Lining Takes The Initiative To Highlight Brand Vitality

Lining's "evolution" takes the initiative to attack and change and maintain brand vitality.

Facing the market environment full of so many variables, Lining's pace of pformation and upgrading has never stopped.

Only with the change of business environment, can we make timely and proper response to changes in the competitive environment in order to promote its continuous growth and maturity.

However, every change of Lining seems to take risks in twists and turns.

Because only changes in the business environment and timely and appropriate responses to changes in the competitive environment will enable them to grow and mature.

After the loss hat was removed, Lining, once depressed, once again became the focus of the market.

Lining has repeatedly stressed that upgrading products, channels and operational capabilities is the key to turning losses into profits.

A change of price

As Lining, the most intuitive change should start with its brand advertising slogans.

It has gone through the evolution of seven slogans, namely, "the hope of the new generation of China", "leaving the wonderful to myself", "I exercise, I exist", "the beauty of sports, the world", "excellence, originating from nature", "everything is possible" and "let change happen".

In fact, logo change is not only a process of visual or publicity, but also a management process.

It represents a pformation of strategic positioning, management system, corporate culture, and organizers' pursuit of goals.

From the evolution of Lining's slogan, it is easy to see that the brand remolding track from conservative to international to high-end and young fashion.

It is worth mentioning that "everything is possible". It should be said that Lining is the most widely disseminated slogan, accompanied by the rapid growth of Lining.

It tells the voice of the athletes and young people.

At that time, Lining knew more about consumers than ever. Unfortunately, Lining did not keep pace with the innovation of the products, so that the target consumers and the actual buyers were seriously misplaced. The brand aging, lack of personality and mediocrity were regarded as the fashionable door outside of consumers.

Whether it is the market of price segmentation or the market of age segmentation, Lining can not be satisfied with the status quo.

Improving the sense of identity of young people is the root cause of Lining's brand remolding.

Therefore, entering the first tier cities and developing the new generation of consumer groups have become the way out for Lining.

So in 2010, Lining changed everything possible to make changes happen. At the same time, he announced that he used Lining LN old logo for many years to officially replace the new logo of Lining's cross action, and completed the close from "Earth" to "ocean", and the brand image is more fashionable and sexy.

This year is also known as the first year of Lining's reform.

After the bid, Lining became a radical markup, and the price of clothing products rose by 17.9% in the fourth quarter of 2010.

The direct result of price increases is the disappearance of the cost performance advantage and the loss of competitiveness of the market. Subsequently, a series of chain reactions, such as the drop in single store sales, the backlog of inventory, and the large number of stores, appeared.

Only by changing the slogan or changing slogans can not fundamentally achieve the strategic pformation of enterprises. To achieve genuine evolution, brands need systematic strategies and support and promotion of corresponding resources.

In other words, behind the external changes is Lining's response to the consumption demands of mainstream groups in different times, and every change is urgent and challenging.

The change of external performance is only the first step of Lining's brand remodeling.

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Confusion of product positioning

In terms of product positioning, Lining has been wandering between leisure fashion and sports.

At the beginning of the establishment of the company, the strong demand of the market enabled Li Ning Co to expand its category. Apart from sportswear, shoes and sports accessories, it also worked with partners to launch leather goods, fitness equipment, suits, shirts, stationery, cosmetics and other products.

Once led to confusion in the product system, the subdivision area can not be deep tillage.

In 1999, when Lining achieved annual sales of 700 million yuan in China, Nike's annual sales in China were only 300 million yuan, while Adidas only had 100 million yuan.

In 2003, Lining remained the leading position in China for 9 years, and was robbed by Nike, who had been intensive farming for 28 years in China.

In second years, Adidas also surpassed Lining in second place.

This experience has impressed Lining deeply.

Especially after 2005, Lining began the horizontal layout of the brand, dispersed Lining's resources, so that Lining's advantage in brand marketing and channel farming in the domestic market disappeared. The sales of self operated channels dropped to 10%~15%, the channel was unstable, and the discourse power was weak.

In 2008, Lining suddenly discovered that his competitors were no longer just the pnational giants such as Nike and Adidas, the Jinjiang Gang represented by Anta, and the leisure sports clothing brand represented by Kappa, which was sold by itself at a low price, is rapidly growing into a powerful force.

