Li Ning Case Study

values to the western audience if they keep choosing stars randomly like that.

Every company makes mistakes, so does Li Ning. All the mistakes that made by Li Ning, when it came to the North America market, seem to have one root cause: lack of brand self-regard. Sun Tzu, a famous Asian Chinese strategist mentioned in his masterpiece The Art of War, “Know the enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles with no danger of defeat” (Science of Strategy Institute, 2016). Apparently, Li Ning does not know its competitor Nike, to begin with. Though mimicking the latter for decades, Li Ning failed to decode the core values of Nike. Simply mimicking slogans and Logo won’t bring Li Ning any further. It is the “just do it” spirit that carries with the brand that makes Nike a miracle, not the slogan itself (Christine Birkner, 2013). Li Ning did not figure out this point. Though the slogan of Li Ning in the USA website says “make the change”, however, this

For Li Ning, the future is still blurred. Li Ning has a goal of becoming the world’s most well-known sports company by 2018 (MNW, 2015). But merely having a goal does not make the miracle happen. The company also needs to have arenas which are where will they be active. That is to say, who are their customers? Having done a great job in winning middle age population in China for twenty years, Li Ning abandoned these loyal customers in 2010 by shifting into an emerging market, aiming to attract youngsters at their 20s. Li Ning did not only claim so, but also took that to new extreme by ultimately changing the company’s brand logo, which was more similar to Nike’s. Such an unwise strategic decision was supposed to help build a brand new image to the public. But in reality, such a huge change put Li-Ning into danger: its market share shrunk rapidly (Li-Ning, Inc, 2011). Li Ning did not only lost his old advocates, but also gained nothing in the new territory. What a