Chinese sports brand eyes western markets Chinese sports brand eyes western markets

Naibu, the Chinese sports good manufacturer, is plotting a marketing offensive to take on mid-market brands such as Fila and New Balance in the West, using the £50m it hopes to raise in a planned stock market flotation in April.

Naibu, which makes sportswear and trainers, plans to use part of the funds raised to bolster its international profile, as part of a long-term strategy to establish its presence outside of China.

Speaking to Marketing Week, a spokesman for Daniel Stewart, the stockbroker handling the float says while the brand is not looking to establish itself internationally yet in terms of its products, it is looking to build the international profile with a longer-term perspective in mind.

He adds: “In the long-term the brand will look at international expansion but at presence there’s a lot to go for in terms of growth’s in Chinese market, which is growing quickly. Naibu is a middle market brand effectively and it will look to focus on brand building marketing rather than sponsorship activity like some of its bigger peers such as Nike and Adidas moving forward.”

The funds will be principally used to build two new factories in central and western China, with the remainder being invested in domestic marketing initiatives.

Between 2008 and 2010, the sportswear manufacturer’s revenue growth in China was 44% per annum, compared to a 25% to 30% share for the Chinese sports market, according to Daniel Stewart.

Founded in 2002, the Naibu brand is aimed at students 12 years-old and above and has nearly 3,000 stores across 21 provinces in China. It currently has a 1.4% share in the China sportswear market, compared to a 2.7% of the student and young adult market.

first published here

Facebook overhauls ad strategy for brands

Facebook has unveiled its plans to transform both the content and placement of advertisements on its website, as it ramps up efforts to appeal to advertisers ahead of its stock market flotation.

At its first Marketing Conference in New York yesterday (February 29), Facebook revealed its premium ad service. The first announcement was to update brands Pages, which are now in line with the Timeline format already seen on consumers’ profile pages.
Global brands Manchester United, Dove and Burberry are among the first brands in the world to employ the format on their branded pages, ahead of a universal roll out on March 30.
Facebook has also updated its paid ads format, expanding its Sponsored Stories onto mobile for the first time, meaning ads will now feature in the news feed for mobile users, in the same way they do on the desktop version.
Additionally, it announced premium ads would be appearing on its log-out page, which it claims is visited by 37 million people every day.
The social network also unveiled

Social proof is the new marketing

We’re in an amazing period of the consumer Internet.  Despite a shaky economy, many web companies are in hypergrowth.  This is reminiscent of the five-year period over a decade ago when companies like Amazon, Netscape, eBay, Yahoo, Google and PayPal were built.

One challenge, which isn’t new, is the battle for consumer attention.  If you’re looking to grow your user base, is there a best way to cost-effectively attract valuable users?  I’m increasingly convinced the best way is by harnessing a concept called social proof, a relatively untapped gold mine in the age of the social web.
What is social proof?  Put simply, it’s the positive influence created when someone finds out that others are doing something.  It’s also known as informational social influence.

Wikipedia describes social proof as “a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others reflect the correct behavior for a given situation… driven by the assumption that the surrounding people possess more information about the situation.” In other words, people are wired to learn from the actions of others, and this can be a huge driver of consumer behavior.

Consider the social proof of a line of people standing behind a velvet rope, waiting to get into a club.  The line makes most people walking by want to find out what’s worth the wait.  The digital equivalent of the velvet rope helped build viral growth for initially invite-only launches like Gmail, Gilt Groupe, Spotify, and Turntable.fm.

Professor Robert Cialdini, a thought leader in social psychology, has many examples. In one study, his team tested messages to influence reusing towels in hotel rooms.  The social proof message – “Almost 75% of other guests help by using their towels more than once” had 25% better results than all other messages.  And adding the words “of other guests that stayed in this room” had even more impact (also an example of how A/B testing of small details matters).

In another study,

Sports partnership with sportingcommuniti.es

creativeb has teamed up with sportingcommuniti.es in creating one of the leading sports blog and sports social networks.

creativeb is targeting sports businesses and organisations in terms of helping them maximise their branding activities - sportingcommuniti.es provides one channel for the communication of client news and PR.

Established in 2008 sportingcommuniti.es in the last 3 months has published over 4500 posts and has a readership profile in the thousands through its blog website, email updates and other social media.  With quality blog posts and an exiciting editorial plan for 2012 we are looking forward in sharing the word about our partnership!

If you are a business that is involved in sport and would like to discuss how we could work together please contact us today.

Have a read about coachesacrosscontinents who are one of our sporting / not for profit clients.

How to Get Your Hotel’s Social Media ROI

As a hospitality  marketing  manager with lots of creative ideas and innovative projects planned using Social Media, but needing increased budget to support your work you need to quantify the value of your activities. 

The benefits tend to fall into two categories:

1) Cost savings

Customer service. Faster response times and faster issue resolution increases customer satisfaction and saves your company money. Data has shown that it’s seven times cheaper to serve a customer on Twitter than in a call center.

Feedback collection. Money spent gather customer feedback can be reduced when you go online. In the past, hotels had to collect insight through expensive mystery shopping and satisfaction surveys, but now travelers are sharing this information without being asked. Social media acts as a virtual “24/7 mystery shopper” that allows you to view your hotels through the eyes of guests. Analysis of online reviews can provide a much more comprehensive view of what your clients are experiencing.

Nokia to “rejuvenate” brand to focus on youth

Nokia is changing its strategy to focus on youth consumers as it sets about “rejuvenating” the brand and its tone of voice in a bid to stay competitive in the smartphone market.

The Finnish manufacturer is to ramp up its use of social media, partner with more youth-focused celebrities and brands – especially those with a music focus – and continue to ensure its phones are affordable as it looks to capture the youth market.
John Nichols, Nokia’s head of marketing for the UK and Ireland, says the shift in strategy will help it tap into the “next generation of mobile purchasers”.
He adds: “This isn’t a standing start, we already have a huge youth market but for teenagers we need to ensure that we create the content and partnerships that matter. As a teenager, the brands I loved had an opinion and told me whether to engage with them or not.
“The trick is to remember to not just wade in; otherwise our personality could look like the drunken uncle dancing at the wedding.”

‘Bold marketers will come out top after economy improves’

Companies that continue to invest in marketing despite uncertainty over the state of the economy will benefit from improved market share in the long-term, according to the authors of the latest IPA Bellwether report.

The advice comes as the report showed marketing budgets were set higher in the third quarter as companies spent heavily on direct response channels such as DM and sales promotion to boost volumes (see chart 1 below).
More than a fifth (21%) of the 300 marketers polled revised their budgets up in the fourth quarter, compared to 17% that cut spend. The net balance, 3.4%, is an improvement on the 2.2% registered in the second quarter.
Chris Williamson, chief economist at financial information service Markit and author of the report, says that investment in direct marketing and sales promotion by brands looking for a short-term volume increase “in the face of weak demand” helped lift spend.
Retailers, driven by the major supermarkets, have been investing heavily in price cuts to entice reluctant shoppers struggling with rising bills.