Information link: Development history of Li Ning Company

1990-1992 founding stage

1993-1995 rapid development stage

Operational adjustment stage from 1996 to 1998

Second development stage from 1999 to 2001

Brand remodeling stage after 2002, introducing strategies and entering the professional development stage

Li Ning Company is a typical bottom-up company among Chinese enterprises that derives its corporate development strategy from the success of tactics. However, this process has twists and turns and is limited by many development conditions.

At the end of 2002, Li Ning Company began to introduce the development strategy of sports specialization into the company. The introduction of the professional development strategy allowed "Li Ning" to quickly break the situation where the turnover has been hovering around 700 million yuan since 1997: it reached 1.276 billion yuan in 2003, 1.878 billion yuan in 2004, and is expected to reach 1.878 billion yuan in 2005. exceeded 2 billion yuan. How does "Li Ning" interpret this legend?

Li Ning Company is a typical representative of the growth trajectory of Chinese private enterprises over the past 20 years of China's reform and opening up.

The vast opportunities of the Chinese market, luck, no strategy, imitation, the power of the leader, being pushed forward by the Chinese market to develop on its own without the ability to control, the temptation of diversification, can no longer be overcome Numerous development problems arise due to the growth threshold of a certain digital sales, etc. These are common characteristics of most Chinese private enterprises in the growth process. In the rapid growth of Li Ning Company in the early stage, all without exception Experienced. However, Li Ning Company is not like most private companies, surrounded by numerous problems and exhausted in the darkness before dawn. Li Ning Company, which broke through the growth bottleneck, was successfully listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2004, becoming the first Chinese sporting goods company listed overseas. In 2005, its interim financial report exceeded 1.1 billion yuan. How did Li Ning Company start to stage this "good show"?

Li Ning Company marching in happiness and pain

The most different thing from the growth of many other domestic private enterprises is that when Li Ning Sporting Goods Co., Ltd. was established in 1990, Considerable popularity. In the eyes of many people, "Li Ning" is more than just a trademark name. He is the "Prince of Gymnastics" who carries the dream of a powerful nation for a generation: he has won 106 gold medals and was once named one of the 25 greatest athletes of the 20th century. , tied with Jordan and Bailey. The name of "Prince of Gymnastics" Li Ning, to some extent, led to the rapid development of Li Ning Company in the early stage, allowing Li Ning Company to flex its muscles in the sporting goods market. It was also this name that left such a deep imprint on Li Ning's brand that Li Ning had to make considerable efforts when determining its brand strategy to weaken this influence later on.

In the early 1990s, strictly speaking, China had not yet fully implemented a market economy system. At that time, the Chinese market was still a market where demand exceeded supply. In the sporting goods market, there is not yet a well-known brand occupying the market, and the quality of products on the market is unstable. The Chinese people who had just become wealthy began to pursue a better life.

It was in this market environment that Li Ning Company entered the market and grew rapidly. Regarding the development of Li Ning Company, today we often mention "strategy", "marketing", "brand" and other words that are necessary for enterprise development. At that time, there was no way to mention them, and no one could understand these words. What on earth is it.

During that period, the vast opportunities in the Chinese market determined that most companies pursue an "opportunity strategy" in their development. At that time, Li Ning Company, like most Chinese private enterprises, had a good mechanism and initial development funds, and everything was being run according to traditional business thinking. The company's development cannot be considered a proactive strategy at all. Based on Li Ning's own brand and influence, Li Ning just felt that there would be very good opportunities to enter the blank sporting goods market. This is indeed the case. Although there is no clear company development strategy, vision and clear positioning, Li Ning Company has developed very well in the sporting goods market.

Reese and Trout, in their book The Marketing Revolution, state: "In years of rapid economic growth, Japanese companies prospered by producing products similar to those of their competitors simply because the products The quality is better and the price is cheaper. "Similar to the development environment of Japan's economy, driven by the opportunities provided by the market, everything Li Ning did in the early stage was to produce products of better quality and more aspects. market, and then continue to expand the distribution network across the country to provide the products produced to more people in the region. As long as the products produced can be sold, the company does not care about where the products are actually distributed. What is the price? The rapid growth of the company brought about by opportunities has made Li Ning unable to take into account the details and management capabilities of these management issues.

