Anta wants to challenge Nike and Adidas.

Anta wants to challenge Nike and Adidas, but that doesn't mean defeating them in the form of a rival.

Who is the first local sports brand today? Li Ning or anta?

No need to tangle, financial indicators as a criterion, then the answer to this question is-anta.

2012, Anta's annual revenue of 7.62 billion yuan, more than Li Ning's 6.74 billion yuan, for the first time to sit on the head of the local sports brand. In the first half of this year, Anta continued to lead the industry with a 3.37 billion-dollar mark on Li Ning. In the Chinese sporting goods market in the past 3 years of recession, Anta this once "younger brother" completed the "Big Brother" Li Ning's curve overtaking.

Another landmark is the fact that, as of November 21 this year, Anta's market capitalisation was HK $28.097 billion, more than the combined market value of the four local sports brands, such as Li Ning, special step, gram and 361, which are listed in Hong Kong. In the Hong Kong media recently hosted the "2013 Hong Kong listed Companies 100 Awards", Anta also selected the "Comprehensive Strength 100" and "dividend return of 10 strong" list.

Such a result is somewhat inconceivable to consumers in many of the first-tier cities, because Anta has never been the preferred option when they buy sports equipment. In their eyes, to Anta as the representative of the Jinjiang department sports brand is often a "tyrants" image-product design is not enough "high-end, atmosphere, on the grade", but the rich and rich to occupy the CCTV sports channel advertising half of the.

However, Anta's rise represents a different genre from the widely admired "Nike model". Anta has spent 20 years accumulating a set of "practical supremacy" methodologies that are full of local characteristics and adapted to its own development, and, under the guidance of this methodology, has gradually grown from a regional brand in Pianan to a new industry leader. Anta's rise behind, there are many worthy of local enterprises to ponder and learn something.

399-dollar Card position

Every year 9, October, is the major sports brands focus on the promotion of basketball products time. On the one hand, because into the November, the new season of the NBA regular game will be launched, the fans suppressed 5 months of enthusiasm will be rekindled; On the other hand, the main consumer of sports shoes products will return to school, the new school year, a new atmosphere, a pair of fresh shoes naturally necessary. So there's no better place to sell basketball shoes to consumers than this time.

However, this year's market is somewhat different than in previous years, because Anta's "aggravating".

September 4, Anta in Beijing held a conference, for its spokesperson, NBA star Garnett launched its personal fourth-generation signature basketball shoes--kg4. The biggest bright spot is not the product itself, but its price-399 yuan. Familiar with the sporting goods industry should be clear, for a professional level of basketball shoes, this is enough to let users scream the freezing point price, to know, from KG1 to KG3, before the three generations of products have been set at the high-end price of 699 yuan. and foreign brand stars endorsement products are also thousands of dollars.

Only one months after KG4 's release, Anta announced the signing of a new basketball spokesperson in the United States, from the Boston team's star Jean-long, and launched the first signature ball basketball shoes RR1, product prices again set at 399 yuan low; In addition, Anta will sign a new NBA star in December. , product prices will continue to remain at this level.

At home and abroad in the first line of sports brands, the star endorsement of the flagship products sold into the "Chinese cabbage Price", anta is still the number one. However, despite the sharp reduction in product prices, the performance and quality of the product has not been affected, because Anta's endorsement stars are wearing the same products on the pitch.

In order to better promote their own cheap basketball shoes, anta for this batch of 399 yuan flagship products packaged a "national sneakers" concept and in the marketing to enable a new "strength priceless" concept, is intended to emphasize the high cost of shoes, to prevent consumers mistakenly think that low price is equal to the low-end.

Under normal circumstances, line industry big brand star Signature product average annual sales in 3~8 million pairs, however, Anta's "National sneakers" launched, only the 3rd quarter of this year's sales of more than 50,000 pairs, the 4th quarter of the order volume also has 50,000 pairs, next year the order volume is far beyond the company's expectations, Anta's goal is next year " National Sneakers "series of sales breakthrough 1 million pairs.

As an analogy, Anta's current approach is similar to that of millet. 3 years ago, millet through the 1999-dollar cost-effective mobile phone swept the market, at 2000 yuan Price segment on a firm footing. At the moment, Anta, through the 399-yuan basketball shoes, quickly defeated rivals at the same price segment, consolidating their leadership position in the middle and low price market.

The "pragmatic" logic behind low prices

In the sporting goods industry, signing star athletes for their exclusive sports shoes, is the major manufacturers of the usual means, and the star endorsement of the exclusive signature products are often expensive.

