Weekend Wars: Li-Ning vs. Nike
If you've never heard of Li-Ning before, open up your ears and get ready for the revolution.
This is for all of those Google groupies, Facebook fruitcakes and Apple acolytes who believe that standing atop the mountain means you are forever destined to rule.
Is Nike in trouble? Is The Check about to get straightened out?
I know it's early, but imagine the possibilities and be weary that there's a new player in the game...a game which soon enough, may not ever be the same.
Start Li-Ning in the right direction...and tell me, is it possible that the global overlord of athletic shoe dominance will soon have a serious fight on its hands?
They are Li-Ning
I am leaning towards kicking your ass
hahahah
Their website isn't working for me at the moment but sure could make things interesting.
Weird commercial though.
I'm skeptical. Nike's brand is just so huge, particularly in sports. I played organized/team basketball for a good 12 years of my life, and I'd guess the number of kids I played against who were wearing Nike shoes was at least 50%. Not only do they make a comfortable, reliable, highly-functional pair of basketball shoes, they also usually have the best athletes wearing them. Growing up, everybody wanted to wear the Jordan's, Gary Payton's, Penny Hardaway's, etc. And today, I imagine all the kids love wearing the Kobe's and the LeBron's. Now, I'm not sure if they have the same stranglehold in other sports, but if so, it creates a powerhouse that's just hard to beat.
Highly doubt they will be able to take away significant share from Nike, Addidas here in UK. You buy Nike because its Nike not because it has some special things. Unless they paid shitloads of money to sports personalities to sponsor their trainers
Next step...
Even than think it will be quite easy for Nike, etc to get these people first.
Nike has the best name (the literal name, not necessarily the brand) out of any company.
An athletics company named after the Greek goddess of victory? Most baller shit EVER.
Is there a Nike Capital Management? I forget if it was included in the Greek God theorem.
This is a serious issue for China. More and more companies have to be weighing whether it is worth is to operate in China considering the utter lack of respect they have for intellectual property. Russia isn't too happy with them stealing their jet plane technology either.
Speaking of which: http://www.monsterauto.ca/chinese-cars.php
I did 11 years of Jr. Olympic track growing up, and I'm gonna weigh in a bit. Sometimes it's not so much the performance as it is the name brand. When you have huge multiday tournaments with thousands of athletes (and their parents, relatives, and recruiters) showing up, huge corporations sponsoring, and the most elite level of athletics going on, you're not going to go with some no-name random upstart brand. I wore Reebok when I was tiny and my parents were cheap, adidas when I began to buy my own things, and Nike when I got free equipment or ran on a sponsored unit.
So much of it is mental that you're willing to take a shoe that may function 60% as well as another if it feels, looks, or smells better. Whatever makes you feel best inside you'll go with, and I've seen kids change shoes at the starting line in prelim heats just because of some gut feeling about the track.
Long story short, I don't care if it's waterproof, lightweight, shock absorbent, or made in the same factory as Nike products. You'll have a tough time convincing American kids, especially a ton of black kids obsessed with brand image (how long could I go on about Jordans, Gucci belts, Louis bags, Prada shades, etc. etc.) and superficiality that LiNing whatchamacallits are something they should buy.
I swear to God when that website works I'm going to buy those blue ones....
Wearing these to an interview should be the secret 'im on WSO' signal
Besides the fact that "Li-Ning" doesn't sound very attractive, Nike is way too entrenched of a brand name to be upended
Why did they get two shitty comedians to do a shoe commercial?
They should have spent the time/money on how awesome the shoes are, not on how xenophobic Americans are. How is that going to sell? Talk about having no concept of your audience. I was actually mildly offended.
I had to disregard the utter irrelevence of the commercial to actually learn anything about the shoes. They seem okay, but they have a LONG way to go before they gain ANY market share.
They're no Starbury's
Haha! Well played, sir.
Same thing has happened to Toyota and Hyundai when they first started in US. Guess where they are now? People tend to be skeptical about new things....I could have sworn that people said that Google was a bubble when they IPOed so is facebook now. Only time will tell.
I'm in China and Li Ning runs shit over here... they have a store every 3 streets in all major cities.
Am I wrong that Nike is also huge in China?
sometimes people forget that all it takes for a brand to be overtaken is a generational shift. Nike has to work to keep embedding their stuff into the culture and minds, and if they slip up over time I can easily see another firm taking its spot. Who's backing Li-Ning? If they have some multibillionaire behind it who can offer a huge contract to some US athletes then things could get interesting.
Nike is the McDonalds of shoes, the Goldman Sachs of athletic wear if you will. They're simply not in the Google/Apple/Facebook categories who despite their momentum will never be the Coca-Colas of this world.
(Sorry for all the name-dropping.)
With the history of either toxic or shoddy workmanship in China there is zero chance I would by these. If china wants to be a real player they need to stop producing poison dry wall, toxic baby formula and dog food and toys with lead in it. These sneakers probably have depleated uranium in them.
Flubber anyone?
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