The opportunity strategy also makes it difficult for Li Ning to resist the temptation of development. Li Ning, which originally only produced sportswear, inevitably diversified. Li Ning once produced Li Ning brand suits and even Li Ning series. Leather goods have entered the non-sporting goods market. This kind of brand awareness without active strategy, without development vision and sense of direction, made Li Ning taste the bitter fruit later.

The lack of direction of "Li Ning" is also reflected in the fact that in the 12 years before 2002, the company's advertising themes and appeals were changed eight times. From the earliest "Hope of China's new generation" to "Keep the wonderful things to yourself" to "I exercise, I exist", "The beauty of sports is shared by the world", "Excellence comes from true nature" and so on. The "Excellent, From True Character" advertisement also invited Qu Ying as the image spokesperson. This kind of advertisement has nothing to do with the sports image, which further shows that "Li Ning" still has not made a clear positioning for its own brand. "Opportunity strategy" "Still dominates the development of Li Ning Company.

In fact, in 1995, Li Ning Company carried out an organizational structure adjustment and established the "Li Ning Sporting Goods Group". And at the China Sports Goods Expo held in the same year, "Li-Ning" accounted for more than half of the total transaction volume. This tactical move enabled Li Ning to establish its leading position in China's sporting goods industry. But it is very regrettable that Li Ning Company did not achieve tactical success at this time, focus on its own resources, introduce and establish its professional strategic positioning for the development of the sporting goods market. However, it seems today that in the Chinese market in 1995, the overall cluster environment and overall management capabilities of Chinese enterprises determined that Li Ning could not transcend the environment at that time and propose its own development strategy from its own tactical actions. Originally, Li Ning Company might be able to grow into a well-known large company in China like today's well-known domestic companies such as Lenovo and TCL. However, due to strategic mistakes, Li Ning Company did not achieve rapid development in the future.

[Tips]: When Volkswagen entered the U.S. market, it found a feasible tactic-the gap of "small cars" and launched the Beetle, which was a great success. However, Volkswagen did not turn this "small car" tactic into a strategy and continued to launch consistent tactical activities to compete with American cars, allowing Japanese small cars to successfully occupy 1/3 of the American market share.

This missed strategic opportunity caused Li Ning to be in a state of hesitation for the next seven years. During this period, "Li Ning" had no connection with the changing advertising requirements and did not maintain consistency in tactics. Swinging, it seems that this confusion can be seen.

In Li Ning Company's description of its own development information, there is such a description: "1993-1995, a stage of rapid development, 1996-1998, a stage of operational adjustment." In fact, because there is no sense of strategic direction in its development, Li Ning has touched the ceiling of its growth.

In 1996, Li Ning Company achieved the highest sales revenue in history of 670 million yuan. At that time, Li Ning's dream was to reach 1 billion in 1998 and 2 billion in 2000. However, things did not develop as Li Ning Company expected. Instead, the growth stopped abruptly in 1997. From then until 2001, Li Ning Company's sales revenue always hovered around 700 million. Although there was an impact from the financial crisis, the more fundamental reason was the lack of strategy.

Although during this period, Li Ning still ranked first in China's sporting goods market, equivalent to the combined sales of Nike and Adidas in China.

However, the market environment is undergoing tremendous changes every year, and the pace of this change is accelerating year by year. Competitors began to exert force in the market at this time, including Adidas and Nike in the past, and the Jinjiang Sports Goods Corps headed by Anta. Li Ning Company is surrounded by the middle, and if it doesn't advance, it will retreat.

The lack of a clear positioning of the company's brand, the dispersion of tactics, and the results of operations have left the Li-Ning brand wandering between "professional" and "leisure" in the minds of consumers, so much so that "Wall Street" Daily News once called the Li-Ning brand a cross between leisure and sports.

At this time, everyone in Li Ning Company felt that there was something almost magical that was preventing the company's profits from continuing to grow upwards. What it is, the company cannot yet see everything clearly at once.

