Word: ning
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...literary types who would, in other countries, seek a career in letters are not even bothering to become copycatters, choosing other, more-lucrative fields instead. "Self-reliance and financial independence are the most crucial things for the Chinese intellectuals who used to rely on politics to survive," says Qian Ning, son of China's Vice Premier Qian Qichen and author of the best-selling Chinese Students En-counter America. "That's why I don't want to be a full-time author." Without the money he earns as a business consultant, Qian probably wouldn't have written a historical novel...
...like Jordan, Li is discovering that knee ligaments and marketing formulas don't last forever. Li is uncharacteristically absent from his company's latest mainland advertising campaign, a $2.4 million TV blitz that coincides with World Cup broadcasts. The ads, featuring no-name characters wearing Li Ning Sports gear, are part of a corporate image overhaul to get younger, more affluent Chinese to wear the brand. Li, now 39, isn't recognizable to a hipper generation that follows NBA basketball and the English Premier League on TV. Fans "used to come by the thousands when I opened outlets," Li says...
...Since retiring from gymnastics in 1988, Li has built his company into a credible challenger in China to Nike, Adidas and Reebok. Li Ning Sports currently holds a 10% share of the mainland's athletic-shoe market, outselling all foreign brands combined. Aided by more than 1,000 Li Ning Sports specialty shops scattered around the country, sales have grown at an annual average rate of 32% for the past three years; profits were $8.5 million last year on $108 million in revenue. The numbers may not sound impressive?Nike's 2001 global sales were $9.48 billion...
...company has been able to grow primarily by tapping market segments the global brands largely ignore. Li Ning shoes?distinguished by a logo that resembles Nike's famous swoosh, but with a foxtail attached?sell for $40 dollars?less than half the price of top-of-the-line foreign sneakers. They are popular in rural China, but not in the country's wealthier coastal cities, where residents prefer foreign brands. Li Ning Sports "is an old brand and it certainly needs revitalization," says Xue Xu, a marketing professor at Peking University and an expert on domestic brands. Moreover, Xue says...
...Ning Sports hopes to maintain home-court advantage by attacking the foreign brands in metropolitan China, in part by exploiting growing national pride during the run-up to the 2008 Olympics to be held in Beijing. The company recently hired ad agency Leo Burnett Beijing and set aside $11 million for marketing this year, one of the biggest corporate-marketing budgets in China. Higher-end product lines, created with the help of top sports-shoe designers Massimiliano Zago of Italy and Paviot Jean-Philippe of France, are being added to counteract the brand's bargain-bin tinge...