Li-Ning 1990: Li Ning Is A Mature Brand In Retrospect

The first time I heard that Li-Ning 1990 (Li Ning 1990) was still in the circle of friends. Why did Li Ning launch such a brand and use the founding logo to make a new brand? On November 4, Li Ning group held the Li Ning 1990 brand press conference in Shanghai. Taking advantage of this opportunity, especially the communication with Xu Yanfang, the general manager of Li Ning 1990 brand products, lazy bear sports established a preliminary understanding of the brand, especially its important label, the first and the only new brand incubated by the brand itself.

Why launch Li Ning 1990? For this brand which has just passed its first year of existence, the most direct purpose is to broaden the product boundary and enrich the product structure.

The positioning of Li Ning brand itself is "professional sports" brand. Professional sports is not only the gene of the brand, but also the external performance of the brand. Even the sports trend series also emphasizes "science and technology". Its core users can not escape from professional sports and trend sports groups.

But for Li Ning, 1990, it was using sports brand to create a lifestyle brand. Sports are just genes, not external. For example, Xu Yanfang, the general manager of the brand, was wearing a casual suit on the day of the press conference. At first glance, it was a formal suit, but the actual size was loose fabric, emphasizing comfort.

Xu Yanfang used "re deduction" to describe product creativity: "part of Li Ning 1990's products are remolding Li Ning's early products with fashionable methods, including color matching, tailoring, version type, etc., reflecting the contemporary sense." as the positioning is "advanced sports fashion" brand, some new elements have been used in the product supply chain, including materials and processing technology, Some materials have never been used before by Li Ning brand.

1990 is the year when the brand of Li Ning was born. The new brand launched the founding logo of Li Ning and designed it into a "Trinity" pattern, which has also become the main pattern of products.

In fact, when Li Ning was still warming up in 1990, many consumers compared it with "China Li Ning". The analysis of style, color and price often ignores one point: China's Li Ning is a product line, while Li Ning 1990 is a new brand.

Why did Li Ning 1990 have such a position in the group? Li Ning said that after all, Li Ning 1990 is not a "professional sports" brand, and it may weaken the positioning of Li Ning brand itself.

However, from the strategic analysis of "single brand, multi category and multi-channel" of Li Ning group, we can find that Li Ning needs Li Ning 1990. Among domestic sports brands, Li Ning may be the only one that does not and does not want to expand the basic market through acquisition. Even if it has Hongshuangxi and Aigle, the revenue of these brands has not been incorporated into the financial report.

Li Ning brand strategy is to tell the story of the brand itself, because of the particularity of its brand - the founder has legendary experience, and the company is named after its name. But Li Ning also wants to maintain his high growth rate, even if he chooses a more difficult development path than his competitors.

Li Ning's slogan for a period of time was "let change happen" (in 2015, it had been changed back to the original slogan "everything is possible"), but with the increasing size of the plate, it is impossible to change easily. But Li Ning 1990 is different. It has higher flexibility and can explore higher and deeper fashion fields without being constrained by labels and definitions.

As a new brand, Li Ning 1990 is independent from Li Ning brand in many aspects. At present, it has established an independent team of dozens of people, including a design team dedicated to serving the new brand. In terms of channels, Li Ning also adopted independent channels in 1990. At present, Li Ning 1990 has established a small program shopping channel online, and offline stores will also adopt the direct marketing mode at this stage. However, while maintaining a certain degree of independence, the business as a whole is still a 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 the market, not to change the internal logic of Li Ning's existing market and business.

In a disguised form, Li Ning also boosted its brand power. Under the background of the rise of domestic products, in recent years, domestic sports brands are "looking up", considering how to improve the invisible ceiling, the most direct performance is the simultaneous improvement of product quality, design and price.

In terms of the products launched, shoes and shoes are basically around 1000 yuan, including board shoes, retro jogging shoes and fashionable sports shoes; The price of clothes and trousers is about 1200 yuan, and the highest can be 1899 yuan. The price of coat and down jacket is higher, but many of them are suits, so the price may double. For example, a flannel sports suit is sold for 1699 yuan for the coat and 1299 yuan for the trousers, and the color matching is out of stock.

