Word: shoes
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Ning Sports Goods, China's largest athletic-shoe and apparel company, built brand awareness the same way Nike did--by getting a revered athlete to hawk its products. But while Nike had to hand over millions in endorsement fees to basketball superstar Michael Jordan, Li Ning Sports Goods just put its eponymous chief executive in front of the cameras. Li Ning, a former gymnast, won the hearts of millions of Chinese when he took six medals--three of them gold--at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Since he founded his company in 1988, Li, 39, has doubled as its spokesman...
There's a tried-and-true formula for marketing success in the athletic-shoe business: find a major sports star, sign him to a hefty product-endorsement contract, and watch the cross-trainers fly off the shelves. For 13 years, Beijing Li Ning Sports Goods applied that formula, becoming China's largest athletic-shoe and sports-apparel brand?without blowing big bucks on superstars. Why were they spared the expense? Because the founder and chairman of Li Ning Sports, champion gymnast Li Ning, is also the company's chief spokesman. Li became a national hero to millions of Chinese after...
...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...
...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...
...relatives were left wondering. "I knew he was a painter, but I thought he worked as a house decorator," says Jan Zavacky, 57, a Warhol cousin. In fact, the relatives put so little stock in the value of Julia's correspondence, sketches and even Warhol's famous shoe designs that came in the mail a few times that, at one point, they threw them in the river...