In 2001, Zhang Zhiyong, a veteran who had served Li Ning Company for many years, became the company's CEO. After introducing a professional marketing company to investigate the "Li Ning" brand, Zhang began to work on Li Ning Company for three years. a series of reforms.

Zhang Zhiyong discovered that at this time, the sales of the Li Ning brand in first-class cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, which are flooded with brands, could not increase compared with Nike and Adidas, while in second-class cities, sales were still there. good. However, due to the impact of wholesale channels on the Li-Ning brand many years ago and the unclear business direction of "Li-Ning", the Li-Ning brand has been facing aging. At the same time, the brand image seems to be somewhat different from what Li-Ning Company originally deliberately created.

The investigation report of the professional company was quickly placed in front of Zhang Zhiyong. The general conclusion is:

1. The target consumers of the Li Ning brand are unclear. The target consumers positioned by the management of Li Ning Company are: aged between 14 and 28 years old, mainly students, in large and medium-sized cities, fond of sports, advocating new fashion and international trends. But the core consumers who actually buy Li-Ning brand sporting goods are between the ages of 18 and 45, live in second-tier cities, have middle income, and are not "heavy consumers of sporting goods."

2. Brands are in danger of being forgotten. Brand loyalty is very high, but loyal consumers are the generation that admires Li Ning. The younger generation does not know who Li Ning is. The Li Ning brand is alienated from the fashion that the new generation pursues.

3. The brand’s personality is not distinct. In the eyes of real consumers, the personality of the Li-Ning brand is connected with the image of Li-Ning himself. It is "affinitive, national, sports, and honorary." Young and fashionable” brand personality.

4. Li-Ning’s product line continues to expand, and it is difficult to figure out what its “flagship product” is. More products will make it difficult for consumers to figure out what the "Li-Ning brand" is.

Zhang was shocked. He did not expect that the gap between Li Ning's brand and goal setting had reached such an extent. Zhang felt it was necessary to establish an organizational structure responsible for the overall planning of the brand. But where do talents come from? Many practitioners in the sports industry are experienced and do not have the kind of talents Li Ning needs. Therefore, the company must introduce brand manager talents from outside the industry. In October 2001, Li Ning Company established marketing departments such as the Marketing Department, Sales Department and Operation Support Department to be responsible for reshaping the Li Ning brand.

A few months later, Li Ning Company began to broadcast a new one-minute commercial on TV. The meaning expressed in the commercial was: in front of young and energetic people, external restrictions are insignificant. , everything has just begun, everything can come from scratch. "Everything is possible!". This advertising slogan uses vivid images to strongly suggest a value commitment to the audience: owning Li-Ning brand products is not just a daily necessities, but a quality of life and a realm of life. This new advertising slogan is still used today, and this impactful advertising slogan actually precedes Adidas's "Nothing is Impossible", but the outside world often thinks that "Li Ning" is imitating Adidas.

This extraordinary advertising tactical move, this extraordinary minute, started Li Ning Company’s renewed thinking and commitment to Li Ning’s brand value, and it was precisely this extraordinary brand The tactical actions of advertising made Li Ning Company later grasp its own strategy.

However, there is still a period of time before Li Ning Company’s exploration and discovery of corporate strategies will lead to Li Ning Company adopting a professional development strategy. This period of time seems to be so critical. .

Many of the changes that occurred during this period were often beyond the capabilities of many private enterprises. However, "Li Ning" has moved forward very steadily and confidently.

"Li Ning's" revolutionary method

When Zhang Zhiyong took office as the company's CEO, among all the problems he discovered, the most important was to solve the human resources problem in the company's development. The human resources problem is solved, and all other problems, such as the company's management problems, the company's marketing problems, strategic problems, everything seems to be solved quickly.

People problems are encountered in most private enterprises that are facing changes. When an enterprise introduces talents to change the enterprise, either the "east wind prevails over the west wind" or the "west wind overpowers the east wind." There are often fierce conflicts between old and new forces. As a result of the conflict, no matter whether the external professional managers can finally establish themselves in the company, it will cause certain harm to the development of the company. But in Li Ning Company, these seem to be far away from them, and the personnel problem seems to be solved quite smoothly.

