The Impact Of The Domino Card Competition On The Closure Of The Epidemic Is Even Greater.

Being caught off guard, the new year's "sports black year" after the new crown pneumonia epidemic has been repaid.

In March 24th, the Tokyo Olympic Games, which had been in a "dilemma", was eventually pressed by the "postponed key" - to 2021. More than 10 days before that, NBA also announced that the remaining 2019-2020 games were suspended for the rest of the season. According to incomplete statistics by reporters, since the beginning of 2020, over 40 sports events have to be postponed or cancelled due to the epidemic.

This is undoubtedly a big addition to a large number of sports brands that have invested heavily in sports stars and big events in the past for a long time. Because before that, most of the retail stores in Italy, Britain, Spain, France and many other retail outlets were forced to close due to the epidemic. The brand itself had already faced huge retail losses.

The Domino card, which has been pushed down by the epidemic, is touting the nerves of more and more sports brands. For them, under great uncertainty, danger is the best choice.

　 1. Missed Olympic opportunity

For the brand, the Olympic Games is one of the most widely exposed platforms in the world. In this feast, the most reluctant to miss is directly related sports brands.

According to an article on the official website of the Chinese Olympic Committee, during the Rio Olympics in 2016, thanks to the successful Olympic marketing, the market value of Anta sports rose nearly $10 billion compared with the Olympic opening ceremony, as the official award dress supplier of the Chinese Olympic delegation. In addition, according to previous reports, the German sports giant Adidas became the fastest growing sporting goods supplier in the Chinese market in the first 6 months of 2008, and has surpassed the US Nike company in the first place from the market share. At that time, the brand's former CEO Herbert Haina attributed the success to Adidas's role as a Beijing Olympic partner.

Therefore, insiders told reporters that the Olympic Games are both athletes' competitive venues and sports brand business. Because the business of sporting goods enterprises is highly related to sports events, marketing relies heavily on sponsorship of sports events, and the postponed hosting of Olympic Games has a greater impact on them.

As the gold medal partner of Tokyo Olympic Games, Japanese sports brand Arthur (ASICS) is the first to bear the brunt. According to relevant data, Arthur, who occupies the home court advantage of the Olympic Games, has already paid over 100 million US dollars several years ago, becoming the gold cooperation partner of Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee. In the Olympic Games, in addition to providing sportswear for Japanese national athletes, Arthur will also provide uniform clothing for all volunteers of the Olympic Games. In addition, under the exclusionary agreement, the brand will be the only official sponsor of the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee.

In 2015, Arthur's five year development plan has set a huge achievement target for the 2020 Olympic year, with sales of 750 billion yen (49 billion 700 million yuan). But now the general assembly has decided to postpone it, or make Arthur's vision temporarily difficult to achieve, and the cruel challenge is yet to come.

Arthur CEO Kanno Katsuo has said that he accepted the board's recommendation that Arthur be a gold partner of the Tokyo Olympic Games, but he worried that huge capital investment would have an impact on the global marketing strategy, because these investments had already occupied some marketing budgets in some markets, including potential markets such as China and India.

Then, what real impact will the Olympic Games postpone on the sports brand? The reporter noted that in the days when the official announcement of the Olympic Games was postponed in March 24th, the Arthur side had not yet made an announcement on the matter through public channels.

Sports apparel giant Nike's "Olympic marketing" plan also has many uncertainties. Unlike Arthur, Nike did not directly sponsor the Olympic Games. According to the interface news, Nike has been a sponsor of the US Olympic team. The award dress of American athletes includes Windrunner jacket made from recycled polyester fabric, trousers made of recycled nylon material and Nike Grind recycled rubber.

In order to prepare for the Olympic Games, the sports giant opened Olympic marketing early. In early February, at the Nike 2020 summit held in New York, USA, the company released a series of core sports products for this year's Tokyo Olympic Games, including running shoes, basketball shoes and clothing products.

