"Decathlon has changed its logo again, and it has been less than three years since the last time it changed its logo."
Yes, from 1976 to 2024, in 38 years, Decathlon changed its logo five times.
Every time the logo is changed, there is a new brand direction, what is Decathlon aiming at this time?
New strategy, new logo
Founded in France in 1976, Decathlon was able to quickly occupy market share mainly due to two points, one is that there are many categories, and the other is to rely on parity to reach a large number of consumers.
When Michel Relec founded Decathlon, he wanted to create an affordable but diverse sports retail brand.
Clearly, Decathlon is doing what he wants.
前不久，迪卡侬集团更换logo还推出全新品牌宗旨——「Move People Through the Wonders of Sport」
In sports brands, it is not a common thing to change the logo, but every time the logo is updated, it indicates the rudder of the brand's direction.
For example, Nike, which has a 60-year brand history, replaced its 36-year-old brand logo for the Qatar World Cup in 2021, and Anta updated its 20-year-old logo last year to go international.
Celine Del Genes, Decathlon's Global Chief Customer Officer, said: "A brand needs a logo, a slogan, and a business campaign. When we want to be seen no longer just as a retailer, but as a sports brand, we need to enrich our brand image. This is our strategy to build a professional sports brand in many fields. ”
It can be seen that Decathlon is no longer satisfied with the popular brand positioning, but wants to expand to a professional sports brand.
Of course, the brand trademark renewal is only a symbol replacement in the final analysis, and what attracts more attention from industry insiders is Decathlon's new brand strategy "North Star" that comes with the new trademark.
Decathlon said that based on the new brand purpose, the "North Star" strategy focuses on three key areas, namely reshaping the customer experience, fulfilling the commitment to sustainable development and modernizing the enterprise end-to-end.
Under this strategy, Decathlon has refined the group's nine brands: QUECHUA (outdoor sports), TRIBORD (water sports), ROCKRIDER (mountain biking), DOMYOS (fitness sports), KUIKMA (racquet sports), KIPSTA (team sports), CAPERLAN (fishing, wilderness adventure, equestrian sports), BTWIN (skateboarding, roller skating and urban commuting sports), INESIS (Golf & Target Sports).
AT THE SAME TIME, DECATHLON HAS SET UP FOUR SEPARATE PROFESSIONAL BRANDS: VAN RYSEL (ROAD CYCLING), SIMOND (ROCK CLIMBING), KIPRUN (RUNNING) AND SOLOGNAC (HUNTING SPORTS).
IN THIS BRAND MATRIX, THERE ARE BOTH QUECHUA, WHICH IS MORE FAMILIAR TO THE PUBLIC AND CAN GET A JACKET FOR THREE OR FOUR HUNDRED YUAN, AS WELL AS MANY EXPENSIVE BRANDS: SUCH AS VAN RYSEL AND BTWIN FOR FOUR-FIGURE OR EVEN FIVE-FIGURE EXPENSIVE BICYCLES.
This new brand matrix seems to reveal Decathlon's ambitions: from a sporting goods retailer to a professional sports brand provider with a wide coverage.
The emergence of a number of expensive brands in the matrix shows that high-end is a very important part of the transformation of Decathlon Group.
"It's not that Archaeopteryx can't afford it, it's that Decathlon is more cost-effective"
"If you don't decide something, you can always find the product you like, and the price is affordable."
There are always a lot of such voices around, and this is indeed the case.
However, based on the Polaris strategy, Decathlon does not seem to intend to let Decathlon continue to be tied to the label of "small profits and quick turnover".
Peel off the label
Not long ago, Decathlon Group released its 2023 performance report.
According to the performance report, in 2023, Decathlon Group's performance will reach 15.6 billion euros (about 122.293 billion yuan), an increase of 1.15% over 2022. Online sales accounted for 17.4% of Group revenue, up 0.7% compared to 2022, and Net profit amounted to EUR 931 million in 2023.
Decathlon believes that in 2023, unstable factors such as persistent high inflation and geopolitics will lead to a slowdown in global consumer spending behavior, and also affect the growth rate of performance growth.
Barbara Martin Coppola, CEO of Decathlon, said in an interview at the press conference: "In 2023, global enterprises are facing unprecedented market challenges. At Decathlon, we chose this moment to upgrade our brand and lay a solid foundation for long-term development in the future. ”
In the Chinese market, Decathlon has captured a lot of consumers with its ultra-high cost performance, and its labels such as "Poor Ghost Paradise, Straight Men's Paradise, and Good Quality and Low Price" are deeply rooted in the hearts of Chinese consumers.
Although these are not the key factors for Decathlon's real success, this has also become a label and trouble that it cannot shake off.
