China's Basketball Season Opens, Lining Anta Sponsors First Step

Anta hand in hand Chinese women's Basketball League A (WCBA) the Li Ning Co encompasses equipment sponsor qualification from junior high school to college campus basketball. 2013-2014 season Chinese basketball season The curtain has been opened, and a marketing battle around basketball has also started. Insiders pointed out that with the localization of local sports goods brand differentiation more and more clear, enterprises in the choice of sponsorship resources are more rational and different.

Last year became Chinese men's basketball professional league (CBA) and the official partners of the national junior and senior high school basketball league, Li Ning Co recently signed a contract with the Chinese University Basketball League (CUBA) and the University Super Basketball League (CUBS). All of a sudden Level Four Basketball League Packaged sponsorship, Li Ning Co's determination to compete for basketball brand supremacy is revealed.

Li Yuanwei, former director of the basketball center, once said that there are about 300 million basketball fans in China, most of whom are 15 to 24 years old. There is no doubt that competition for young people is a matter of the future of basketball market competition.

Li Ning Co related people said that the sponsorship of the campus basketball league is a strong influence of the campus League in the student group, hoping to let Lining brand go deep into young people. However, Li Ning Co has paid a lot of money. According to insiders, the sponsorship agreements signed by Lining and the university league matches are over 5 years, and the annual expenditure is up to tens of millions of yuan, which is more than the contract signed by Anta before. CUBA The cost has doubled. With the huge investment in sponsoring the CBA League, Lining's expectation of the market is obviously high, and the real market return remains to be seen.

Two years ago Lining The company has made strategic adjustments, abandoning the practice of sponsoring diversity in the past, and established three core business categories: basketball, badminton and running. In the key Road Sports Consulting Co., Ltd., CEO Zhang Qing, recently, Li Ning Co has a series of big moves in basketball, which is based on this development strategy. "The scale of China's basketball market is huge. Li Ning Co must invest enough resources to support the development of its business, and layout the resources of domestic basketball matches across the board with only one aim -- to make Lining the most professional basketball brand. Of course, the effect of transformation depends on the executive power of enterprises. "

It is also a cake for the basketball market. Anta, who has just passed Lining as one of the sporting goods market in China, has different choice of sponsoring resources. After successively giving up the identity of CBA and CUBA sponsors, Anta chose to cooperate with WCBA this year.

"This is consistent with Anta's pragmatic style," Zhang Qing said. Maya Moore And other star foreign aid to join the WCBA, in some parts of the country WCBA attention is quite high, the media exposure opportunities are many, but the sponsorship price is much lower than CBA, therefore, WCBA can be said to be a "value depression".

In addition to sponsorship WCBA Anta's other big signing this year is to renew Garnett, sign into Rondo, and create a powerful and invaluable team, which is a powerful endorsement for the basketball strategy and the "national shoes" series.

Zhang Qing said that in the past two or three years, the domestic sporting goods industry has entered a period of adjustment, and enterprises have begun to seek change under pressure. A basic consensus is to start with differentiation and make their own brand characteristics. The path difference in sponsorship is exactly the epitome of domestic sports brands seeking to differentiate.

In fact, behind the differentiation of sponsorship resources is the differentiation of enterprise management mode and management mentality.

Zhang Qing said that in the current strategic transformation process, Li Ning Co chose the business mode of value driven and brand enhancing product premium, so the brand positioning, product pricing and other aspects were compared with international companies. But Anta believes that to clearly understand their brand positioning, input and output should be directly proportional, and investment is not directly proportional to sales. It is not a commercial activity. Anta is a professional sports brand positioned in the mass sports market of China. Basketball products should be in line with brand positioning. They hope that more consumers can wear high cost performance basketball shoes.

Judging from last year, Lining's product strategy in the high-end market is not bad. According to Li Ning Co, the sales performance of Lining basketball shoes grew obviously last season, and some products were in short supply. Take "Wade's way" shoes as an example. Although the two special items were sold for more than 1000 yuan, they were quickly sold out, and even after being sold by some shoe vendors. TaoBao EBay is on sale. "It seems to be the first time for a pair of domestic goods to be so crazy." There are basketball fans at a professional sports forum in China.

Anta has always pursued the market positioning of "attacking the mass market with high performance price ratio products", with its positioning this year. National sports shoes " KG4 basketball shoes For example, the price is only 399 yuan a pair. Zhang Qing believes that Anta's "high cost performance" product line is in line with the current "M" type of social consumption in China: one is to satisfy the public's demand for "high performance price ratio", and the other is to sell luxury goods for the rich.

Anta related people said that they are through technology research and development and cost control, can meet the user experience under the premise of the introduction of the most reasonable price of basketball shoes, cost-effective products to enable consumers to truly feel the value of products. Judging from the current sales data, Anta dealers are very confident about "national sports shoes". The number of orders for the first national shoes KG4 has been several times the total amount of KG series over the past 3 years.

Zhang Qing said that the brand positioning of enterprise differentiation, and then matching the sponsorship resources suitable for the development stage of the brand, matched that the domestic sporting goods enterprises are gradually becoming mature.