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Our reporter Liu Wang reports from Beijing

At the intersection of sports and modern business, sportswear occupies a large share, and the ongoing Paris Olympics provides a platform for sports brands to showcase their strength, innovation capabilities and market influence.

The role of this platform was evident from the opening ceremony. The "Dream Chasing" dresses for the Chinese sports delegation provided by Jomoo, the host French delegation dresses designed by the century-old brand Berluti, and the Canadian representative team uniforms provided by Lvlulemon were all highly sought after, and the brands behind them also attracted a lot of attention.

Moreover, a reporter from China Business News noticed that whenever athletes stepped onto the podium to enjoy the glory, the award-winning clothes they wore also revealed their brand image at the same time. Statistics show that brands such as Adidas, Nike, Anta, Peak, and Li Ning have accompanied athletes onto the podium many times.

Of course, the sportswear that athletes wear when competing on the field is also the focus of competition among brands. Many sports brands choose to use competition uniforms to spread their own "black technology". Obviously, the Olympics has also become a show for sports and fashion brands in another aspect of sports competition.

Fashion show at the opening ceremony

The opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics is not only the beginning of sports competition, but also a grand event for the display of international fashion brands. At the opening ceremony, basically every delegation has its own brand to design clothing.

The reporter noticed that the dresses worn by the Chinese sports delegation at the opening ceremony were designed by Jiumuwang and named "Chasing Dreams". The men's and women's dress jackets adopted the I-shaped pattern extracted from the bricks and tiles of the Great Wall, and the women's dress skirts combined cheongsam and Song Dynasty costumes.

In addition, the host country France, whose opening ceremony costumes were designed by Berluti, a luxury brand under LVHM; Lululemon once again designed costumes for the Canadian delegation this year; and the Mongolian delegation's costumes combined the features of traditional Mongolian robes, incorporating the national flag and national totem into the clothing patterns.

Obviously, the "fashion show" at the opening ceremony is also an extension of the Olympic marketing strategy of major brands. In this global event, the appearance of each brand is a reflection of its business wisdom and cultural understanding.

"The biggest benefit that large-scale events, especially those with great international influence like the Olympics and the World Cup, bring to participating brands is increased brand awareness." Ma Gang, an analyst in the clothing industry, said that companies use large-scale events to concentrate exposure and market their brands in a short period of time, and the popularity of the brands rises rapidly.

The effect can also be seen from the viewing data of the opening ceremony. According to a report by NBC Universal in the United States, the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics attracted 28.6 million American viewers, which is the highest viewing rate since the London Olympics in 2013; the German TV station's broadcast of the opening ceremony attracted 10.1 million viewers, becoming the highest-rated opening ceremony broadcast in 20 years; the daily active users of CCTV Sports Client increased by 15 times, and the number of new users increased by 20 times. The number of views of the Paris Olympics has exceeded 1.29 billion times, and the live broadcast data has increased by nearly 500% compared with the viewing volume of the Tokyo Olympics and the Beijing Winter Olympics during the same period.

In fact, in the past, the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games has brought huge traffic to brands. For example, Lululemon became popular at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics and then entered the Chinese market, which is a good example.

Marketing planning expert Liu Dahe said that the Olympic Games, as a professional global event, provides relevant companies with a wealth of basic conditions for marketing and communication, including professional endorsements, real-life "model" product displays, a large amount of publicity material accumulation, and global awareness enhancement. However, the final effect depends on whether the company can take advantage of the above conditions to further ferment and spread.

Sponsorship battle on the podium

As of 16:00 Beijing time on August 8, the Chinese sports delegation ranked fourth in the Olympic medal table with 25 gold, 23 silver and 17 bronze medals, a total of 65 medals. The Chinese athletes also stepped onto the podium with the award-winning uniforms designed and produced by ANTA. It is reported that as a partner of the Chinese Olympic Committee, ANTA has designed the award-winning equipment of the Chinese sports delegation for four sessions. At the same time, ANTA's multi-brand strategy has achieved certain results in this Olympic Games. Its FILA brand is not only the sponsor of the Chinese national archery team, the national skateboarding team and other teams, but also provides entrance uniforms and award-winning uniforms for relevant Chinese Olympic delegations. As of August 7, athletes with competition uniforms and award-winning uniforms sponsored by FILA have stepped onto the podium 37 times.

"The more times it appears, the deeper the impression it leaves on consumers. This is inseparable from the unique sponsorship strategies of each brand. For example, when choosing a sponsorship object, it is necessary to conduct certain marketing analysis on it to ensure that the sponsorship object has enough exposure opportunities. At the same time, by capturing the core sports stars, the communication effect is likely to experience explosive growth." Liu Dahao said.

The reporter noticed that the marketing sponsorship strategies of different brands at the Olympics are also a continuation of their brand strategies. According to statistics from the vertical media Sports Business, as of August 7, athletes sponsored by Adidas in competition and award uniforms have been on the podium 142 times, ranking first among all sports brands.

The reporter learned that, unlike Anta's strategy, Adidas sponsors the Olympics on a large scale with a single main brand, and is the sports brand covering the most events in this Olympics. The previously released "Athlete Equipment Series" designed for the Paris Olympics contains 49 pairs of shoes, covering 41 different events, including traditional events such as track and field, tennis, basketball, as well as new events such as breakdancing and skateboarding, belonging to 9 national teams.

Regarding the sponsorship strategy and results, the reporter contacted Anta and Adidas respectively, but no response was received as of press time.

