Text | Hearing the sound of the green tree
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Sources: All of the information stated in this article is based on reliable sources, and is detailed at the end of the article
In 1990, Mr. Li Ning, the prince of gymnastics, founded the national sports brand "Li Ning", which is very popular with consumers and accompanies the growth of a generation of post-80s.
But after entering the new millennium, the marketing strategy of this brand is shocking, and even the official media have criticized it, and people's impression of the domestic product "Li Ning" has changed a little.
Sky-high prices of domestic products
For consumers, the biggest change in the flavor of the "Li Ning" brand is its price. Around 2000, the price of Li Ning was still relatively common, and many sneakers and sportswear of the post-80s and 90s were from the Li Ning brand.
Now Li Ning has too many branch brands, and the prices of many branches are far beyond the ability of ordinary consumers. As soon as many consumers entered Li Ning stores, they were dissuaded by the price.
Not to mention the Wade series that has gone international, the "China Li Ning" series alone has persuaded a large number of domestic consumers. A solid-color off-white sweatshirt with the words "China Li Ning" on the front, the price is 699 yuan!
The shoes of "China Li Ning" are even more exaggerated, a pair of casual shoes with simple colors and complex patterns will cost 999 yuan, and if it is a joint shoe with other stars, the price will be more than 1000.
Some of the older post-80s generations are very unfamiliar with the prices of these goods of Li Ning: When did Li Ning become so expensive? Is this still the Li Ning I am familiar with?
Compared with 20 years ago, Li Ning's products have indeed risen a little, but those more expensive shoes and clothing are mainly concentrated in a few specific branches, and not all Li Ning products are very expensive. But the way Li Ning's commodities are rising is really unpleasant.
The price increase has caused controversy
The price of Li Ning's commodities does not rise little by little with the price, and its price has two key rising nodes.
In the 90s of the last century, Li Ning, a sports brand, won the naming rights of Chinese sports because of the legendary experience of its founder.
When the athletes competed, they wore Li Ning's clothes, which made enough publicity for Li Ning, and Li Ning became the leader of domestic products.
But even so, Li Ning still can't compete with foreign sports brands such as Nike, Adidas, Jordan, etc., and there is a big gap between Li Ning and these brands in terms of sales and popularity. In 2006, Adidas' turnover was 100 billion yuan, while Li Ning's turnover was only 3.2 billion yuan.
It wasn't until the 2008 Beijing Olympics that the situation improved. In the 08 Olympic Games, Li Ning sponsored the media with the right to broadcast live, sponsored the team with a high probability of winning the gold, and Mr. Li Ning himself participated in the ignition ceremony, the Li Ning brand has gained great exposure and recognition.
Li Ning also took advantage of this east wind to open branches all over the country, and most of its products rose, and in 2010, Li Ning even changed its trademark.
The '08 Olympic Games was a "happy year" for Li Ning, and the marketing strategy of the entire brand won a big victory, and sales and popularity increased significantly. However, Li Ning's good fortune is far from over.
In 2021, Sweden, the United States and other Western powers questioned the labor of Xinjiang workers and no longer used Xinjiang cotton, and companies such as Nike, Adidas, and New Balance echoed and stood on the same side as Western countries.
Mainland consumers are very indignant about this, and they all say that they will no longer buy products from Nike, Adidas and other brands. At this time, Li Ning, as a representative of domestic products, strongly supported Xinjiang cotton, and indicated on the raw materials of the commodity that Li Ning used Xinjiang cotton in its products.
The practice of the Li Ning brand has been unanimously recognized by the people, and consumers have boycotted Nike and Adi, and have begun to buy a batch of domestic products led by Li Ning. But at this time, the price of Li Ning commodities has also risen a lot.
Li Ning's actions at this time certainly aroused the anger of netizens, and netizens criticized Li Ning's "eating appearance" on the Internet.
Some netizens' analogies are very sharp, and the sarcasm between the words is not high enough for Li Ning, and the pattern is not big enough.
However, even if Li Ning's price has risen, consumers who support Li Ning are still surging, and some platforms have even fried Li Ning's shoes, which has attracted criticism from the official media!
Shoe fried
In March 2021, when the Li Ning brand was at its peak, consumers bought products from domestic brands such as Li Ning and Hongxing Erke in order to support Xinjiang cotton, especially those high-end and expensive goods.
People's enthusiasm was too high, Li Ning's high-end goods were once bought out, and Li Ning's shoes on shopping platforms such as "Dewu" were once speculated to sky-high prices.
For example, Li Ning has a sneaker called "Wade's Way 4", which is only priced at 1499 yuan, but on the shopping platform, this shoe was fried to 48889 yuan!
