Olympic marketing: How did sportswear brands do?
Friday, 29th August 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
For sports apparel brands, the Olympics are arguably the most important stage for marketing. So how did the sports marketers fare with the Chinese market in these Olympics? Here's a look at how things played out for Adidas, Li-Ning, Nike, Puma and Speedo.Adidas
Adidas reportedly shelled out 70 million euros to be an official Olympic sponsor. Adidas gear was also all over Olympians, great for television. But aside from shoes and uniforms, Adidas wasn't particularly visible in Olympic venues. It had no special presence on the Olympic Green, but its beautiful flagship store in Sanlitun near the Workers' Stadium and Workers' Gymnasium saw lots of foot traffic.
Adidas' Olympic sponsorship allowed it to use the Bird's Nest and Olympic logo.
Its Olympic ad campaign, though beautifully designed and fitting in concept (Together in 2008, Impossible is Nothing), came up short in the personnel categories. That campaign had four primary faces, in sports that are very popular in China--diver Hu Jia, footballer Zheng Zhi, basketball player Sui Feifei and a few women's volleyball players. Hu pulled out due to injury, Zheng and the men's football team had an embarrassing performance and Sui Feifei was only sixth in scoring on Team China. The women's volleyball team played strong in a very tough field, but in the end only came through with the minimum result acceptable to the hometown fans, a bronze medal.
Li-Ning
China's biggest sports apparel brand had the biggest marketing coup of the games—its founder, Li Ning, carrying the Olympic flame on a three-minute slow-motion run to the top of the Bird's Nest, where he lit the Olympic cauldron. The company's stock went up the next day, and Li Ning will always have his stamp on what seems to be an especially important part of the Olympics to Chinese fans.
Li-Ning's storefronts were generic during the games, but there was nothing generic about its opening ceremony product placement.
Li Ning also had its name on the uniforms of China's diving and table tennis teams, who delivered dominant performances, as well as the Spanish national basketball team, which gave Team USA a tough match before losing in the gold medal game.
Nike
Nike's two biggest bets on Chinese athletes were Yi Jianlian and Liu Xiang. Yi was solid but not explosive, averaging 9 points a game. The Chinese national team, wearing Nike jerseys, didn't really exceed expectations, but certainly didn't come up short, making it to the quarterfinals before losing to Lithuania. But Chinese fans were more excited about catching a glimpse of Team USA, who were also sporting Nike's hot new jersey, available in stores all over Beijing.
Nike had to deal with the toughest spin job of any Olympic marketer this year—how to salvage its investment in China's biggest sports star, Liu Xiang, when he didn't even compete in the games. Nike's immediate answer--a full page ad celebrating the love of sport even in defeat--succeeded in becoming part of the stream of catharsis after Liu bowed out. Nike got some negative publicity for its efforts to hunt down netizens who alleged that the shoe company had coerced Liu to drop out rather than lose to Robles.
Nike hedged its big-name bets by backing lesser-known athletes as well.
But Liu and Yi weren't the only athletes that Nike put is name behind. It was all over team China, and ready with full-page ads in China Daily and front-page ads in Titan sports news when any of its athletes won a medal or had a strong performance. Swimmer Zhang Lin (silver medalist), boxer Zou Shiming (gold medalist) and beach volleyball duo Tian Jia and Wang Fei (silver medalists) were just a few of the lower-profile high-achieving athletes that Nike celebrated in its Olympic campaign.
Puma
Dollar for dollar, Puma might have gotten the most of its Olympic investment. Its hopes ran on two spiked shoes-- those of sprinter Usain Bolt, who loped across the finish line to set the 100-meter dash world record. China loves a winner, and Bolt and the dominant Jamaican team were very well-received in Beijing. Jacques Rogge can complain all he wants, but most Chinese don't mind a guy who's willing to revel in his moment.
Speedo
If you weren't wearing a Speedo LZR Racer in this Olympics, you might as well never leave the Water Cube's warm-up pool. Nine out of every 10 swimming gold medals went to LZR wearers. The only complaint that people had about the LZR was that it made swimmers too fast, world records too common. The suit was considered such an integral part of success that Nike agreed to let its swimmers wear LZRs instead of Nike suits. Speedo doesn't have a big presence at Chinese sports retailers—swimwear here tends to be generic instead of branded—but China, along with the rest of the world, has no choice but to see Speedo as the leader in swimwear technology.
