Since 2021, it has donated 50 million yuan of materials to Henan, which has suffered from heavy rains and floods, triggering wild consumption by millions of netizens, and consumers rushing into live broadcast rooms and offline stores to empty their inventory. "Donation madness" and "wild consumption" have brought unprecedented attention to Hongxing Erke, and the Chinese people have expressed their willingness to contribute to help Hongxing Erke become a century-old enterprise.
The popularity of Hongxing Erke seems to be accidental, but it is inevitable. In the context of the rise of domestic products, consumers' awareness of domestic products has awakened, and their sense of identity with domestic products has become increasingly prominent, which has created a new fertile ground for the development of more cost-effective domestic products. But more importantly, the upgrading of the competitiveness of Hongxing Erke products, and the two-way rush with consumers, re-establish the image of domestic products in the minds of the Chinese people.
When the tide goes out, you know if you are swimming naked. After the "tide", we also found the real specific changes of Hongxing Erke, netizens said that the product is ugly, the boss found a young and powerful designer team from the industry, changed the appearance of the product, and changed the designer Hongxing Erke again and again with products into the public eye, not only that, from Hongxing Erke to create a professional running shoe matrix, committed to serving Chinese runners. In the field of racing, the Zhijing series and the Jiechen series are active in the marathon course, and in the public field, the first park running shoes can more comprehensively meet the daily needs of mass runners.
Netizens said that they wanted to support Hongxing Erke but could not choose the right one, could not choose the large size, could not choose the women's model, the boss made great efforts under the adjustment of the product structure; netizens said that they could not find Hongxing Erke stores in their own cities, so the boss optimized the channel, and in the past two years, they also launched the Xingchuang concept store, entered the core business district of the first and second-tier cities, and truly upgraded from brand to product to channel, and successfully caught the traffic.
In addition to the upgrading of products and channels, the brand upgrade can be called a "model of domestic products", not only co-branding, Hongxing Erke took the lead in opening the pattern, the domestic business war seconds become dream linkage, the launch of the domestic product alliance, fashion week staged the unity of domestic products, and the fans are in a group, truly treat the fans as their own family, continuous public welfare activities, the annual Thanksgiving growth day, the strategic upgrade is not falling, from the "new domestic products of science and technology" strategy to the end of last year The new "born for the national movement" The new brand strategy shows a brand marketing style that knows how to adapt to the times.
The light of domestic products was born for the national movement
Before July 2021, many consumers' impression of Hongxing Erke was still stuck in the brand that shouted "To Be No.1", but the design was not fashionable enough and focused on sinking channels. But in fact, as early as around 2016, Hongxing Erke has begun to make efforts to develop younger and branded.
In 2020, Hongxing Erke took advantage of the rise of domestic products and put forward the brand strategy of "new domestic products of science and technology". Relying on its innovation laboratory Erke E.T-Lab, it has continuously launched new technology products, such as Qi Technology, Bi Technology, Qitan Technology, etc., establishing a new label of "domestic black technology", coupled with a new national style aesthetic design, reshaping consumers' perception of the brand.
In 2021, after "out of the circle", Hongxing Erke opened a new dialogue mode between the brand and consumers - "co-creation", listening to and absorbing the suggestions of fans, from the co-creation of the popular "Qingming Shanghe Tu" board shoes with Sichuan and American students to the launch of major IP co-branding, from the "Youth Co-creation Plan" to the "Youth Co-creation Design Competition" launched by the China Fashion Designers Association, Xingerke products have completed a solid step in product transformation and upgrading, and also let the outside world see the new possibilities of domestic brands.
In 2022, Hongxing Erke will deepen the concept of "co-creation", allowing runners to participate in product research and creation to create products that are more in line with user needs. Later, at the beginning of 2023, Hongxing Erke upgraded the strategy of "creating Chinese runners together", focusing on running, a national sport, and establishing the goal of "national running shoes". Also with the help of science and technology, Hongxing Erke has created a more comprehensive and powerful product matrix, covering the needs of runners at all levels, such as amateur runners, junior runners, and professional runners. According to official information, Hongxing Erke's current running shoe products are mainly divided into five categories: racing, training, cushioning, lightweight, and sports soothing.
In December 2023, Hongxing Erke's brand strategy will be upgraded again, proposing "born for the national movement". As Wu Rongzhao, chairman of Hongxing Erke Industry, said when he participated in the 2023 Boao Forum for Chinese Entrepreneurs: "Born for the national movement", in the past 23 years, Hongxing Erke has always focused on meeting the growing sports consumption needs of the Chinese people;
According to the National Fitness Plan (2021–2025) issued by the State Council in 2021, the goal is to achieve a national sports participation rate of 38.5% by 2025 or before, driving the total scale of the national sports industry to reach 5 trillion yuan. As one of the sports with the highest public awareness and participation, running can naturally be called a national sport. In a broad sense, Hongxing Erke's goal is to radiate from more than 30 million runners to more sports people, protect national health, and support national sports.