Why has anta been able to reduce the price of its flagship product to such a low level? In fact, the underlying logic is not complicated: increase sales by cutting prices.

In the outside world, this is a simple and can not be simple logic, but specific to the sporting goods industry, such a practice is not apparent as straightforward, it is actually a reversal of the industry rules.

For a first-line brand, the most important mission of the flagship product is to help the brand establish a high-end and professional image, not how much sales. Therefore, the star signature sneakers price itself can not be too low, to foreign brands, for example, the price of the star signature shoes are usually more than in thousand yuan, and often than the same brand of non-star endorsement products about 20%.

For the past 3 years, Anta has followed the same rules.

However, the result is the product sales "bleak", the former three generations of Garnett endorsement signature sneakers, each generation can break through 10,000 of the sales have been very good, Anta revealed that the former three generations of kg basketball shoes, sales volume of less than 100,000 pairs.

The reason for this result is that, on the one hand, for the local brands of consumers, relatively high prices will be a lot of users shut out, on the other hand, the international brand users for the reason of consumption habits, a short period of time is also difficult to suddenly turn to buy local brand products. So for a long time, the flagship products of the local brand are in a very awkward position.

However, although the flagship product sales will not be very high, but for most sports brands, this is not a big problem, to Anta as an example, the annual introduction of basketball shoes products around the 80~100 paragraph, the sales of a single product is not enough to control the overall sales of basketball category products. Put aside the flagship products, the remaining 90% of the product is the real main profit. Flagship products as long as they can help the brand to earn a reputation is enough.

But this was not the result of Anta's chairman and CEO Shizhong, who was rather dissatisfied with the sales of the first three generations of Garnett's endorsement.

In Shizhong's values, a product cannot prove itself in terms of sales, it is a failure.

After 3 years of testing water, he began rethinking Anta's strategy on basketball, and came to the conclusion that "what we did in the past was a failure, why would we ask the stars to sell less than 10,000 pairs of sneakers?" This is problematic. "Shizhong in an interview with business value," said bluntly, "any brand input is proportional to the income, such as Adidas in Europe to take the football, its football investment and sales are in direct proportion, Nike input basketball must also be in direct proportion." It is unreasonable to invest in proportion to sales. ”

In order to change the status quo, Shizhong decided to switch ideas, from the past to make a pair of high-end basketball shoes, into how to put a star endorsement of the basketball shoes sell more. "I want to do the real ' national sneakers ', so that more people can really afford, I want to let 1 million of people wearing my sneakers to play basketball, this is our strategy." ”

After establishing a new goal, Anta began to adjust his basketball strategy. The first step is to understand the real needs of consumers and product use habits.

Some interesting phenomena can be found in research conducted by third party research firms for Anta's consumer habits.

In the student community, there are people with international brand basketball shoes, but a significant part of them only wear these international brands when they are on important occasions, such as classes or departments, and they usually wear local branded products when playing in private.

"We also know that a pair of international brands of famous athletes of the signature shoe is basically between the 1200~1800 renminbi, consumers of course, some people buy, but most of them are bought later as a daily Show." When he has such a mentality, basically this pair of shoes will be difficult to appear in the outdoor basketball court, usually only in the indoor basketball court or the street appear. "Anta brand President Zheng Analysis said.

For Anta, the high-end of the brand becomes meaningless if the user does not play on his or her own product. Anta does not want to let their products become the user shelved "collection." "We want consumers to be able to use our equipment to really play basketball in a way that he can afford," he said. Zheng This explains Anta's new basketball strategy.

In the past few years, the "culprit" behind the sales of Anta's flagship basketball products is price, and to turn the tide, the first thing to do is to make a fuss about prices. So there is a 399-yuan series of products. Anta wants to prove to its users that a pair of professional basketball shoes does not have to be as expensive as foreign brands, and low-priced products can do the same.

Just a few months ago, Shizhong, who led Anta's executives to the United States, found that even a relatively low-priced brand could survive in the U.S. market at Nike's home base, which strengthened his resolve to adjust the basketball strategy.

There are still a lot of people worried that cheap basketball shoes will affect the gross margin of Anta's products, but Shizhong doesn't care. "Anta sacrificed one or two SKU's gross profit margin, but the sales went up, the enterprise did not lose." ”

"Who am I" and brand boundaries

The fundamental reason that Anta has been able to rise rapidly over the past 10 years, even in the recession, is that the company has always known who it is.

