It is a normal morning. I put on my RBK coat and my Spalding basketball shoes, watch my father puts on his Pierre Cardin shirt, wears his Liaorateluo belt. The whole family enjoys Quaker oatmeal together. Then my mother goes to work with her Cardanro handbag… A day’s work begin, I use my ChenGuang pen to take notes, on the other side of the city, my father is using HP printer, the Nokia mobile phone is ringing in his pocket… in the evening, mom opens a bottle of Arowana oil, washed rice are put in Supor rice cooker already. After supper, the whole family sits on IKEA sofa, watch mom’s favorite TV show which was played in Konka television… Late at night, I fallen asleep, my parents return to the bedroom, end the day by lying in a large Simmons bed…
My family is a regular waged family in China. 20 years ago when I was born, the family didn’t rich enough to have any product made by international manufacturers. 20 years passed, with the social development, people’s living standard is improving. International manufacturers’ products and their influence are showed in my family’s daily life. I will use sport brands as an example, to figure out how the international manufacturers’ marketing programs and activities change the life of me and my family.
In recent years, with the increase of residents’ economic capacity and concept of consumption, the sales in China and the proportion of sales in China and the total turnovers of two giant international sport brands, Nike and Adidas, growing continuously. Every year, the two giants launched advertising campaign and they put more than 100 kind new products to Chinese market. On the other side, after 2007, with more and more Chinese basketball player near NBA and the downturn of Chinese football, basketball gradually replaced football and became the No.1 sport among teenagers. A group brands who use basketball equipments as the core grow rapidly, such as Anta and Peak, and the iconic sport brand LiNing. Each company increase investment in areas of product innovation, R&D and marketing…Chinese sport equipments market became more competitive than ever before.
In 2007, Nike, Anta, Adidas, LiNing and Peak share 44.5% of Chinese spors shoes market, other market divided by more than 200 brands. According to the statistics of six big areas of China such as Huabei area and Huazhong area, the Nike’s market share reached 12.1%, Anta 10.8%, Adidas 10.5%, LiNing and Peak share nearly 12% market together. About the whole sport equipments market, Nike occupied over 21% market, Adidas 20%, the third is LiNing. To me, before 2008, I can felt the difference between international manufacturers and local brands obviously: The international manufacturers have great advantages on technics, the products were beautiful, strong and comfortable, but the price is very high. The local brands’ products is very normal on both quality and appearance, but the price is 1/3 even 1/4 of Nikes’, great advantage on price. I love to play basketball but I didn’t have a lot of money, so I’d like to buy 2 to 3 pair of local brand shoes, and buy a pair of Nike or Adidas occasionally.
In 2008, the Olympic year, Nike and Adidas show very different marketing strategy. Adidas cost 80 million dollars to become Beijing Olympic Games’ partner, just to make sure that most athletes can wear Adidas when they were rewarded. On the contrary, Nike cost only a little to become the sponsor of a lot of Chinese sports teams or players, all these teams and players have the power to win the medals. We can see on TV many times that YaoMing and LiuXiang and other Chinese local stars wear Nike equipments in the game. Both international manufacturers’ strategy got the desired result, this year, Nike and Adidas’ sales in China grew 32% and nearly 50%, the share of the whole sport equipments market of both company were also increased. However, in basketball equipments area, although companies like Anta and Peak didn’t have enough money to become the Olympic Games’ partners, they strengthening technical innovation and product creation, with the two international giants’ attention transferred, Nike and Adidas’ basketball market share declined a little. Nikes’ market share dropped to 12%, Adidas hardly reached 10%, while Peak got 15% market share and Anta raised their market share to 17%.
In 2009, two international giants transferred their attention back to traditional fields such as basketball and football… They began to release middle and low grade sports equipments. For example, the Nike’s cheapest basketball shoes’ price was 450 yuan. This is even cheaper than some local products. On the other side, the local brands continued the “enhance quality and expand publicity” strategy. This year, Anta, LiNing and Peak not only released new products with their own innovative technology, but also signed several superstars in NBA…These activities consolidate their advantages on basketball equipments market. Compared with 2007, with the raise of the quality of local brands’ products and the decrease of the price of international manufacturers’ products, I may chose to buy one or two pair of either Nike and Adidas or Anta and LiNing, all the shoes’ price was about 400 or 500 yuan. However, because of the strong performance on all areas of sports equipments, the two giants sustained advanced triumphantly. Their sales both break 1.2 billion dollars, the market share of whole sport equipments reached 33% and 28%.
Overall, from 2007 to 2009, Nike and Adidas’ sales and market share increased year after year, the slowly dropped price and the products which more and more meet the preferences of Chinese make these two international manufacturers the necessary brands in daily life of all sports fans. But to me, a man who loved basketball, the influence is far more than products themselves. The two giants are just like two big catfishes, they activate the “sardines” in the local sport equipments’ market. A big group of company with low price and good quality products grow rapidly, the “catfish effect” makes me and all basketball fans benefit a lot. So I think, compare with the brand and the products of international manufacturers, the competition atmosphere, the “catfish effect” they bring is the maximum impact of our life.