It is not difficult to see Hongxing Erke's determination to deeply cultivate the national movement. Under the guidance of the strategy of "Born for the National Movement", Hongxing Erke has comprehensively upgraded its products in the field of racing from professional performance and visual effects. In the 2024 Xiamen Marathon, Hongxing Erke broke 3 with a wearing rate of more than 18%, and Zhijing achieved PB (personal best) among 128 runners. With its outstanding product strength, Hongxing Erke has continuously accumulated brand power among professional runners and achieved catching up and overtaking on the running shoe track.
However, at present, in China, there are 100 million core runners and 300 million mass runners, which means that Hongxing Erke wants to become a "national running shoe", and greater growth opportunities are in the public field. To this end, we will increase the research and development of products that are more friendly to mass runners, and in order to enhance the attention of mass runners to the brand, we will lower the cognitive threshold of mass runners on running shoes through innovative categories.
Hongxing Erke found that the park is one of the main scenes of national fitness running, so it pioneered the "park running shoes" for the park running scene. The first park running shoe Wonder Bullet 5, with a gold midsole ratio and a track-type shading design, greatly improves the stability of running shoes and solves the pain points of complex road conditions in park scenes. Not only that, the park running shoes are suitable for a variety of sports in the park scene such as brisk walking, square dancing, rope skipping, etc., extending the value of the product to more diverse sports groups and realizing the real meaning of being born for national sports.
Whether it is the continuous upgrading of the brand strategy, or the enrichment and innovation of the product matrix, it can be seen that the value of Hongxing Erke as a national brand ultimately falls on meeting the real needs of the Chinese people's mass sports, and this is also the core strength of Hongxing Erke to create the brand value of "the light of domestic products".
2. Seize the opportunities in the consumer trend and seize the intellectual highland of the brand
"Donation Maniac" seems to be an unavoidable label for Hongxing Erke, but in fact, as a national enterprise, Hongxing Erke has been pursuing the concept of "taking from the society and giving back to the society", and has been actively engaged in public welfare undertakings since 2003, and its public welfare footprints are all over the fields of animal protection, love for the disabled, and rural sports revitalization, showing the sense of corporate social responsibility to the outside world.
According to the annual "China's 500 Most Valuable Brands" by the World Brand Lab, from 2018 to 2022, the brand value of Hongxing Erke continued to grow, of which 40.065 billion in 2021 and more than 50 billion in 2022.
The continuous rise of brand value is due to the fact that Hongxing Erke is not lost in the wild traffic for a while, but has truly found the "backbone" of the brand, knowing that the product is the password that can connect with consumers for a long time. Hongxing Erke is based on the positioning of "national running shoes", with the goal of allowing every Chinese runner to wear running shoes suitable for himself, and constantly improving product strength and service capabilities, while gaining insight and seizing opportunities in consumer trends, formulating effective brand strategies, and obtaining a boost in brand value and a place in consumers' minds.
First of all, Hongxing Erke found a clear emotional bearing, that is, national culture and national self-confidence, and integrated "Hualiu" into brand marketing. For example, cross-border co-branding, from Henan Museum, to "Under One Man", "Assassin Wu Liuqi" and other Chinese comic IPs, from the glory of the national game king, to the leading domestic product team building at Fashion Week, every shot of Hongxing Erke is to speak together with representative national brands and domestic IPs, mobilize consumers' national emotions, and feed back the improvement of brand voice.
Kantar BrandZ's continuous research has found that media advertising plays an important role in the growth of brand equity among the many marketing behaviors that affect brand equity, driving the growth of brand equity by up to 25%. Nowadays, "one shake, one book, one focus" is the media channel that makes the greatest contribution to brand building, and it is the core grasp to enhance brand equity and occupy minds.
Therefore, at the beginning of 2024, Hongxing Erke will join hands with Focus Media to land in 100 major cities, radiate the whole country, and use the centralized detonation ability of Focus Elevator Media to detonate 200 million mainstream consumers, boost the popularity of the new category of "Park Running Shoes", enhance the voice of Park Running Shoes, and make efforts towards the goal of national popularity. At the same time, we will use the huge influence of Focus on consumers' minds to enhance the perception of the mainstream consumer group on the brand strategy of "Born for the National Movement".
Since the trigger of wild consumption, the growth of Hongxing Erke on the road of brand building is obvious to all. The brand has let consumers see the continuous strength of products and brands in the circle again and again. In 2024, with "Born for the National Movement" as the core, Hongxing Erke will open a new brand paradigm, grasp the "one shake, one book, one focus", empower the resonance of online and offline brand value, and cultivate consumers' long-term purchase desire and brand loyalty. It is foreseeable that Hongxing Erke is setting off a new brand revolution and striding forward with the banner of "national running shoes".