Interface News Reporter | Alice Chu
Interface News Editor | Xu Yue
Outdoor tracks are attracting more and more players, and South Korea's F&F Group, the parent company of sports fashion brand MLB, is one of the most recent entrants.
IN THE SECOND HALF OF 2023, F&F GROUP WILL INTRODUCE ITS BRANDS DUVETICA AND SUPRA TO CHINA. The former is positioned as a high-end outdoor lifestyle brand - its main jackets are mostly priced between 2,000 yuan and 3,500 yuan, and will open its first store in China in Shanghai in August 2023, while the latter is a high-street lifestyle brand that "integrates urban trend outdoor", and will open multiple stores in five cities including Shanghai and Chongqing during the "National Day" period in 2023.
BOTH DUVETICA AND SUPRA HAVE TAKEN THE ROUTE OF HIGH AND RAPID EXPANSION. In the past six months, DUVETICA and SUPRA have opened 15 and 20 stores respectively, most of which are located in core shopping malls in first-tier and provincial capital cities, including The Mixc, Yintai and IFS.
Recently, DUVETICA's new store, which is also its first store in Jiangxi, has been fenced in Nanchang MixC City.
NEITHER DUVETICA NOR SUPRA ARE COMPLETELY NEW TO CHINESE CONSUMERS.
AFTER BEING ACQUIRED BY F&F GROUP IN 2018, DUVETICA ENTERED THE CHINESE MARKET IN 2020 WITH ITS TMALL FLAGSHIP STORE, BUT IT WAS STILL POSITIONED AS AN ITALIAN LUXURY DOWN JACKET BRAND. In fact, this is what DUVETICA was when it was founded in 2004, when its two founders, Giampiero Vagliano and Stefano Rovoletto, were designers of the luxury down jacket brand Moncler.
Although SUPRA is the first time to enter China, it has been known to some Chinese consumers as early as around 2010 because of Justin Bieber's goods. Founded in 2006 by American skateboarder Chad Muska, the skateboarding brand initially focused on trendy items such as skateboard shoes and T-shirts.
SUPRA has changed hands several times, and at one time it fell into the hands of Chinese companies. In 2019, Xtep International acquired a number of brands, including SUPRA, from South Korea's Yilian Group, but had no plan to take over SUPRA, which was losing money at the time, and sold it to F&F Group the following year.
Obviously, both DUVETICA and SUPRA, which have returned to the Chinese public's view, have been remodeled to varying degrees under the transformation of F&F Group. In recent years, the outdoor trend in the Chinese market has become more and more popular, which has become the common tone of the two.
At present, DUVETICA still retains the down jacket product line, but no longer mentions its history as a high-end down jacket brand in the official introduction. The brand's main product has become a hard and soft shell jacket, and it has also launched athleisure wear and shoes and bags. BUT DUVETICA'S PENCHANT FOR COLOR CONTINUES TO BE USED, AND ITS ITALIAN "ROOTS" ARE REPEATEDLY EMPHASIZED. DUVETICA HAS SET UP AN "ITALIAN" SECTION IN ITS TMALL FLAGSHIP STORE, WHERE PRODUCTS ARE CATEGORIZED BY COLORS SUCH AS SICILIAN PINK, ABSOLUTE PURPLE, CAPRI BLUE, ETC.
SUPRA, on the other hand, focuses on urban light and outdoor, and its pricing is more affordable. SUPRA still focuses on sneakers, but also introduces windproof jackets that are lighter than professional jackets, as well as baseball uniforms, sweatshirts, T-shirts, cargo pants, bags and hats and other items that reflect its streetwear DNA. The SUPRA price band is mainly within 1,000 yuan, and the most expensive single product on sale in its Tmall flagship store is currently priced at 2,399 yuan.
Whether it is the fast-paced speed of store expansion or the outdoor-based concept, to a certain extent, it shows F&F's confidence in its market judgment. WITH MLB'S SUCCESS AHEAD OF THEM, IT SEEMS THAT THE F&F GROUP WANTS TO USE THE SAME STYLE OF PLAY TO LEAD THE WAY WITH DUVETICA AND SUPRA.
After F&F Group took over the agency of the MLB brand in Chinese mainland in 2020, it reshaped MLB's performance in the Chinese market by rapidly developing stores and localizing the brand and products.
According to MLB's official website, MLB entered the Chinese mainland market in June 2019 and opened a Tmall flagship store; in less than two years, the number of offline stores exceeded 100, and by July 2023, the number of stores exceeded 1,000, and currently has 1,046 stores. In contrast, MLB has never set foot in online channels under the operation of the previous Chinese agency, and there are only more than 300 offline stores at most.
Jiemian News mentioned in a previous report that because the baseball culture represented by MLB - its brand name is derived from Major Baseball League (Major Baseball League) and is not mature in the Chinese market, F&F Group has weakened the baseball attribute of MLB in terms of brand image, and turned to be close to entertainment and fashion, positioning it as a street sports lifestyle brand.
Reflected in the marketing strategy, MLB favors celebrities who are popular with younger people — its current brand ambassador is Yu Shuxin, and it also focuses on social media operations. At the product level, MLB drives R&D based on feedback from the target market and adopts a large-scale product strategy. Take MLB's signature hats as an example, MLB releases more than 300 new hats every year, and these items printed with prominent logos also help strengthen consumers' brand awareness.
According to the financial report of F&F Group, the revenue of the group's subsidiaries operating Chinese mainland business in 2023 increased by 40.0% year-on-year to 813.256 billion won (about 4.258 billion yuan), accounting for 30.86% of F&F Group's revenue from 25.39% in the previous year, and operating profit increased by 108.3% year-on-year to 32.554 billion won (about 170 million yuan).
BACK AT DUVETICA AND SUPRA, THE F&F GROUP'S TRADING STYLE HAS BEEN REFLECTED. In addition to the aforementioned rapid store expansion and localization transformation of the brand, both have also laid out account matrices on platforms such as Xiaohongshu, WeChat, Douyin, Weibo, etc., and both focus on celebrity marketing.
Backed by the F&F Group, which has a certain accumulation in the Chinese market, DUVETICA and SUPRA have a few advantages over some brands that have broken into the Chinese market alone. But navigating the increasingly crowded outdoor sports circuit is no easy task.
Taking the mid-to-high-end outdoor track where DUVETICA is located, for example, ANTA alone has competitors such as Arc'teryx, Peak Performance, and Kolon, as well as European, American and domestic brands such as The North Face, PATAGONIA, Mammoth, Wolf Claw, and Kellerstone. Most of these brands can be traced back to a certain outdoor sport, and they have gained endorsement in professionalism, and in this regard, DUVETICA, which has only transformed from down jackets to high-end outdoor in recent years, has been underlined.