The first time I heard about li-ning 1990 (Li Ning 1990) or in the circle of friends, why did Li Ning launch such a brand, and did he use the founding logo to make a new brand? On November 4th, Li Ning Group held the Li Ning 1990 brand conference in Shanghai, taking this opportunity, especially with the communication with Xu Yanfang, general manager of Li Ning 1990 brand products, Lazy Bear Sports established a preliminary understanding of the brand, especially one of his important labels - the first and only new brand incubated by the Li Ning brand itself.
The new product launch venue is Shangsheng Xinsuo, a new cultural landmark in Shanghai.
Why launched Li Ning 1990? For this brand that has just passed the year, the most direct purpose is to broaden the product boundary and enrich the product structure.
The positioning of the Li Ning brand itself is a "professional sports" brand, and professional sports are not only the genes of the brand, but also the external performance of the brand. Even the sports trend series is emphasizing "technology". Its core users cannot escape the professional sports and trend sports groups.
But for Li Ning 1990, it is using the way of sports brands to build lifestyle brands, and sports are only genes rather than external. For example, Xu Yanfang, the general manager of the brand, wore a casual suit on the day of the press conference, which at first glance is a formal fit, but the real ruler is a loose fabric, emphasizing comfort.
Xu Yanfang uses "reinterpretation" to describe product creativity: "Some of Li Ning's products in 1990 are fashionable remodeling of Li Ning's early products, including color matching, cut, shape, etc., reflecting a sense of contemporary. Because it is positioned as a "high-end sports fashion" brand, some new elements have also been enabled at the product supply chain end, including materials, processing technology, etc., and some materials have never been used before by the Li Ning brand.
1990 is the year of the birth of the Li Ning brand, the new brand used Li Ning's founding logo, designed as a "Trinity" pattern, which has also become the main pattern of the product.
In fact, when Li Ning was still warming up in 1990, many consumers compared it with "China Li Ning". Those analyses of styles, colours and prices tend to overlook the point – China Li Ning is a product line, and Li Ning 1990 is a new brand.
Why did Li Ning have such a position in the group in 1990? Li Ning said that Li Ning 1990 is not a "professional sports" brand after all, and placing it under it may weaken the positioning of Li Ning's brand itself.
However, from the strategic analysis of Li Ning Group's "single brand, multiple categories and multiple channels", it will be found that Li Ning needs Li Ning 1990. Among the domestic sports brands, Li Ning may be the only one who does not and does not want to expand the basic disk through acquisitions, even if it has Red Double Happiness, Aigao Aigle, etc., the revenue of these brands has not been incorporated into the financial report.
The strategy of the Li Ning brand is to tell the story of the brand itself, because of the particularity of its brand - the founder has a legendary experience, and the company is named after him. But Li Ning also has to maintain his own high growth rate, even if he chooses a more difficult development path than his competitors.
Li Ning had a slogan for a time called "Let Change Happen" (in 2015 it was changed back to the original slogan "Anything is possible"), but as the plate gets bigger and bigger, it can't happen easily. But Li Ning 1990 is different, it has a higher degree of flexibility, without being constrained by labels and definitions, can be explored in a higher and deeper fashion field.
As a new brand, Li Ning 1990 is independent of the Li Ning brand in many aspects, and has established an independent team of dozens of people, including a design team dedicated to the service of the new brand. In terms of channels, Li Ning 1990 will also use independent channels. At present, Li Ning 1990 has established a mini program shopping channel online, and offline stores will also adopt a direct operation model at this stage. However, although it maintains a certain degree of independence, the business as a whole still belongs to the group business.
Since it is a new exploration, the differentiation between products must be clear, after all, the birth of the new brand is to expand a larger market, not to change the internal logic of Li Ning's existing market and business.
Li Ning 1990 also increased Li Ning's brand power in disguise. Under the background of the rise of domestic products, in recent years, domestic sports brands are "looking upwards", considering how to improve the invisible ceiling, the most direct performance is the simultaneous improvement of product quality, design and price.
From the perspective of the products launched, shoes are basically around 1000 yuan, launched board shoes, retro jogging shoes and fashion sneakers; clothes and pants are around 1200 yuan, up to 1899 yuan, jacket down jacket prices are higher, but many are suits, so the price may double, such as a set of flannel sports suits, the top price is 1699 yuan Pants 1299 yuan, and there are color matching sold out.
