Shoe Business Anta Brand Development Memorabilia

From star endorsement to event sponsorship to broadcast sponsorship, Anta's marketing process is the epitome of the development of China's sporting goods industry in the past 20 years.

Before, there is an unattainable international brand, followed by a younger brother who constantly imitated. The road Anta has gone through may bring some enlightenment to the future path of Chinese sports brand.

In 1991, the young Ding Zhizhong set up Anta company. At that time, there were thousands of small factories such as Anta in Jinjiang. Compared with other companies, Anta did not have any advantages.

Ding Zhizhong, who was just 18 years old, went north alone and joined the sea of Commerce.

Like all start-ups, Anta has just invested all its resources and energy in design, production and sales. Basically, there is no marketing cost to speak of. It is spread entirely by customer's word of mouth.

Over the past few years, although the product sales volume is not worried, the brand has never played out.

So Ding Zhizhong began to put the brand management on the agenda.

In 1997, the company started the construction of VI system, gradually standardizing the use of trademark identification, and thus opened the prelude to the implementation of Anta brand strategy.

The first thing that the star endorsed is the first artillery company, which is different from all the companies involved in sports shoes in Jinjiang. The first thing Anta wants to do after accumulating its original capital is to make its popularity known as soon as possible so that everyone can know the brand.

From 1999 onwards, Anta boldly adopted the marketing method of "celebrity endorsement +CCTV", and hired the world champion Kong Linghui of table tennis as the brand spokesperson at the expense of 800 thousand yuan per year. He chose "I choose, I like" as the slogan of Anta, and produced 5 million yuan in the prime time of the sports channel, launching a large-scale "advertising bombing".

Although nowadays celebrity endorsement sports brands are common, but at that time, it caused a strong shock in the public.

"China's national football is table tennis, and Kong Linghui is the world champion of table tennis, so it is easy to arouse the public's attention and naturally will pay attention to the brand he likes and chooses."

Anta brand director Xu Yang explains Anta's choice of Kong Linghui.

By virtue of this TV advertisement, Anta brand has emerged in the Chinese sporting goods market, and the combination of Anta and Kong Linghui has been popular among the people.

Soon after that, the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games were held as scheduled.

At the Olympic Games, the Kong Linghui final played against Sweden's top brass, Waldner, who tied the first 4 games. Kong Linghui completely destroyed the opponent's fighting spirit in the decisive game, and finally won the match after 5 rounds of hard work, which not only helped the Chinese table tennis team to take 4 gold for the 2 consecutive Olympic Games, but also completed the great slams of the men's singles world champion.

With the excitement of kissing the flag and waving his arms after Kong Linghui's victory, Anta brand is firmly engraved on the hearts of the Chinese people.

In this way, Anta has become a well-known brand in China.

In the meantime, Anta's sales also showed a strong growth: in 2000, Anta's sales exceeded 300 million yuan, which was 6 times that of 1997. In 2001, Anta made the first achievement in the comprehensive market share of the annual sports shoes market. By 2006, Anta had won the award for 6 consecutive years.

At this time, Ding Zhizhong is not only satisfied with Anta's position as a popular brand, but he hopes Anta can develop to a more professional way.

In 2003, Anta faced the first pformation in history.

When other sports brands have followed Anta's "star endorsement +CCTV" marketing mode, Anta has begun to turn its attention to sponsorship of professional sports events.

In fact, Anta has invested so much in sponsorship of events. An important reason is that many years of experience has accumulated considerable experience and confidence for Anta: for sponsoring the sixty-seventh World Weightlifting Championships in 1995, sponsoring the Fourth National City Games, the world middle school student Games, the Beijing International Marathon and the thirteenth Asian Games in 1999, especially in 2000, sponsoring the Sydney Olympic Games.

But with the gradual maturity of marketing concept and brand strength, Anta's sponsorship of sports events is becoming more rational and deeper.

"In sports competitions and events, we mainly focus on basketball, volleyball, table tennis and extreme sports.

Basketball can not only help Anta brand reputation, but also stimulate sales; volleyball and table tennis are national balls, which can reflect the national spirit; extreme sports represent fashion and youth.

Different projects have different emphases. Around these projects, the means and channels of Anta's communication are different, and the purpose is different. It can make Anta brand both professionalism, nationalism and internationalization.

Xu Yang said.

During this period, the most symbolic event was first called cooperation with CBA (Chinese Basketball League).

In June 2003, Anta sponsored the CBA3 seed team for the first time: Zhejiang Wan Ma, Shaanxi Dongsheng and Liaoning pan sports equipment.

In October 2004, Anta fully sponsored the CBA League. It became the sole sponsor of the sports equipment of 16 teams in 8 consecutive years in 2004 and the only designated partner of sports equipment in the CBA League in October 2004.

Under the full rights and interests of Anta, with the continuous development of CBA events, the company invested a lot of resources to carry out follow-up marketing and in-depth marketing strategies.

Firstly, it is embodied in product research and development.

In September 2005, in the CBA2005~2006 season, the Anta CBA series was officially released. All CBA teams will wear Anta equipment in the season.