Many outsiders will not associate Decathlon with high-end, after all, the main price performance, but Decathlon's price increase trend is becoming more and more obvious, especially after the popularity of outdoor sports in the past two years.
Old customers who are loyal to repurchase are also slowly realizing that Decathlon seems to be getting more and more expensive.
On social platforms, some netizens shared that in February 2022, the prices of the two outdoor hiking shoes she bought were 299 yuan and 349 yuan respectively (257 yuan and 279 yuan were paid), and now, the price of the same product in stores and official websites has risen to 399 yuan and 499 yuan, and there is no discount in the store.
In fact, as early as 2021, Decathlon has a wind of price increases.
According to Taiwanese media reports, about one-tenth of goods have undergone price adjustments, an increase of about 26%. In this regard, Decathlon's explanation is that due to the impact of the environment in the past two years, the cost of raw materials and transportation has risen, so the price of products has also risen.
On the question of whether the quiet price increase of some items means getting rid of the "poor ghost paradise" or "good quality and low price" label, Decathlon replied to NewSportsGo, "We don't have such a strategy".
Although it is not a "strategy", the price increase is a fact, and from the perspective of the entire industry, brands such as Anta and Nike have also increased in different ranges. As the cost of raw materials and transportation tends to stabilize, Decathlon's continuous price increases, and the real purpose of "increasing value" is becoming clearer.
Groping for the high-end road
It will take time
There is a difference between cost-effective products and high-end products.
But wanting to leave the circle of "poor ghost paradise" means accepting more discerning and refined requirements from consumers. The construction of brand power, product design and marketing, etc., all require more material and labor cost input.
For Decathlon, this is the equivalent of going from one extreme to the other.
In fact, Decathlon's high-end layout is earlier than most people imagined.
To enter the high-end game, Decathlon's means is to introduce high-end brands and sell products as distributors. As early as 1976, when the brand was born, Decathlon invited well-known bicycle brands to settle in.
Since then, Decathlon has also introduced many well-known brands, such as the running sub-brand KIPRUN to introduce professional running shoes such as ASICS, Nike and Adi, the badminton sub-brand PERFLY to introduce Yonex products, and the basketball sub-brand TARMAK to reach strategic cooperation with the NBA......
Even on Decathlon's official website, you can still buy high-end products from other brands.
Take Decathlon's four major professional brands as an example, and the four professional brands have started to do a lot of marketing, such as the sponsorship cooperation between athletes and professional events.
Running brand KIPRUN, for example, launched a new round of its elite team program in Ito, Kenya in January 2024, sponsoring a group of elite athletes, including two-time Olympic medalist Paul Chelimo.
As for high-end, Decathlon's approach is very smart, and it is not fully high-end.
At the launch of Decathlon's brand renewal, Fabien Brosse, Decathlon's global chief product brand officer, said in an interview: It is not easy to be a high-end brand, and "low-threshold sports" is still the core business concept of Decathlon, but the two can go hand in hand.
"Allowing everyone to participate in sports will still be Decathlon's first priority, and this is what we have always emphasized, and we will not change. But at the same time, we want Decathlon to have a certain share in the professional market, and our four professional brands are doing just that. Fabien Brosse said.
He believes that Decathlon is not to be fully high-end, but to increase the high-end sector to make itself more "all-round".
As Fabien said, Decathlon's transformation is not sudden, but an exploration of Decathlon's existing foundation. Just like the high-end Decathlon, it still has not given up its proud price advantage.
In the past two years, although the outdoor economy has brought economic dividends to Decathlon, the French sports retail giant's sales in 2022 will reach 15.4 billion euros (about 111.77 billion yuan), second only to Nike and Adi. But in terms of profit margin, Decathlon's net profit margin is 5.9%, far lower than Nike Adi's 11.6% and 10%. In terms of profits, Decathlon has also slowed down in revenue growth, falling from 21.3% in 2021 to 12% in 2022.
The road of small profits and quick sales is not easy to take.
Many netizens speculated that perhaps increasing profit margins is the best way to make more money at present.
And the current Decathlon is like the former Xiaomi, the long-term cost-effective route, has profoundly engraved the label of "cost-effective" into people's heads.
Xiaomi's high-end strategy began in 2020, when the price of high-end phones was raised, which made many "rice fans" stop.
"Or the Xiaomi I once knew?"
"It's so expensive, I might as well buy apples with some extra money"
"After all, the configuration has improved, and the appearance is not bad, try it"
All kinds of voices are overwhelming. When the brand wants to break through from the low-end to the high-end, the process of re-cultivating the consumer mind is both long and full of uncertainty - after the price of the Xiaomi car SU7 was revealed, the popular joke is: knowledgeable consumers are waiting for Redmi cars.
From the perspective of the high-end route, Decathlon, which is popular by relying on "cost performance", still has a long way to go.