As early as 1997, Li Ning himself made it clear to the company that all relatives of senior leaders (including himself) should leave the company. He himself made it clear that he did not want to affect the company's modernization process and the company's modernization process due to family relationships. The company's shareholding reform process. It was precisely because of Li Ning's determination that Zhang Zhiyong had much less resistance when he let a group of old people who were not suitable for the company's development leave the company and important positions in 2001. The first batch of professional managers, Wang Li from Baleno and Xu Weijun from Coca-Cola, each quickly played their due roles as marketing director and marketing manager. By February 2004, when the company's overall professionalization strategy was advancing, Wu Xianyong, who was parachuted from P&G to Li Ning Company as deputy general manager, had adapted very smoothly to the development environment of Li Ning Company. When it comes to personnel management issues, it is difficult for many private companies to overcome the hurdles of the past, but "Li-Ning" has successfully overcome them.

At this time, although Li Ning Company did not lack funds for development, in order to improve the company's management capabilities and prepare for listing in Hong Kong, Li Ning Company adopted a unique strategy. In January 2003, TETRAD, a Singapore government investment company, and CDH Fund Company, a subsidiary of China International Capital Corporation, entered Li Ning Company and entered the board of directors. "Li Ning" entered the company by introducing these two strategic partners. The most important thing is to introduce the advanced management concepts of these two companies into the company. This generous strategy of killing two birds with one stone can effectively solve the management problems in the development of the company, which is often something that many other private companies cannot think of or cannot do.

In addition, Li Ning Company invited Leo Burnett Advertising Company as a brand development consultant for "Li Ning" and Sinotrust to establish a standardized and professional performance management system for the company.

The most important change is that Li Ning has asked IBM to provide strategic consulting for the company since 2002. With the intervention and help of IBM, Li Ning's analysis of its business advantages, industrial environment and historical tactical success of "Li Ning" allowed the company to quickly clarify the company's development direction, establish the company's vision and goals, and with the help of IBM Next, the "Li-Ning" strategy was established and the company embarked on the strategic path of professional development.

[Tips] At the end of 2002, Li Ning Company introduced the strategy and made adjustments on the occasion of the company's fifteenth anniversary to establish the company's mission, vision, values ??and business development strategy: the mission is "to inspire people with sports The desire and power for breakthrough! Committed to the creation of professional sporting goods, let sports change life, and pursue breakthroughs at a higher level." Vision: The world's leading sporting goods brand company. In order to realize the company's internationalization, the company needs to enhance its international competitiveness in the Chinese market before 2008. By 2018, it will be one of the top 5 sporting goods companies in the world, and its international market share will account for more than 20% of its total business. To become a sports brand management company, it will use multiple brands to cover different customers and regions, and more than two mainstream sports projects will be in a strong position in the market.

Strategic Introduction

When Zhang Zhiyong visits the market, he often compares "Li Ning" stores with Nike and Adidas. Zhang often feels that for some reason, "Li Ning" Stores lack an atmosphere. Li-Ning stores often make you feel like you don’t know what they are showing. The air in Nike and Adidas stores is filled with a sense of sport and fashion.

Zhang Zhiyong also feels that although Li Ning has done many sports sponsorship activities over the years, these sports sponsorship activities are not very efficient and have not completely formed an effective superposition. "Don't be China's Nike, be the world's Lining." It seems that this slogan is still too empty and cannot effectively become the company's development strategy. The company must clearly formulate its own development strategy in order to form an effective breakthrough.

At the end of 2002, IBM's strategic consulting service team entered Li Ning Company. With the help of IBM, "Li Ning" carefully conducted an in-depth analysis of the entire sporting goods industry, consumer demand, market competition in the company's external environment, as well as the company's internal business operating status, the company's competitive advantages and resources. More and more problems are being discovered.