I have to say, in a second tier city, ADI, Nike has more influence than Lining, and in the three line and below the market, 361 degrees, Anta and so on than the price of Lining more affordable.

Although Lining has been committed to the brand image in the fashion of efforts, but with the mainstream consumer groups in the 90s of last century gradually entered the middle age market reality, Lining brand image in the market also showed signs of aging.

A survey shows that more than half of Lining's consumer groups are over 40 years old and no longer belong to young people.

Although the core consumer of sporting goods is 14 to 45 years old, for sporting goods companies, the 14~25 age group is a better consumer group.

Young consumers think Lining is inferior to international brands in cool, fashion and international sense.

It is Lining's brand that constantly swings in the two directions of fashion and professionalism, which causes many consumers to feel that they are not professional enough and fashion is not fashionable enough.

As Zhang Zhiyong, Lining's second CEO, he tried to rebuild Lining brand with internationalization, and launched a new round of Lining's fashion and internationalization.

In fact, since the Li Ning Co opened its first overseas store in Santander, Spain in 2001, Lining's internationalization has begun.

In 2005, Lining became a NBA strategic partner.

According to the financial report, in 2004, the proportion of Lining's international market income in total income was 2.4%, 1.3% in 2005, 0.9% in 2006, 0.8% in 2007, and 0.3% in 2008.

In 2009, Lining set up a Singapore subsidiary. The proportion of the international market in total revenue rose to 1%. In 2010, Lining set up an American subsidiary, and the share of the international market in total revenue rose to 1.4%.

In 2011, Lining's US store closed quietly. In early 2012, Lining, director of overseas business, left Li Jiaming.

In July of the same year, Lining's Spanish distributor declared bankruptcy. Since then, Lining's internationalization strategy has been stranded.

In response to the situation at that time, a person close to Lining's management pointed out that Lining had a big problem: the brand positioning was unclear and the strategy changed too much.

"To internationalize later, to be fashionable at a later time, to exercise and to change.

For so many years, no one can tell clearly what Lining's brand is, it is now high and low, and it is caught in the middle end of the industry.

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Channel revival and expansion

Since 2012, Lining has been losing money for three consecutive years. It is precisely in these three years that Lining has made significant adjustments and pformation.

How to break through the original wholesale business mode and develop differentiated operation under the homogenized competitive environment becomes the key.

Lining began to build up a new platform and business mode. The core of which is the channel revival plan, which cost up to 1 billion 400 million yuan to 1 billion 800 million yuan. It hopes to pform the traditional wholesale business mode and turn it into a retail business mode.

Especially in the past two years, Li Ning Co has fully implemented the retail business mode, established a comprehensive terminal to terminal retail business platform, and connected four key modules from the company, Affiliated Companies and channel level, including demand forecast, purchase plan, supply chain collaboration and retail operation.

Through demand analysis and formulation of procurement plan, improve inventory efficiency, reduce the cash conversion cycle, and make real-time arrangements for the actual sales of retail stores.

At the same time, the process also ensures that adequate inventory is allocated at the right time and at the right place to increase the same store sales.

But there are also many people in the industry that Lining's progress in the three year channel recovery plan is not complete. The retail mode has exerted pressure on the company's capital expenditure, the number of retail outlets has increased, the corresponding sales point rental costs, staff costs have increased, and terminal logistics costs have increased.

As of March 31, 2016, the number of sales outlets of Lining brand in China totaled 6106, representing a net decrease of 27 compared with the end of last year.

But the pace of Lining's continued expansion is far faster than the current adjustment.

For Lining's practice, the industry has also raised doubts. In the face of internal and external troubles, Lining's best practice should be to improve the storefront's operation and profitability, rather than regain the expansion, and ultimately lead to big but not strong.

It is worth mentioning that in view of the fact that there is a certain degree of coincidence between Lining and millet users, it is always Lining's goal to gather those young people who have been born with fever.

Last May, Lining announced a strategic agreement with millet ecological chain enterprise and millet Bracelet founder, to jointly develop a new generation of smart running shoes and explore the health field of big data.

Lining is accustomed to taking the initiative to attack, which is the vitality of Lining's brand.

The complex market environment is full of uncertainty. Just like a sports match, you never know the result until the last second.