2 months later, the Chinese Basketball Association and Anta jointly released the CBA special competition equipment specially designed and developed by Anta. This is the first CBA professional basketball shoe designed by the domestic sports brand for the first time according to the mechanical characteristics of the basketball forward, center and guard.

In March 18, 2006, the CBA2006 all star game was held at the Shanghai ten thousand people's stadium. Anta designed and produced a whole new All-Star competition equipment for this all star game, and launched the A11 2006CBA limited edition All-Star boots.

Professional All-Star basketball shoes will also be launched in January 2007.

"Apart from creating a professional image, this is also an important reason for our sponsorship of CBA," Xu Yang said. "Professional sporting goods can not be separated from professional athletes, and professional sports products must also be combined with professional athletes.

By sponsoring these professional athletes, we can master their data, use our scientific laboratory to analyze these data and Chinese exercise habits, so that Anta's research and development has been greatly improved, enabling us to develop and produce better products.

Excellent product research and development has also promoted sales growth. Anta is striding forward with annual growth of more than 50%.

Secondly, the stars in the CBA team are shining. Anta just uses these popular stars to strengthen interaction with the fans.

In March 19, 2006, Anta hosted the Anta CBA star Shanghai face to face with the popularity of the all star game in Nanjing Road, Shanghai. Battelle, Wang Bo, Jiao Jian, Bian Qiang and foreign aid Blanton came to the scene, and had a significant meeting with Shanghai fans.

In April 20th, with the east wind of the China International Sports Expo held in Chengdu, Anta once again hosted the Anta CBA Chengdu Chunxi Road meeting in Chengdu's famous downtown Qu Chunxi road. The presence of 4 CBA stars such as Tang Zhengdong made Chengdu fans feel the joy of professional basketball brought by Anta and CBA.

In addition to the form of ball meeting, Anta also launched a street basketball game in an innovative way.

In July 15, 2006, Anta's dream CBA2006 KO street basketball tournament officially began to open the curtain. The largest street basketball match in China was held in 12 large cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Chengdu and so on. The number of participants was over 20 thousand. The final winner of the competition will also participate in the operation mode of CBA's new season draft, attracting a lot of grassroots fans' attention and participating enthusiastically, giving the grass roots who love sports a dream.

Obviously, the cooperation with sports events has gone far beyond the simple marketing communication, which has penetrated into all aspects of Anta's brand strategy.

From "I choose, I like" to "never stop", "we have just made a market survey recently, and the rate of return of Anta consumers is 90%," Xu Yang said.

Beginning in September 2006, Anta entered a completely new stage -- the pformation to the comprehensive sports brand, which is reflected in the pformation from "I choose, I like" to "keep moving never stops".

Around the new brand image, Anta began to show more brand personality and connotation. Its entry point is grass root culture.

I am not ADI, Nike, I am not the superstar, I am the one around you, I am an ordinary person with extraordinary dreams.

This is Xu Yang's understanding of grass roots. "Anta has its own subdivision, but this group is not based on age, but is divided by mental state."

In fact, the main consumers of Anta are concentrated in the crowd of 14~26 years old. They are young and personalities, and are eager for international brands, but the economic strength is not allowed. Anta is positioning them. "Representing an attitude does not necessarily require expensive prices."

Xu Yang said.

In foreign countries, such brands are not uncommon. For example, GAP in the US can be a casual brand popular from the president to the common people, but its price is not expensive.

In the latest TV advertisement of Anta, there is such a sentence: "let scars become your medals". This sentence is inspired by extreme sports, and those athletes who are all hurt but pursue their dreams, let everyone see a spirit: you are an ordinary person, have no qualifications, no talent, but give you a dream, you can also achieve it through your own efforts -- and this is exactly what Anta hopes to convey to consumers.

This idea also runs through other marketing activities of Anta.

For example, the "Anta CCTV sports heroes Award", which is co operated with CCTV, may be a moment of endless scenery for athletes. But Anta sees the story of these characters' growth and how to get a success story. It hopes that these stories can represent Anta's spirit.

Even on the choice of product endorser, Anta also gave up the use of some superstars to enable young athletes who have not yet become famous. Anta valued their growth process more and more, hoping to witness how these successful people grew up step by step through their own efforts.

With the new concept, Anta launched the new brand TV advertisement "keep moving will never stop" in September. It put up 60 seconds of ads in a number of national TV stations including CCTV, three sets, five sets, Dongfang satellite TV and so on. In October, it also carried out high frequency advertising. Only five sets of CCTV were up to 18 times a day; when entering November, it still maintained the amount of advertising in the past.

Xu Yang said that such a volume is on the one hand to launch the brand new image of Anta, on the other hand, it laid a small foreshadowing for the Doha Asian Games. "It is hoped that we can remember the theme song of" We are the Champions "in advertising, and link songs to Anta.

Xu Yangxiao said.

This little brush quickly showed power.

In December, during the Asian Games in Doha, in the "brilliant review" and "glory Asia" program of Anta and CCTV, with the wonderful scenes of Chinese athletes competing for gold and silver, the song "We are the Champions" was played. Although there was no Anta logo on the screen, the audience naturally associated with Anta, and naturally established the relationship between the Chinese sports spirit and Anta brand, which put the brand voice symbol into account.