Dealers believe that "Li Ning" has too many SKUs every season, but the sales volume of single products is small, and there is no continuity in mainstream products, making it difficult to make sales estimates; the series of products is not good, such as the table tennis series There are only clothes but no table tennis shoes, and the product has no style. In terms of internal management of the company, less than 30% of the products designed by designers are finally put into production, resulting in a lot of ineffective labor; the life cycle of the product is only half a year on average, and some are even only 2 months, and there are no mainstream selling points throughout the product. Poor continuity, poor product originality, and unclear target customer groups for product design make product design poorly targeted.

At the product order meeting, "Li Ning" did not have a clear marketing plan to guide dealers in ordering, and the products did not have professional sports attributes. The locations of retail outlets are average, the display locations in shopping malls are not good, the coordination of different individual stores is poor, discounts are often inconsistent and cannot be carried out at the same time, and the IT network is backward. This highlights that Li Ning Company has not focused on cultivating its own retail management capabilities: location selection and negotiation capabilities are restricted by the management mechanism, slow response speed, poor single store management capabilities (format, VM, category), poor store replication capabilities, and poor franchise management capabilities. Poor terminal information collection and analysis capabilities, etc.

The unclear strategy of Li Ning Company has resulted in a vague and tactical business strategy (focused on response). To sum up, the "Li Ning" brand is wandering between fashion and professionalism. R&D lacks leading purpose and core technology. The launch and elimination of new product categories are arbitrary. Self-built channels have no focus compared with integrated control. The market order is disordered and retail sales are too much. There is no clear strategy between the brand and the "Li Ning" monopoly. The supply chain is between market-driven and production-oriented, and there is no clear strategy.

The lack of direction has caused problems in the company's internal structure. Problems in the company's internal structure have in turn led to problems in market operations. In short, all the company's problems can be attributed to no problems. on the core issue of a clear strategy.

However, in more than ten years of operation and market competition, Li Ning has made remarkable achievements and accumulated many resources: No. 1 in domestic sales volume, the largest sales network, and the highest awareness The domestic sporting goods brand, the most complete R&D system, the highest degree of sports specialization in the country, and the first to take the road of internationalization with its own brand. Are these outstanding performances the core competitive advantage of "Li Ning"?

IBM believes that "Li-Ning" entered the market early, has a solid sales channel foundation, and has good comprehensive financial resources as the core competitive advantages of "Li-Ning".

IBM believes that the Li-Ning brand is the first Chinese brand in the sporting goods industry. "Li-Ning" took advantage of the historic opportunity of China's reform and opening up and the revitalization of national industries to complete the "first wave of attack brand building". The first-mover advantage is obvious: the brand recognition is much higher than other domestic brands, even higher than Nike and Adidas; the comprehensive performance of the product is widely recognized; the communication cost is relatively low; as "China's first national brand", it is the first to establish a relationship with Good relationship between the government and the public; good foundation for professional sports attributes: the entrepreneur himself is a professional athlete (natural brand association), national professional sports team sponsorship activities started early, and it is the only country in the country that has the potential to drive comprehensive sports with professional attributes (single sports) brand. Theoretically speaking, "Li Ning" has a first-mover advantage. After seizing the market, subsequent competitors must double their investment to catch up in order to achieve the results of "Li Ning" today.

As for channels, Li Ning’s sales network is beginning to take shape. Although the quality of the network (such as store locations, sales, etc.) is uneven, it has a fairly solid foundation: network coverage. Large and comprehensive, it can radiate to major regions across the country; retail terminal formats are diverse; the network is highly localized and is run by locals who are most familiar with the local market; dealers have been cultivated for many years and are relatively stable, with high loyalty to the Li-Ning brand; channels have been improved The foundation is good, the start is fast, the secondary investment is low, the horizontal expansion of channels, the vertical extension and penetration of channels are very good, and the diversification of channels is compatible with multi-category products.

Therefore, based on the analysis of Li Ning's problems and the analysis of "Li Ning's" advantages, IBM believes that "Li Ning" must give up its business development direction and should focus on resources to amplify the original Li Ning brand advantages.

"Li Ning" needs to regard sports specialization as its development strategy.

Li Ning Company readily agreed to this proposal at the end of 2002.