Although the store, described by Li Ning as "the world's first store" in 1990, has just officially opened, it has already had a good flow of revenue in the trial operation stage. According to the clerk, some color matching products have been sold out. During the trial period, many stars came to buy. Sun Honglei, Zhang Hanyu and Xu Fan were caught by microblogs. B station and other video platforms also have many up main hanging experience video. In addition, stores in Chongqing and Wuhan will open before the end of the year.

Among the products that have been put on the shelves in the store, the overall impression is that it is low-key and simple, the color matching is steady and gentle, and there is no conspicuous color contrast, printing and conspicuous logo, so the edge is convergent. In addition, Li Ning 1990 will also launch "special" products every season. The current "special style" highlights the "blue printing" design, which is inspired by the blue dyeing process, and is placed in the most prominent position of the store.

The product planning of sub brand and parent brand is also different. The products of Li Ning brand are usually divided according to different sports, while Li Ning 1990 determines the product planning through different life scenes, such as work, commuting, outdoor, light sports, etc. at present, there is no clear product line.

At the level of CO branding, Li Ning 1990 expanded the brand's new partners and co branding space. Xu Yanfang revealed that the main theme of the next season is the joint brand with corthay, a French luxury brand. Corthay is a custom-made shoe brand that sells for 3000 euros (about 20000 people) per pair ? At present, corthay has entered SKP shopping mall in Beijing. Business casual shoes co branded with corthay will also be on sale in Li Ning's 1990 stores.

Li Ning brand is also fully supporting the development of Li Ning in 1990. On October 28, Li Ning and its shareholder, Fanfu China, announced a joint announcement that 120 million shares would be allotted in the old and then new way, at a price of HK $87.5 per share and a capital raising of about HK $10.5 billion (equivalent to about RMB 8.6 billion). The funds raised are mainly used for new product launch, international expansion, supply chain system and infrastructure improvement, the announcement said.

As for the time node of the new brand launch, Xu Yanfang thinks that the biggest time node is "ready". According to him, the new brand has been planned since one or two years ago. It will take more than a year for the product to be ready. Now is the time for the product to be more mature and available.

At this stage, it is also the golden track of sports fashion. According to Tianfeng securities, the sportswear market has maintained a high growth rate in recent years, with a compound growth rate of 9.01% 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 and clothing industry.

The appearance of Li Ning 1990 also captured the market demand. With the popularization of the concept of healthy life, the State Council issued the national fitness plan 2021-2025. Under the multiple life scenarios, the choice of clothing has become an important consideration for consumers, and the market potential is great. In the future, with the upgrading of consumption, quality, concept and the values conveyed by the brand will become important factors affecting consumers' purchase.

"It's an important decision to restart the original logo, and the product quality must match it," Xu said.

The original logo is undoubtedly an important asset of Li Ning brand, and the feelings it carries is also one of the core competitiveness of this rapidly expanding brand. The exhibition area of new product release reviewed the 30-year development history of Li Ning brand, and a lot of valuable materials, especially a 1989 Yangcheng Evening News, published the collection of "Li Ning" sportswear trademark design, which can be regarded as the beginning of Li Ning's 30-year history.

Reopening Li Ning's original logo has really won a wave of emotional buyers. On Weibo, many netizens call Li Ning 1990 "old brand of Li Ning" for short. Some netizens compare the early products of Li Ning purchased many years ago with the new ones now. The current Li Ning logo was replaced in 2010.

At the present stage, most of the trend products that publicize their personality are holding the slogan of facing generation Z, embracing the young people and embracing the future. Li Ning is "embracing the past", touching the memories of the Post-70s, 80s and even the early 1990s. Although Xu Yanfang has repeatedly stressed that products are planned according to consumption scenes rather than consumer portraits, it can be imagined that the above-mentioned people are likely to become the main buyers 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.