Anta senior executives in the "business value" interview, the description of the brand positioning surprisingly consistent, Anta is a positioning of the public sports brand.

"What every brand wants to live for is to know who they are, who will do it, and good and cheap quality, which is not what everyone will do." "Anta Basketball category director Sun Zu Chen told reporters. Cost-effective products, is today Anta's core competitiveness.

The uneven level of economic development across China has determined that no single sport brand can take all the market. Because of the difference in income between different regions, international brands may dominate the first-tier cities, but the market under second-line cities is a different situation.

Price is a natural barrier, for international brands, on the one hand, the light assets of the model so that they do not directly grasp the plant resources, so in the supply chain cost than anta such manufacturing enterprises to be higher. On the other hand, because of the maintenance of the brand image, the price of international brands will also remain in a relatively high, high-income groups are obviously unwilling to wear the same brand with low-income people. This has left the survival space and opportunity for the local brand.

"To be honest, high-end basketball shoes we can't compete with Nike at present, I can do your shoes, you can do exactly the same, even better than you, but consumers do not recognize." Over the past few years, we feel that we have invited a star, spent so much money, asked a star to millions of dollars, a year to sell shoes is not enough to pay his advertising fees. "Shizhong Frankly," in fact, every enterprise has no way to copy another enterprise model, if moved that is too simple, so our model, our positioning, is anta their own mode and positioning. ”

For any company, to figure out who you are, first of all, figure out who your customers are.

Anta's market research shows that its main user groups are broadly divided into three categories.

The first category is the 16~22岁 student group, these are Anta's consumption main force. These students basically have a median family income, some are moderately low, not very rich, mainly concentrated in the 234-line city; the 2nd category is 22~25岁, graduating young white-collar workers, income is not high, but still have the habit of exercise, these groups mainly in 234 lines for more; The third category is blue-collar consumers, such as factory workers group and so on.

It is these consumers who have propped up the brand, and Anta is doing everything for the three groups. So, even if the consumer of Anta and the international brand consumer crowd of overlap is low, but Anta does not think that this is a problem. Shizhong in the interview directly, out of the brand and consumer positioning of the different, Anta does not care to give up some of the target crowd outside the high-end users.

Of course, Anta also does not really give up high-end users, Anta also owns the Italian leisure sports brand Fila in China's proxy, the task of competing for high-end users fell on this foreign brand. The Anta brand itself is firmly in the service of "mass consumers".

"Design sense is inferior to international brand" is the first-tier city consumer to Anta brand most common cognition, but if thorough understanding this company, will discover, Anta actually quite "duplicity".

The company's hands are not as recognized as outsiders. Zheng, the head of Anta's brand, has been the general manager of Adidas's Reebok brand in China, while Sun Zu, director of Anta's basketball product line, was born in Nike and worked for Nike for 9 years. Anta is located in the Operation Center of Guanyin Mountain in Xiamen, is responsible for the promotion of Anta brand is a bunch of dressed up in a very fashionable young people.

Anta is not a first-tier city consumers in the eyes of the "high-end, atmosphere, grade" products, the crux of the problem is, why do so? If today's consumers are satisfied and accept their own practices, why must change?

Shizhong has publicly stated on several occasions that Anta's goal is to challenge Nike and Adidas. But that doesn't mean Anta will challenge them in the same way as Nike and Adidas.

In fact, at this stage of the Chinese market, completely imitate the international brand of play, may not be able to achieve very good results. In the 2010, Li Ning made a radical rebranding, the core of which was to follow Nike, but it turned out to be a big flop.

If a Nike or Adidas standard requires Anta, you may well come to the conclusion that this should be a flawed company, but it is not so, even in such a depressed market environment, its financial indicators are far better than most of the peers.

In Shizhong's view, regardless of the external comment on Anta is derogatory, return to the business value judgment system, all disputes will be solved.

"Good and bad, long time to let the market test, with the data to speak." We have done a sporting goods industry can not do, even the clothing industry can not do things. We have raised 3.6 billion of the money in the 6-year listing. So far, the company has more than 4 billion dividend, who can? The 2nd data, since the listing, we pay more than 4.4 billion tax, there is another other enterprises can not do, we now have 5 billion of the cash. So good and bad, not the book said good. Shizhong proudly said that this string of data made him look emboldened.

As for Anta, as long as China's social and economic structure does not change radically, its "practical supremacy" methodology will continue and work.