Specialization, unleashing the power of "Li Ning"

With a sense of strategic direction, "Li Ning" began to align its tactical activities based on what it accumulated more than 10 years ago. . The market is the best tester. Li Ning's turnover reached approximately 958 million yuan in 2002, 1.276 billion yuan in 2003, and 1.878 billion yuan in 2004, a significant increase of 47.2% over the previous year. Net profit increased by 42.0%, while in 2005 In 2019, "Li Ning" is expected to have a turnover of more than 2 billion yuan. We have seen that "Li Ning" has achieved leapfrog growth in just over two years since it established its development strategy at the end of 2002. How does "Li Ning" formulate new marketing tactics under strategic guidance and sort out the existing problems in the original company's development to be consistent with the new development strategic goals?

Sports specialization has put forward requirements for Li Ning Company in four aspects (Figure 1): "Li Ning" must have a market positioning that meets consumers' sports psychological demands; a reasonable and complete product line; and improve Product features for sports performance; professional sports marketing and promotion.

Aiming at these four aspects, "Li Ning" has formulated a series of strategies and launched many improved marketing activities.

The target group of "Li Ning"'s sports professional development strategy is between 15 and 25 years old. In view of the professional sports positioning of this young consumer, it has put forward new requirements for product development, marketing and retail management. New requirements and changes in direction. Changes in R&D, marketing, and channels will be key elements for the implementation of the new "Li Ning" brand strategy. "Li Ning" began planned and purposeful tactical activities centered on strategy.

In terms of research and development, the original situation of "Li Ning" is that "Li Ning" has a development center and certain research and development capabilities, but product research and development mainly focuses on style and style, and insufficient investment in core technology research and development. The degree of sports serialization of the product is low. According to the requirements of the professionalization strategy, "Li-Ning" needs to increase its R&D investment and intensity in sports technology and increase its efforts in the sports series of products. Guided by this strategy, in August 2004, Li Ning Company cooperated with Dr. Ned Frederick, an American Exeter R&D company, and jointly devoted themselves to the research and development of the core technology of "Li Ning" sports shoes. In 2004, Li Ning Company cooperated with the Department of Human Movement Science of the Chinese University of Hong Kong to conduct sports biomechanical tests on the mechanical properties of sports shoes produced by Li Ning Company, establish a foot shape database of professional athletes, and conduct data collection and analysis of professional sports characteristics. Further improve the professionalism and comfort of the product. In October 2004, we cooperated with R&D Design Office to design "Li Ning" sports shoes. In November 2004, the Hong Kong design research and development center "Li-Ning Sports Technology Development (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd." was established, focusing on the design of Li-Ning brand clothing products.

In terms of marketing, the original situation of "Li Ning" is that the core consumer group is aging, product positioning is biased toward leisure, and lacks professional sports attributes. As a brand personality, affinity does not cater to and satisfy the demands of young consumers. Marketing and promotion are based on traditional Mainly media and emotional advertising methods.

The direction of improvement is to target young consumers aged 15-25, downplay the promotion and promotion of the leisure nature of products; create an image of professional sporting goods, create a sporty, individual and successful brand personality, adopt appropriate sports spokespersons, and short- and medium-term It mainly focuses on product functional advertisements, supplemented by emotional advertisements, and increases investment in sports marketing.

Guided by this strategy, Li Ning Company signed a contract with "Mr. Football" Li Tie in February 2003. Both parties are committed to the development of professional football products, marking Li Ning Company's move into the professional football field. In February 2004, the first Li-Ning brand "Tie" professional series of football shoes designed for football star Li Tie came out. In September 2004, the first Li-Ning brand professional basketball shoe Freejumper came out, marking the entry of "Li-Ning" into the professional world. Basketball product field. In fact, Li Ning Company has successfully entered new specialized footwear series in different sports categories at the end of 2004 (such as football, basketball, tennis, running and fitness, etc.).

At the same time, in terms of advertising, "Li-Ning" launched a series of functional advertisements aimed at increasing the public's awareness of "Li-Ning" sports products and new specialized footwear series. In April 2004, it launched "Li-Ning Belt". The new advertising series with the theme of "Give Chinese Sports the Power to Fly" and the brand concept of "Everything is Possible" have received encouraging market responses in the Chinese market.