According to the plan, a series of new products released by Nike will be on shelves in spring and summer of 2020. So, as the Olympic Games schedule has been disrupted, will Nike's Olympic marketing activities close to gongs and drums continue? Will the products made for the Olympic Games still meet the sales expectations? Recently, the international financial daily correspondent contacted Nike China on the above issues, but no response was made before the press release.

In addition, due to the postponed Olympic Games, Adidas plans to use the "Olympic marketing" to launch a big fist in the Japanese market. As early as October 2017, the brand Footwear Lab, set up in Kobe, Japan, was officially launched. The research center was used as a new technology development and footwear designer training in the future.

"The Tokyo Olympic Games will be postponed until 2021. In this special case, it is undoubtedly the most important to ensure the safety and health of all the relevant personnel. We look forward to the arrival of the 2021 Olympic Games, and will continue to provide corresponding support for athletes and teams in preparation for the Olympic Games in accordance with this year's plan. Adidas said in response to an interview with reporters.

Zhang Qing, founder and President of Beijing key sports consulting company, told reporters that the Olympic Games were postponed to next year, and the company lost a positive factor that could boost sales. "Especially those that are more closely related to professional sports, often need to indicate that athletes' performance in large tournaments brings sales incentives, and now it will also be affected."

2. Setback in sports year

The temporary loss of sales incentives brought about by the Olympic Games is only one aspect. Originally, in many competitions, 2020 was a sports year, but now the situation has changed.

Prior to March 11th, the International Federation of volleyball announced that the world figure skating championships, originally scheduled for from March 16th to 22nd in Montreal, Canada, were cancelled. The International Gymnastics Federation declares that the world cup in Stuttgart, Germany, which was originally planned to be held in from March 20th to 22nd, was cancelled, and events such as Italy and Qatar were postponed. Almost all the time, the FIBA also declared that it would suspend all competitions from March 13th.

In March 17th, the European Football Federation announced that the sixteenth European Cup was postponed from one year to June 2021 to July, affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic. The top five European Football League Premiership, Spanish Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga and French league have all been suspended.

Up to now, NBA, F1 and marathons all over the world have been cancelled or postponed. There are sports industry to reporters admitted that the original large-scale events can bring corresponding sales growth in the number of equipment. "There are two main aspects of growth: direct logo products, fans supplies and authorized products, which will be more obvious in football and basketball competitions. Indirectly, it can bring brand attention and influence to the product, such as the Olympic Games.

Obviously, in 2020, the "contact points" between sports brands and consumers are being greatly reduced. This is just a part of the problem that brands are facing.

In March 17th, the American sportswear brand Foot Locker announced that all stores in the United States would be closed from now on. Foot Locker said in its statement that all stores in North America will be closed from March 17th to March 31st. Prior to this, Nike announced the closure of the US offline stores in March 15th. In addition to the US market, Nike stores in Canada, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand also began to close from March 16th to March 27th.

Adidas, unable to withstand pressure, announced in March 18th that it would temporarily close Adidas and Reebok stores in Europe and North America. "In order to fight the epidemic together, we decided to temporarily close the Adidas brand and Reebok brand stores in Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In addition, we have maintained close contacts with relevant departments and implemented local epidemic prevention measures in Adidas and Reebok workshops around the world, thus closing a number of stores in different countries. " Adidas has said this to the international finance daily.

Excluding these brands, including lululemon (Lulu lemon) and Under Armour (Andemar), previously announced the closure.

Cheng Weixiong, founder of Shanghai Liang Qi Brand Management Co., Ltd., told reporters that no store sales meant no income, increased inventory and increased expenditure, and thus transmitted to the upper reaches, that is, goods were produced out of stock, and orders reduction and cancellation became the norm.

Under the epidemic situation, the global sports brand is undoubtedly suffering from "heavy losses". A brand told reporters that in view of the ever-changing epidemic situation, it is not yet able to accurately assess and quantify its impact on the company's 2020 annual financial situation.