Tags: Adidas, athletics, Beijing Olympics, Hu Jia, Li-Ning, Liu Xiang, marketing, Nike, Olympics, Puma, Speedo, Sui Feifei, swimming, Tian Jia, Titan, Usain Bolt, volleyball, Wang Fei, Zhang Lin, Zheng Zhi, Zou Shiming
Nike's Olympic advertising whitewash
Monday, 28th July 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
There's no Olympic medal for sports apparel marketing, but the race this summer between the category's top two brands is hotly contested. Ahead of the Beijing Olympics, Nike and Adidas are employing very different strategies to court the Chinese market.One key difference is Adidas' decision to invest in being an official sponsor of the games. This grants advantages like the right to use trademarked images (the rings, the event's logo, the words "Beijing 2008"), access to prime tickets and hotel rooms and the opportunity to set up hospitality areas close to Olympic venues like the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube.
Dongdan subway station, Beijing, June 30
Nike is not an Olympic sponsor, and one of the consequences of that is restriction of its advertising in Beijing during the Olympic period. Until about a week ago, Nike had a large advertising presence around shopping hot spot Wangfujing, but that changed after the restrictions went into effect July 19.
Nike ads that plastered the nearby Dongdan subway station have been covered in white. The athletes whose faces hawk Nike from above the shops at Wangfujing have been replaced with "Beijing 2008" posters bearing the images of the Fuwa (the official mascots of these games) Beijing opera singers and the Great Wall. At the nearby basketball and soccer park that Nike owns rights to, the 15-foot ads that usually hang on the fences have been taken down, though the swooshes that mark half field and center court are still there. Even Nike's ads in Titan sports newspaper now bear only a simple swoosh and the "Just Do It" slogan. Gone are the images of Chinese Olympians.
Dongdan subway station, Beijing, July 23
Along Wangfujing, though, it's hard to see a disadvantage for Nike. All of the billboards, including the Adidas ones featuring the Chinese women's volleyball team, have been replaced with Beijing '08 signage. And Nike has bought up several retail locations in the area, along Chang'An Avenue (which intersects with Wangfujing a short distance east of Tian'anmen and the Forbidden City) and Wangfujing Street. It has two Wangfujing shops, including one with huge windows that afford passersby a good view of the life-size mannequins of hurdler Liu Xiang (刘翔) and basketball player Yi Jianlian (易建联), as well as a montage of several different Chinese Olympians wearing the brand.
The area around Wangfujing will be a favorite place for Beijing's Olympic visitors to spend time between basketball games and swim meets, but when the action starts it will focus around the actual events, where Adidas should have a complete monopoly over its biggest competitor.
Related: A walk down Wangfujing
Link: Advertising fight to the finish ahead of Beijing Olympics (Gulf News)
Tags: Adidas, advertising, marketing, Nike, Olympics, Wangfujing
A Walk Down Wangfujing
Friday, 16th May 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
This one's for the advertising and marketing nerds out there. Wangfujing pedestrian shopping street is, in some sense, the Times Square of Beijing—full of ads, bright lights, flagship stores and tourists. It runs a length equivalent to a couple of city blocks, and right now it's plastered with sports advertising. Here's a full accounting of the ads up right now.
So what's up with Nike's all Kobe, all the time strategy? A couple of weeks ago, it wasn't like that. He shared ads on Wangfujing with other Nike spokes-athletes Liu Xiang (110-meter hurdles world record holder), Roger Federer (tennis star) and Yi Jianlian (forward for the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks). But Kobe just won the NBA's MVP award, he's leading the Los Angeles Lakers' playoff run and will be featured in a show on CCTV next week.
Tags: Adidas, advertising, Guo Jingjing, Kobe, Li-Ning, marketing, Nike, Tiger Woods, volleyball, Wangfujing
You Can't Buy That in America
Thursday, 24th April 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Also worth a look is the aforementioned Adidas commercial, which you can see on Tudou.com. "Basketball is a Brotherhood," the sexist advertising campaign first launched in the United States by Adidas, is translated into Chinese as 无兄弟不篮球, "Without Brothers, No Basketball." The six-character translation reflects a Chinese preference for symmetry in marketing slogans. The first three characters, 无兄弟, mean "Without Brothers," and the second three, 不篮球, mean "No basketball."
Tags: Adidas, basketball, marketing, NBA
Around the Web
Friday, 11th April 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Marketing: Big brands get local to boost China sales (CScout.com)Soccer: Chelsea sow seeds for financial domination in Asia
(SoccerLens.com)
Olympics: Hanging by a Thread (a feature from ESPN on diver Guo Jingjing and other Olympians)
Basketball: Young Buck bounds toward Beijing (A wrap-up of Yi Jianlian's rookie year in the NBA from China Daily)
Tags: Adidas, baseball, CBL, Guo Jingjing, links, marketing, Nike, soccer, swimming, Yi Jianlian