At the channel terminal, the original situation of "Li-Ning" was that the product display was leisure-themed, in-store POP promotion and marketing focused on leisure, and dealers' product selection lacked sports-based considerations. The direction of improvement is to display products at the terminal according to sports events. In-store POP publicity and promotion focus on product technology and performance, and train dealers and retail staff to master sports technology knowledge and communication skills with consumers.

With this strategy as a guide, "Li Ning" began to adjust its channels early on. In addition to requiring dealers to open exclusive stores, Li Ning also made great efforts to train dealers and provide dealers with Businesses train qualified store managers. At the same time, "Li Ning" itself is also building stores. Basically in every store, "Li-Ning" will communicate and explain the technology in detail to customers through functional advertisements and in-store POPs based on the importance and complexity of the technology; product signs also provide detailed descriptions and explanations of the technology. These small changes gradually began to form the Li-Ning brand's high-tech and professional image in the minds of consumers. In fact, by the end of 2004, the total number of "Li Ning" stores reached 2,887, including 2,526 retail stores operated by franchisees, 120 self-operated retail stores and 241 self-operated special counters. In addition, three flagship stores with larger stores and modern displays and decorations have been opened in prime locations in Beijing and Shanghai. By 2005, the image of these stores had been upgraded for the fourth time to conform to the new development trend.

Among the many adjustments to marketing strategies, "Li Ning"'s sports marketing adjustment is the most obvious. After the strategic goals were clear, "Li-Ning"'s sports marketing also became more professional. "Li-Ning" now focused its energy on the competition for sports marketing resources. Resources were focused and efficiency was greatly improved.

In the past, Li-Ning lacked a clear guiding strategy in terms of sports sponsorship. Compared with competitor Nike’s strategy of only focusing on football and basketball, “Li-Ning” shared limited sports promotion costs. When it comes to sponsoring multiple projects, it directly results in insufficient support for individual projects. In a consumer survey of all nine "Li-Ning" sports sponsorship activities, only one has an awareness rate of more than 50% among consumers; most of the sponsorship projects have an awareness rate of less than 50% among consumers. Very low; the dispersion in projects shows that "Li Ning" lacks a clear strategy in sports sponsorship (including project selection and team selection).

At the same time, compared with Nike and Adidas, "Li Ning" lacks professionalism in sponsorship. If 1% of the activity is spent on sponsoring athletes and events, Nike and Adidas will spend 10% on sports marketing and consumer communication. Through such a large investment, they will inform consumers of their sponsorship, and "Li Ning" Only 1-2. "Li-Ning" has limited investment in sports marketing communications, resulting in low visibility of sponsorship projects and lack of social effects. At the same time, this is also a main reason why Li-Ning's marketing resources are scattered and unfocused.

Therefore, "Li Ning" changed its strategy in sports marketing. "Li Ning" began to concentrate resources on core projects, core teams, and athletes, and insisted on long-term investment and training, and increased the cost of communication in sports marketing.

In fact, Nike is constantly improving its use of sports marketing in China. After several years of trial and practice in China, Nike decided to change its strategy of sponsoring national and local basketball teams at all levels and instead sponsor only two adult national teams and three A-level teams; while reducing sponsorship investment, Nike also focused on By focusing on individual teams that have a higher effect of attracting spectators and star players, the actual effect has not been weakened and they have achieved better input and output.

Through the survey, consumers believe that football and basketball will have a much greater role in promoting the future of the Li-Ning brand than other sports. Young consumers, especially those aged 15-29, believe that basketball has the greatest promotion effect, followed by football.

Based on this, "Li Ning" has changed the way it invests in sports marketing, and its marketing activities have also changed accordingly.

Carry out marketing promotion around sponsored players and teams. We shoot commercials with the theme of sponsoring players and teams, organize event broadcasts and exchanges, and increase the social effect of the brand through market public relations and news events. In 2003, "Li Ning" signed a contract with footballer Li Tie and launched a series of promotion activities around Li Tie, including the launch of the "TIE" series