Quanzhou, which was once heavily engaged in OEM manufacturing, now has a number of influential domestic brands emerging

Why create a brand?

Without a brand, there is a market If you don’t accept it, the investment of 5 million US dollars will only result in mountains of unsalable products

In the 2015 China Brand Value Evaluation, Quanzhou ranked first among prefecture-level cities in the country with 20 companies on the list. Why can this city that started out as a processing company produce so many famous domestic brands? Why did entrepreneurs abandon OEM production and turn to brand creation?

When it comes to suits, Qipai relies on the "Chinese Stand Collar" series. It is unique in the market, but as everyone knows, this is a brand that was forced out of trouble.

In 1998, Hong Zhaoshe, chairman of Qipai Group in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, who had saved his first pot of gold, ambitiously invested his entire fortune of US$5 million to introduce the most advanced suit production line at the time. After a huge investment, Hong Zhaoshe was faced with mountains of unsalable products and hundreds of workers waiting to receive their wages.

Before the introduction of assembly lines, the suits produced in small workshops were selling well. Why could they not be sold after replacing them with better equipment and adopting good craftsmanship? After consulting the hired German craftsmen, Hong Zhaoshi started After understanding the situation, the Germans told me that it was because the market did not recognize our products. The mass sales of suits need to be supported by the brand. It takes at least three to five years of cultivation for the market to accept your brand and your products. After that, production and sales are likely to increase. ?What to do? You can only create a brand and promote your own brand.

Also in 1998, Peak Group, also located in Quanzhou, began to sponsor the National Men’s Basketball League A and B, embarking on the road of brand promotion. Peak is also a brand that has emerged from adversity. In 1988, after ten years of hard work and accumulation of experience and funds, Xu Jingnan, chairman of Peak Group, prepared to rely on his connections at Nike Quanzhou Shoe Factory to provide supporting processing for Nike. However, after the factory was built, Nike moved out of Quanzhou. The factory was already built, so what should we do? We could only make our own brand. ?

As the first batch of brand creators, many companies in Quanzhou had a little helplessness at the beginning of their brand journey. Xu Jingnan lamented, ?No way, every day when I wake up, hundreds of people are waiting for me to pay them. To eat, I have to pay about 40 million yuan every month as a bare salary. I can only try every means to survive in the market. ?

How to establish a brand?

Establishing a brand depends on characteristics, and establishing a brand depends on quality

After a brand is created, it must be established in the market . To establish a brand, first of all, the product needs to be distinctive. Qipai was founded in 1998 and promoted the brand by sponsoring the uniforms of national team athletes in the Asian Games. In 2003, it gradually opened up the market. ?Hong Zhaoshe said that Qipai still lacks one thing? A masterpiece that can make people think of Qipai for the first time. As an imported suit, how can we highlight the Chinese characteristics and the characteristics of Qipai? Hong Zhaoshe said that Qipai has turned its attention to traditional culture, hoping to get inspiration from it. ?Finally, we found the Tang suit and proposed the concept of "Chinese stand collar". ?

From the establishment of the brand in 1998 until the launch of the "Chinese Stand Collar" series in 2003, Qipai continued to invest in research and development. From the launch of the "Chinese stand-up collar" in 2003, until 2008, the saying "Qipai men's clothing, the man who makes women's hearts flutter" made everyone remember the Qipai brand and accept the "Chinese stand-up collar", during which 6% of the total retail sales were accounted for every year. 7% investment in brand promotion. Now, the "Chinese Stand Collar" has made Qipai the first domestic suit brand with annual sales exceeding 1.3 million sets, and it frequently appears in various international and national diplomatic occasions. "Chinese standing collar" gives Qipai its own soul. ?Hong Zhaoshe said.

Establishing a brand depends on characteristics, but what makes a brand reliable is quality. Xu Jingnan also fully understands this. As one of the first national brands to sign NBA international stars, Peak has successfully attracted everyone's attention. ?Celebrity endorsements bring us attention, and quality is what turns attention into purchases. ?Xu Jingnan said that Peak started with ISO management system certification, ?ISO9000, ISO14000, ISO8000, and passed one management system certification after another to force enterprises to manage finely and improve product quality. ?

Longfeng Textile, a well-known brand in the domestic fabric industry, has gone further in quality control, cultivating internal skills starting from the factory.

?We hope to become a century-old enterprise, and the designed service life of the underground pipes in all factories exceeds 100 years. ? Shi Tianfu, chairman of Longfeng Textile, said that the investment in fixed assets and equipment alone for a production workshop is as high as 700 million to 800 million yuan. Adding in the cost of working capital, a workshop has to invest 1.2 billion to 1.3 billion yuan. ? Everyone You think I'm crazy, how can you recoup such a high investment, but this is the first step for a company to become a century-old company. ?

The next step is the design of the workshop and the re-optimization of the process flow. In the world's largest single workshop, Longfeng reduced the number of employees from 530 to 190 by equipping it with 1,028 intelligent weaving equipment, improving efficiency by 27%. These weaving equipment are not just bought and installed. Longfeng has transformed them with 48 core technologies. It can be said that our workshop is one of the most successfully transformed workshops in the world, with the least number of people and the best efficiency and quality. ?

How can brands maintain their vitality?

Advance with the times, constantly innovate, and actively embrace internationalization

With the fierce market competition, some brands will inevitably become a thing of the past. How to maintain long-term brand vitality has become a question facing Quanzhou entrepreneurs.

In this regard, Hong Zhaoshe’s path for Qipai is to keep pace with the times and continue to innovate. Recently, Qipai launched China's first smart jacket and began to get involved in the field of smart clothing. ?Smart jackets not only expand the functions of clothing, but also provide better carrying space for smart products. ?Hong Zhaoshe said.

It is particularly worth mentioning that in addition to product innovation, Qipai also creatively used creative crowdfunding in the research and development of smart jackets. From millions of crowdfunding ideas, Qipai selected more than 100 proposals and applied them to smart jackets. ?Creative crowdfunding not only maximizes the fit between the product and the market from the beginning, but also maximizes the time for product market promotion. ?Hong Zhaoshe said that everything requires innovation.

The future path that Xu Jingnan positioned for Peak is internationalization. At the signing event for Peak to sponsor Slovenia to participate in the 2016 Brazil Olympics, the Slovenian president asked Xu Jingnan, "China is so big, why are you still expanding the market here? Although China is big, the world is bigger." ?Xu Jingnan told reporters that Peak's goal is to register trademarks in 100 countries and regions around the world, sell in 100 countries and regions, and export sales to reach 10 billion yuan. Currently, the first two goals have been achieved.

In February of this year, Peak launched a new sneaker advertisement in Times Square, New York. ?If we want to go international well, one of the best ways is to let high-end organizations and big-name stars cooperate with us for endorsements. With their endorsement, Peak's global investment promotion will be more effective, and with good agents, Peak's global sales will get better and better. ?Xu Jingnan said. Brand is a very complex issue. A brand usually needs to provide customers with two core things: practical value and added value. Practical value is something that is a product standard and is achieved through quality and management; added value includes many aspects such as culture, behavior, and values. ?Xu Jingnan said that what enterprises have to do is to continuously enrich the two values ????of the brand. Trademark brand