Li-Ning Success in America?
The game of basketball is a global sport, and it is nowhere bigger than it is in China. Chinese citizens love for the game may come as a surprise for most casual American basketball fans, but basketball in China is a huge thing and every time NBA teams would come and visit it was like a national holiday for them. But even if basketball is such a huge sport there, there are not any local brands in China that can consider themselves major players in the basketball market, even in China the majority of basketball players wear their Nike shoes and their Jordan’s just like players do in America. Brands like Li-Ning, it is nearly impossible to make any sort of impact in that basketball sneaker market in the United States because of how monopolized the market already is by other big name brands and because of the stigma of Chinese products corresponding to cheaper/worse quality in comparison to the other brands.
Li-Ning was founded in 1990 by former Chinese Olympic gymnast Li Ning and was originally founded as a sports apparel company. According to Li-Ning’s official website, Li Ning founded the brand, “with the simple goal of providing Chinese athletes a national brand to wear on the world stage of the Olympics — historically one of the West’s rare portals into authentic Chinese culture”. At the beginning of its creation, it was just seen as any other sports brand in the world, but during the 2008 Beijing Olympics it really catapulted itself to a national stage with all of the Chinese athletes wearing the brand and giving Li-Ning it’s break through.
As Li-Ning tried to make its impact in the basketball world in the United States, the American people already made up their mind about Li-Ning. According to a study done by HD Trade Services, an ecommerce technology company, “about a third of Americans surveyed said they would not buy a brand if they knew it was Chinese-owned.” Most American consumers consider Chinese brands as the cheaper/worse quality product in comparison to their competitors Nike and Jordan in the basketball sneakers market. There is that stigma that products from foreign countries are the knockoff products of American products like fake designer clothes and fake Jordan’s, and because of that, nobody wants to be seen wearing something that is not a Nike or Jordan basketball shoe. And to be honest most of us consumers, even though we may never say it out loud, do self consciously think to ourselves that the bigger the brand the better the product and to a brand we do not know about or comes from a foreign land far away, we all subconsciously pick the bigger name brand whether we like to admit it or not.
Looking deeper into this stigma that American consumers have on products from China, are Americans being unfair? Of course they are being unfair, the stereotype of Chinese products being cheaper/worse quality compared to any product made in America is unfair, and unjust. Who’s to say that the iPhone that is right next to you that you use everyday is cheaper than any phone made in America, or is any less quality than any other phone. And who is to say that your Nike shoes that you have on are not made in china? Everything we use on a daily basis come from a foreign country, so to say that products from China are cheaper/worse quality than a more prominent brand in America is not fair, and it is built up through years of stereotypes and prejudice against Chinese products and its citizens.
Just to add on to the stigma of Americans thinking that Chinese brands are cheaper and worse quality than American brands, actually taking a deep look at the shoes itself (specifically the Li-Ning Wade All City 7) the shoes have many similarities to Nike and Jordan shoes. The Li-Ning Wade All City 7 has the same strap across the shoe just like the Nike Men’s Zoom Lebron Soldier XII Basketball Shoes, a shoe that kids all across America want to wear because of their favorite sports athlete. Both sneaker shoes basically have the same color pallet, so the question is, what makes the shoe any different from the Nike shoes? Aesthetically, they look very similar, and to be honest they are very pleasing to the eyes. And on the court, the Li-Ning Wade All City 7 do the job, they are comfortable to play in, they don’t rip easily and you can play a full game in it (evident by multiple NBA stars wearing them in game). So if it is not the appearance of the shoes or the quality of the shoe, then what is it? It is that stigma, the bias against Chinese brands that their brands are cheap and not of top quality. So nothing against the actual looks of the shoe, because it is a good looking shoe, it is the stigma of Chinese brands.
On top of the stereotype of Chinese products being the cheaper/worse quality product, there is also another major component as to why Li-Ning basketball shoes did not successfully translate to American culture, and that is how dominated the market already is by other big sports brands like Nike and Jordan. Nike and Jordan have already had their massive influence across the NBA league, they take over the basketball market not just in the NBA and in America, but all across the world including china. The majority of the stars in the NBA are sponsored by either Nike or Jordan (and a sprinkle of a few athletes sponsored by other brands such Puma, Under Armor, and New Balance), but there are only less than a handful of stars with shoe deals with Li-Ning; those players include Jimmy Butler, CJ McCollum, and retired basketball star Dwyane Wade.
If you do follow the NBA, you would understand that the players signed to Li-Ning are not any regular role players, they have signed consistent All-Stars like Jimmy Butler and CJ McCollum, and also NBA legend Dwayne Wade. But even that is not enough for people to want to wear their basketball shoes sneakers. Kids want to wear what their favorite athletes are wearing, they want to play like them, dress like them and look like them, and what most of their favorite athletes are wearing are Nike or Jordan Shoes. So when LeBron James walks onto the court with his brand new LeBron shoes, not only just the kids, but many people watching him will want to wear what he is wearing because he is considered as one of the greatest basketball players of all time. But with Li-Ning their star athletes can only do so much with the brand, Nike and Jordan are known for signing the best of the best players in the NBA, they have a long storied history of players that have played for them. For Nike they have been in the game for a while now, from signing the scrawny kid from the University of North Carolina, Michael Jordan (and eventually giving him his own brand, the Jordan Brand), to Kobe Bryant and now to LeBron James, these are some of the greatest players of all time and it is next to nearly impossible to try and compete with their history. The Li-Ning brand just does not have that influence, even signing some star players, those athletes can only do so much for them.
Li-Ning failed to successfully translate to the United States because of our unjust and unfair biases against foreign products. But we have to ask ourselves what can we do internally as humans to give these foreign brands and products a chance? What will it take for such a company to have success in a market that already is so monopolized by brands that have been in the game for decades. How can a company, Li-Ning, translate to the American Crowd, and what can we do to help?
