Li Ning'S "Losing Voice" In The World Cup Is Almost Inevitable

Compared with Yingli's high-profile attack, Li Ning's "silence" during the World Cup seems more incomprehensible. The media can easily list various reasons why Li Ning should not do this: Li Ning is the largest sporting goods company in China, with a turnover of more than 8.3 billion yuan in 2009; The World Cup is one of the three great events in the sports world; Li Ning's goal is not only to become "Nike in China", but also to become "Li Ning in the world" and so on.

The sharp contrast also comes from Li Ning's competitors.

Adidas has sponsored 15 football teams, including Spain and Argentina, and is the highest level strategic partner of FIFA. Nike, as always, put a lot of advertisements in the early stage of the World Cup and in the middle of the game, with Ronaldo, Rooney, Ribery and other superstars on the scene. PUMA also sponsored the Italian team. Even "little brothers" like Tebu launched marketing campaigns on CCTV sports channel during the World Cup.

In the end, although Ronaldo, Rooney, Ribery and others all performed in disgrace and lost their superstar demeanor, in addition to three teams sponsored by Adidas, the Netherlands team sponsored by Nike reached the final and fought with Spain for 116 minutes, only four minutes to push Spain into the final stage of penalty shoot out. Where's Li Ning? Li Ning can sponsor top teams such as Spain and Argentina in the basketball field. Why not expand in the football field?

Zhang Zhiyong, CEO of Li Ning, emphasized the limitation of resources. Among the current important business areas of Li Ning Company, basketball, running and badminton are in the forefront, while football is not mentioned. From this perspective, Li Ning's "loss of voice" during the World Cup is almost inevitable.

Li Ning's 2009 financial report shows that the company's footwear revenue accounted for 42.4% of the overall share. Although it is impossible to know which specific categories comprise the 42.4%, there must be no more than 10 professional football shoes and nearly 100 basketball shoes in the flagship store of Li Ning Wangfujing (34.00, 0.04, 0.12%). Similarly, over the years, Li Ning has signed only Li Tie as the football spokesman, and designed and produced the "Iron Burning" series; However, in the basketball field, it has sponsored NBA China, and still sponsors the Spanish and Argentine men's basketball teams. The spokesmen also include NBA superstars such as O'Neal and Davis.

Restricted by the shrinking market of domestic Chinese Super League and Chinese First Class football leagues in recent years, and the absence of basketball superstars such as Yao Ming, the domestic football market demand is shrinking, which is why Li Ning, Anta, Peak and others have targeted basketball and ignored the realistic choice of football.

In addition, in the global sporting goods market, the traditional advantages of Nike and Adidas are basketball and football. When the two sides began to infiltrate and fight each other, there were even fewer high-quality sports marketing resources left for Li Ning to borrow. Previously, it was widely rumored that Li Ning Company might acquire the British sporting goods company - InBev. InBev also accumulated a lot in the football field. However, when Adidas invaded the basketball field with Nike's traditional advantages and acquired Reebok, Nike quickly acquired InBev. Under such circumstances, lacking existing marketing resources and product sales support, Li Ning chose the latter one after another to burn money in a high profile or to be pragmatic and thrifty.

This is understandable. However, after Nike won the sponsorship of the Chinese Super League at a low price, it has become more and more difficult strategically for Li Ning to break out of the football field in the future.