The price of the limited-edition sneakers signed by Li Ning has risen to 88,000 yuan! Even if the limited-edition shoes themselves will appear in the secondary market, even if the limited-edition shoes will be at a premium, the price of 88,000 yuan is still too amazing.
Such an astonishing price naturally attracted the attention of the official, and Xinhua News Agency even tweeted a special article criticizing this kind of shoe speculation, if domestic brands cannot control the price of their own goods, the Xinjiang cotton incident will change from an "opportunity" to a "disaster".
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Consumers also had a lot of opinions on this, but at that time, Li Ning's voice was too loud, and some doubts were drowned in the surging wave of support.
However, after the Xinjiang cotton incident passed, some people still expressed their dissatisfaction with Li Ning on the Internet, criticizing Li Ning's trendy brand style for plagiarizing foreign brands.
Many people believe that Li Ning's "Feidian" and "Tianma" shoes are too similar to Nike's shoes in appearance, and they are suspected of plagiarizing Nike.
There is more than one case of this situation, Li Ning's "Air Raid 5" is too similar to Adidas's "Tianzu", and even the patterns of the co-branded short sleeves and shoes are the same as the current images of foreign rock musicians.
Li Ning's many operations have made its popularity a lot worse, and many consumers have turned to other domestic brands.
Interestingly, other domestic brands also have high-priced goods and price increases, but they have not aroused consumer disgust like Li Ning.
How to operate other domestic products
Most of the domestic sports brands take the civilian route, and the high-end brands are basically foreign goods. Therefore, as long as the price of domestic brands increases slightly, the public will be very disgusted and turn to other brands.
However, in the past decade or so, the pace of the rise of the mainland has been accelerating, people's spending power has increased a lot, and more and more people are buying "trendy brand" clothing and shoes.
"Trendy brands" have more fashion elements, which are more attractive to young consumers, and of course, the price is also more expensive, and various clothing brands and sports brands want to get involved in trendy brands, and the same is true for domestic brands such as Li Ning and Anta.
Anta is very smart in the management of trendy brands, and the company is very aware of its own brand positioning, so it did not rush to put expensive trendy brand products on the shelves, but acquired brands such as Fila, Arc'teryx, and Descente, and used these brands to operate high-end products.
In this way, Anta has not missed the high-end market in China, nor has it destroyed the characteristics of its own civilian products, and its reputation has not collapsed. In 2022, Anta's turnover will soar, equivalent to 1.1 Nike and 2.13 Adidas!
It can be seen that Anta's route of separating high-end and low-end brands is quite successful. This kind of operation is actually very common, and there are many similar examples at home and abroad.
Adidas has three brands: the classic sports clover, the sports performance of the three bars, and the casual series of circular three stripes. Even Toyota, which wants to make high-end cars, has opened up a sub-brand - Lexus.
However, Li Ning's trendy brand road is not smart, and it has opened up several new series directly under its own brand to operate trendy brand products. However, the brand on which these super trendy brand products are carried is still Li Ning.
As a result, whether it is Li Ning's online store buyers or offline consumers, they are often scared away by the expensive prices of trendy brands, and then have a "respectful and away" psychology towards the Li Ning brand, and the more famous Li Ning is abroad, the more people stay away from this brand.
As a top sports brand in China, it is impossible for Li Ning not to know about the development of sub-brands when it is involved in trendy brand products, but Li Ning still chooses to launch a new brand in the original brand, which can only show one thing: in the minds of Li Ning operators, Li Ning itself represents high-end, and there is no need to open up new sub-brands.
epilogue
In people's impression, Li Ning has always been a national sports brand, and its price should not be very expensive, but Li Ning's brand management has refreshed people's cognition again and again.
Many consumers want to know: why did Li Ning suddenly become what we can't afford?
In fact, even today's Li Ning still has a lot of clothing and shoes at ordinary prices, which people can find when they enter the mall and search a little in the product category.
However, Li Ning's publicity strategy, news events, and cases of consumer word of mouth all make consumers feel that "Li Ning is very expensive", which is very fatal for a civilian domestic brand.
Shoes and clothes are daily consumables after all, whether it is an expensive fashion brand or ordinary sneakers, people will often change and buy new shoes and clothes.
Therefore, major manufacturers must pay close attention to their own positioning, and cannot let their old users lose casually, and those things that affect the brand image are best not to do.
We all believe that Li Ning has the technical ability comparable to that of international sports manufacturers, and its high-end products also have corresponding quality and popular elements, but these things must appear in and be in the right place.
No matter how good something is, if it doesn't happen in the right place, it doesn't turn out to be right.
Past Highlights:
BMW started a price war for the new car from more than 400,000 to 250,000, and decisively abandoned the Model Y
Resources:
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