Although the store, which Li Ning described as the "world's first store" in 1990, has just officially opened, there has been a good flow of money in the soft opening stage, according to the clerk, some of the colors of several goods have been sold out. During the soft opening period, many celebrities came to buy, Sun Honglei, Zhang Hanyu, Xu Fan, which was captured by Weibo. B station and other video platforms also have many up masters hung up the experience video. In addition, stores in Chongqing and Wuhan will also open before the end of the year.
In the products that have been listed in the store, the overall feeling is low-key and simple, the color matching is stable and gentle, there is no flamboyant contrast, printing and conspicuous large logo, and the sharp convergence. In addition, Li Ning 1990 will also launch a quarterly "special" product. The current "special model" highlights the "blue print" design, inspired by the blue dyeing process, and placed in the most prominent position in the store.
Product planning for sub-brands and parent brands is also different. Li Ning brand products are usually divided according to different sports, and Li Ning 1990 is through different life scenarios to determine product planning, such as work, commuting, outdoor, light sports, etc., there is no clear product line.
At the level of co-branding, Li Ning 1990 expanded the new partners and co-brand space of Li Ning brand. Xu Yanfang revealed that the next season is a joint model with French luxury brand corthay. Corthay is a shoe custom brand, each pair of shoes are priced at more than 3,000 euros (about 20,000 yuan), Brunei Sultan is his most famous customer, corthay has now settled in the Beijing skp mall. Business casual shoes co-branded with Corthay are also about to be listed in Li Ning's 1990 store.
The Li Ning brand is also fully supporting the development of Li Ning 1990. On 28 October, Li Ning and shareholder Extraordinary China announced that they would place 120 million shares on a trade-before-nova basis at a price of HK$87.5 per share, raising approximately HK$10.5 billion (equivalent to approximately RMB8.6 billion). According to the announcement, the funds raised are mainly used for the launch of new categories, international expansion, supply chain systems and infrastructure upgrades.
As for the time node of the launch of the new brand, Xu Yanfang believes that the biggest time node is "ready". According to him, the new brand has been planning since a year or two ago, and the product preparation alone has more than a year, and now is the time when the product is more mature and can be launched.
At this stage, it is also a golden track for sports fashion. According to Tianfeng Securities, the sportswear market has maintained a relatively high growth rate in recent years, with a compound growth rate of 9.01% in the market size from 2015 to 2020. According to the data provided by Euromonitor and CICC, China's sports and leisure sports fashion category accounts for more than 50% of the footwear industry.
The emergence of Li Ning in 1990 is also the brand to capture the market demand, with the popularization of the concept of healthy life, superimposed on the State Council issued the "National Fitness Plan 2021-2025", the choice of dress under the diversified life scene has become an important consideration for consumers, and the market potential is large. In the future, with the upgrading of consumption, quality, concept and values transmitted by brands will become important factors affecting consumer purchases.
"Restarting the founding logo is an important decision, and the product quality must match it." Xu Yanfang said.
The original logo is undoubtedly an important asset of the Li Ning brand, and the feelings carried in it are also one of the core competitiveness of this high-speed brand. The exhibition area of the new product conference reviewed the 30-year development history of the Li Ning brand, and many treasured materials, especially a 1989 Yangcheng Evening News, published the "Collection of "Li Ning" Sportswear Trademark Design", which can be seen as the beginning of Li Ning's 30-year journey.
Re-activating Li Ning's original logo has indeed gained a wave of emotional buyers. On Weibo, many netizens called Li Ning 1990 "Li Ning's old standard", and some netizens posted that the early products of Li Ning purchased many years ago were compared with the new products now. The current Li Ning logo was replaced in 2010.
At this stage, most of the trendy products that show personality are under the slogan of facing the Z generation, embracing young people and embracing the future, and Li Ning is "embracing the past" this time, touching the memories of the post-70s, post-80s and even the early 90s. Although Xu Yanfang has repeatedly emphasized that products are planned according to consumption scenarios rather than consumer portraits, it is conceivable that the above groups of people are likely to become the main purchasing group of Li Ning in 1990, and their purchasing power is relatively stronger.
Whether Li Ning 1990 can really catch "non-Li Ning users" will be the key to its future development.
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