their layout into the field of motion.
Brands such as Chanel, Gucci and miu miu have launched ski collections, Prada has also launched ski feeder brands, and opened a "limited time store" in Beijing last September.
Luxury brands have also joined hands with big sports brands.
Dior and Nike launched joint sneakers, which triggered a frenzy in the shoe market.
This month, the joint model launched by Gucci and Adidas will also be officially released.
The battle for luxury brands to enter the field of sportswear will become even bigger, and traditional sports brands are ready? Text/Liang Mingjun