Globally, the extent of the impact of the epidemic on sports brands is unknown at present, but the sale of the brand in the Chinese market may be a reference. Not long ago, Adidas disclosed its 2019 annual report. In its earnings report, it announced the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic on the Chinese market for the first time: since the Spring Festival of January 25th to the end of February, Adidas's revenue in the Greater China region has been reduced by about 80% compared with the same period last year. At the same time, it expects that in the first quarter of fiscal year 2020, the revenues of Greater China will be reduced by 800 million euros to 1 billion euros, and operating profits will be reduced by 400 million euros to 500 million euros.

"In the face of a major public disaster, no one can be alone." Zhang Qing pointed out that for many people, sports brands are not necessities of life, sporting goods consumption is booming after consumption capacity and GDP per capita have reached a considerable degree, and the impact of the epidemic is obvious. He also stressed that the "suspension" of sports brand sales under the epidemic situation has an impact on the whole industry chain.

　 3. Looking for opportunities at low tide

According to the insiders, the sports brand in 2020 is quite tortuous, but this does not mean giving up. Because it is enough to prepare and make adjustments to meet the high tide of 2021.

In the past, many domestic sports brands had worked hard to deal with the low tide of sales under the epidemic situation. It is understood that, due to the impact of the epidemic affected by offline shops, we need to follow the requirements of epidemic prevention in various provinces and municipalities. Anta group is actively serving consumers' demand through e-commerce channels. In the first few days of the epidemic, Anta launched the "full retail" project, involving more than 30 thousand employees and dealer partners. The sales teams and brand support teams of all brands, as well as all the management and sharing teams, were "fighting" to open micro stores.

In order to make up for the impact of the epidemic on terminal sales, the 31st degree group has said that the sale will be transferred to the e-commerce platform, launching the call of "full staff marketing". After that, it also enhanced online marketing by increasing the "WeChat Mini program" and other ways to minimize the impact of the epidemic on the retail side.

Whether these measures are worth the attempt of international sports brand? Zhang Qing said that before that, some single brands or agents operated by agents had actually acted, but international brands such as Nike and Adidas had many restrictions or were not easy to adopt. "But different regions may adopt some other flexible ways, such as making some efforts through KOL. But it will not be like China's local brand.

In Cheng Weixiong's view, sports brand force online is also helpless. "Many companies crowded online on this single plank bridge, which can bring part of the cash flow, but it can not solve the main problem. Domestic brand practices, foreign brands are also in action, at this time to do online try and efforts, but also conducive to the end of the epidemic after further increase the intensity of network layout, so online business competition is intensifying.

In an interview with the international finance daily, Adidas said that under the epidemic situation, the company should continue to strengthen the channel of e-commerce and enhance the digital experience of consumers. "We support consumers buying products online, such as ours. Adidas.com , Reebok.com APP and the online shop that we have jointly established with our e-commerce partners. Our Tmall super brand day, "goddess Festival" theme promotion, as well as encouraging consumers to do house exercises, have been positively responded by consumers.

Not only Adidas, but also more international sports brands are strengthening their online interaction with consumers. In February 12th, Nike launched a fitness course broadcast on WeChat and jitter to enable users who were isolated from the epidemic to be able to exercise. It is reported that on the first day of the line, the number of people watching the live broadcast on WeChat is over 60 thousand.

"This epidemic has led many brands to make significant breakthroughs in the management of user CRM customer relations. There are brands that move offline communities to the Internet to speed up the pace and progress of interconnection and interconnection, which is more direct and convenient for user circles." Cheng Weixiong told reporters.

In Zhang Qing's view, brand and consumer continue to maintain very important, including output content. "It is to brush the sense of existence, to communicate with consumers, to convey positive content." He also said that under the influence of the epidemic, the consumer's willingness to spend will be affected. The brand can consider making necessary adjustments in the structure of the goods. "Based on the inventory pressure in the first half of the year, the sports brand may have to make some price discount, and in the second half of the year, we should introduce some cost-effective products to make ourselves more competitive."