How Did Feile Counter Attack From "Hot Potato" To Revenue Breaking 10 Billion Yuan?

When it comes to sportswear, we have to mention FILA. This sports brand of Italian origin has frequently changed owners and experienced a period of low ebb. However, after being acquired by Anta, Feile realized a counter attack. Last year, its sales exceeded 10 billion yuan, becoming Anta's performance growth engine, helping Anta successfully ascend to the top sports brand in China.

　　 Centennial brands have frequently changed owners

Filo's "birthplace" is in Italy. In 1911, a pair of brothers named Filo founded the brand in the small town of Biera, Italy.

At first, Feile's products were mainly tennis and golf equipment. Until the 1970s, in order to meet the needs of the public, Feile opened basketball, skiing, mountaineering, yoga and other product lines.

Later, Feile sponsored many excellent athletes. For example, in the tennis field, there is "tennis legend" Bjorn Berger, who ranked first in the world for 109 consecutive weeks, won 11 grand slams and 63 championship trophies; In the basketball field, Feller's spokesman is Grant Hill, who was once known as "the person closest to Jordan".

However, after entering the 21st century, Phillip's fate can be said to be very turbulent. In 2003, Feile was elected by SportBrand International Ltd. in New York, USA buy; In March 2007, FILAKREA Ltd., which has been responsible for the Asia Pacific business of Filar, reached an agreement with Sport Brand International Ltd. through the holding company Global Leading Brands House to buy Filar's global shoes and clothing business. In the same year, Belle International bought all the rights and interests of Filo brand in China (including Hong Kong and Macao) for 48 million dollars.

In the second half of 2007, Belle Group established a wholly-owned subsidiary, FullProspect, which owns and manages the Feile China trademark in Hong Kong, Macao and the mainland, and is responsible for retail sales of sportswear, footwear products and accessories with the Feile China trademark.

However, due to poor management, the brand influence of Feile in China has become increasingly marginalized, and the company's business even suffered losses. According to public data, FullProspect's net loss reached 5.53 million yuan in 2007 and expanded to 32.18 million yuan in 2008.

Due to the huge loss, Belle decided to sell Feile, a "hot potato", and the buyer was Anta.

In August 2009, Anta announced that it would purchase the trademark use right and franchise of Phillip in China with a total price of about 600 million Hong Kong dollars.

In this regard, many analysts believe that Feile business will not bring about a huge increase in Anta's earnings in the short term, because the brand's recognition in the Chinese market needs to be improved, and it is still in a loss state.

Zhang Tao, then Anta's vice president, said that the acquisition of Fila was to achieve complementary advantages. Filo mainly takes the high-end sports route, and has obvious advantages in international brand effect and scientific research and development. However, the domestic high-end segment sports consumer market still has great potential. In addition to Anta's local influence and sales channel resources, the entry of Feile is conducive to seizing the domestic high-end sports market share.

Acquired by Anta, positioning sports fashion

Anta has positioned Feile as a high-end fashion sports brand, and adjusted its product design, sales and marketing accordingly.

In terms of product design, Yao Weixiong, president of Phillip Greater China, said frankly that what he valued most was product innovation. "As a brand, repeat the successful products in the past, and consumers will soon get tired of your products. Is your products fresh enough? Then consumers will chase you." He said in an interview with the media: "First, I require that the innovative fabrics in each season should not be less than half. Second, the proportion of imported materials should not be less than 40%."

In addition to pursuing innovation in product design, Feile's sales channel was also different from other sports brands at that time. At that time, most of the sports brands adopted the distribution mode, while Phillip took back almost all the stores from the dealers and changed to the direct marketing mode. Yao Weixiong said that after all, dealers are still trading partners, while self support can achieve 100% control over the whole store, and the headquarters directly controls the decoration, display and sales. But he also said frankly: "The headquarters directly manages hundreds of stores, which is very tiring. But there is never free lunch in business. To do a good job in business, we must pay more attention to details."

In addition, another advantage of the direct marketing model is that the brand can quickly respond to the market consumption trend, which is also crucial for a sports brand that is positioned in fashion and needs to follow the trend.

In terms of market promotion, Feile adopts a marketing layout dominated by entertainment and fashion stars. Whether it is Shu Qi, Chen Kun or Gao Yuanyuan, each spokesperson has attracted many consumers for Filo. Anta once said that the brand will continue its consistent entertainment star strategy and tap into the domestic middle class audience resources aged 20 to 45.

With Anta's unremitting efforts, Phillip began to reverse its decline and make profits in 2014. Until 2016, Feile had a new role in Anta: performance engine. According to Anta's 2016 financial report, Filo has achieved the crossover of sports and fashion, driving the gross profit rate of clothing category up 3.2 percentage points.

Relevant experts from the China National Garment Association told the reporter of China Business Daily that on the one hand, Feile can turn losses into profits because of its own profound historical background, which is conducive to increasing consumer trust. And Anta's "transformation" of Filo can also help it attract consumers with more consumption power and pursuit of individuality.

Last year, it created 10 billion yuan of revenue, successfully counterattacked

After accumulating rich operating experience, Feile fully laid out the sports fashion market last year.

Last September, Fiele landed in Milan Fashion Week, and Yao Weixiong said: "Fiele has kept its own Italian DNA, and constantly introduced fashion elements into the sports field. Through innovative fabrics, fashion design and the perfect combination with Italian aesthetics, it fully interprets its unique fashion sports concept. Last year, the brand returned to Italy, where it was born, and took the stage of Milan Fashion Week to subvert the image of traditional sports brands and show the growth and transformation of Filo to the world with a new fashion face. "

In addition, the market promotion of Feile is more young. Fila launched the trendy sports brand "FILAFUSION" and signed with Wang Yuan, Huang Jingyu and Ma Sichun as new spokesmen, which marks that Fila will comprehensively enter the young consumer market aged 20-30.

Stars really stimulate consumers' shopping desire. A reporter from China Business Daily conducted a random interview at the Feile store, and many consumers said that they decided to buy the brand product because their favorite star became the spokesperson. The sales staff of Fila store also said that many consumers came to find "the same model as the star", and some series were out of stock.

In terms of sales channels, as of December 31 last year, Phillip opened 1652 stores in China and Singapore, and its stores in China are mainly distributed in the first and second tier cities.

Fei Le's efforts were rewarded. From the performance of Anta last year, Anta's annual operating revenue rose 44.4% year-on-year to 24.1 billion yuan, and its net profit increased 32.9% to 4.1 billion yuan, becoming the leader of domestic sports brands. Last year, Feile's sales exceeded 10 billion yuan, with a sales growth rate of more than 80%, which is currently the largest contribution of Anta's brands.

The above experts said that at present, the market is generally optimistic about the future growth space of Feile. Compared with professional sportswear, sportswear series are suitable for more occasions, and more suitable for young consumers to pursue personalized and differentiated aesthetic trends. In addition, Fiele's high-end sports fashion line also provides the brand with a higher premium capacity, and the future profit margin will be large. "In the future, Fila needs to continue to work hard on consumer loyalty. After all, the trend of fashion changes too fast. Many international sports brands have noticed that the growth of the sports fashion market is slowing down. Fila should also be alert," he said. Author: Jie Yuxing