In addition, according to media statistics, 361° also gained some honors on the podium in this Olympics. Two athletes from the Kyrgyzstan delegation sponsored by 361° won one silver and one bronze respectively. They received the medals wearing 361° award-winning uniforms. A Brazilian athlete won a bronze medal in the women's 60kg boxing competition, and her competition and award uniforms were provided by Xtep.

Before the opening of the Paris Olympics, Peak Sports released the "Peak Olympic Development Plan 2024". Peak Sports CEO Xu Zhihua said that the goal of Paris this time is to have 100 athletes wearing Peak award-winning uniforms on the Olympic podium. This shows the importance that sports brands attach to award-winning uniforms. Similar to Adidas' strategy of large-scale sponsorship with a single main brand, Peak Sports provided award-winning uniforms for Olympic delegations from multiple countries at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Zhang Qing, founder of Key Sports Consulting, told reporters that the Olympics is a "clean venue" and there is no advertising in the traditional sense. The few opportunities for brand exposure are the athletes' competition uniforms and the award-winning uniforms derived from them.

"The Olympic spirit is higher, faster, stronger and more united, and it is specifically reflected in winning gold and silver medals. The gold medal moment is undoubtedly the highlight moment. It is the focus of traffic and topics, and it is the moment that is most guaranteed to gain attention. Therefore, award-winning uniforms are also the focus of competition among various sports brands. Therefore, we can also see that some brands have sponsored foreign award-winning uniforms and even professional competition uniforms, which are all noteworthy." Zhang Qing said.

“Black Technology” and Sales Growth

Since the award-winning equipment of the Chinese sports delegation was designed by ANTA, other domestic sports brands could not stand on the podium with Chinese athletes at the same time. However, on the field, Chinese athletes can be seen wearing competition uniforms of other domestic sports brands.

It is worth noting that many sports brands have also incorporated the power of "black technology" when designing clothing.

However, the Li Ning sportswear worn by the Chinese table tennis team members was criticized by netizens for "poor moisture absorption" and "stuck seams", which attracted attention. In response, Li Ning told reporters that Li Ning has always attached great importance to the wearing experience of athletes' competition uniforms. The coaches and athletes of the Chinese table tennis team have expressed their approval of the competition uniforms provided by Li Ning for the table tennis team, and no feedback has been received on product quality issues.

Li Ning also mentioned that Li Ning has accumulated rich experience in the design and production of professional table tennis uniforms. It provides customized competition uniforms and training equipment services based on the data characteristics of each player. After many trials and modifications, the final version is finalized based on the athlete's sports experience.

Regarding the rumor that the "Dragon Suit" has been removed from the shelves, Li Ning said that the Li Ning 2024 Table Tennis Dragon Suit will be available on the Li Ning official mini program (WeChat platform), some Li Ning brand stores, and Li Ning table tennis product authorized dealer stores (including stores and online stores) from July 4, 2024. Please identify the official authentic purchase channels. At present, sales and services in various channels are normal.

Zhang Qing believes that sports brands have many years of sponsorship experience, have a database of corresponding athletes, and have a dedicated R&D team, so they will not sacrifice comfort for so-called high technology, and will use environmentally friendly materials on the basis of ensuring the athletes' competitive performance. As for the hotly discussed topic online, in fact, the amount of sweating of each athlete is different. Athletes with a relatively large amount of sweat may reach the critical value of sweat absorption of the fabric, but this cannot deny the efforts made by local brands to ensure the competitive performance of athletes.

Zhang Qing told reporters that from the perspective of sports goods manufacturing, our country's brands are already at the world's leading level, and companies should be encouraged to increase their technological content. Of course, it should also be emphasized that all efforts should be based on improving athletes' competitive performance as the primary starting point.

Outside the catwalk, the Olympic Games’ ability to bring goods is self-evident. JD.com data shows that in the past week, the number of searches related to the Olympics has grown rapidly, among which the search popularity of track and field shoes, badminton, volleyball, mascots, backpacks and other related products has increased, especially the number of searches for Olympic-style sportswear and backpacks has increased by more than 10 times month-on-month.

Vipshop data shows that the number of searches for keywords related to products such as "Olympics" and "Olympic style" on the platform has surged recently. Driven by summer vacation consumption and the Olympic effect, sales of cross-country running shoes, quick-drying T-shirts, sports polo shirts, and children's sun protection clothing have increased by more than 100%. In sports consumption, New Balance sales have increased by more than 2 times year-on-year, and overall sales of brands such as Xtep, Under Armour, Fila, and Anta have increased by nearly 50%.

However, some people believe that the event has a certain bonus cycle and its impact on sales terminals is limited. Companies should follow up rationally to avoid subsequent inventory backlogs. In this regard, Zhang Qing told reporters that the essence of sports marketing is emotional marketing, which creates emotional value, but in the current Internet era, such emotional changes are very frequent and fleeting, which tests the company's ability to respond quickly.

"Some international sports brands, such as Nike, have established rapid teams since the London Olympics. They have two or three external professional organizations cooperating with their own sports marketing and communication departments. These are worth learning from for local brands. For example, social media operation and maintenance companies, advertising companies, and traditional public relations companies should subdivide each profession and establish rapid response departments. This kind of rapid response is not an advance response, but a subdivided specialization," said Zhang Qing.

Zhang Qing suggested that when sports brands conduct relevant marketing, they should first focus on the use of professional forces and appropriately leverage the power of sports marketing companies. They understand the characteristics of athletes, know how to express sports emotions, and can quickly resonate with the audience; secondly, the construction of online and offline scenarios, such as arranging some Olympic-related materials in specialty stores and online live broadcast rooms, including the salesperson's words, displayed products, etc.; finally, the corresponding goods should have sufficient eye-catching products to activate the marketing elements on the product side.