Life

Walking on Air

By Yu Tianyu (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-10-24 08:32

Li Ning’s sportswear brand is a Madein-China success story, and his opening stunt at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games was a fi tting victory lap. Xinhua News Agency

Li Ning at the 23rd Los Angeles Olympic Games where he won fame and a cache of medals for China. Xinhua News Agency

From top gymnast to one of China's richest entrepreneurs, Li Ning has made an elegant transition from sports to sportswear. Yu Tianyu meets this popular role model.

He caught everyone by surprise with his high-flying role on China's proudest night. At the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Li Ning, hoisted high on cables, did a mid-air lap with the flaming Olympic torch while friends and even his closest colleagues watched open-mouthed across the country.

No one knew about it beforehand, and rehearsals had been conducted in dead of night and in deepest secrecy. The 47-year-old former gymnast was training under cover for months.

The fact that Li Ning was wearing a white jersey emblazoned with the Adidas logo did not escape sharp-eyed spectators. Adidas was one of the official sponsors of the Beijing Games - but it was also Li Ning's biggest competitor.

As Li Ning circled the Olympic stadium, Adidas CEO Herbert Hainer was watching from his air-conditioned VIP box. So was Zhang Zhiyong, chief executive of Li Ning Company Limited, who could not believe his eyes when he saw his boss fly above the crowds.

Before the ceremony was even over, Zhang was being inundated with a flood of phone calls, text messages, e-mails, interview requests, advertisement offers and commercial invitations.

When he told his boss later, the only response was a text message: "The honor neither belongs to me nor our company. We are too narrow-minded if we commercialize it." And, that was the end of the story.

But there are some who viewed Li Ning's high-flying stunt as a piece of brilliant luck that dove-tailed well with his company's "unofficial" sponsorship of the Games.

While the big boys had hogged the limelight, Li Ning's sportswear company quietly attacked on the flanks. To ensure visibility, the company outfitted every presenter of sports channel CCTV-5 who appeared on air as well as the Spanish and Swedish national teams.

Together with its company chairman's dramatic opening stunt, the guerilla marketing tactics worked so well that share prices jumped 3 percent on the next trading day.

You would have thought Li Ning must be proud of this, but he skirts the subject, modestly glossing over the details with a "I'm an entrepreneur now, let's talk about the Li Ning brand".

It is a brand that started decades ago in 1984, when a young ethnic Zhuang boy from Southwest China's Guangxi wowed the world by becoming the most decorated Chinese athlete in the Los Angeles Olympic Games. Li Ning did his homeland proud by capturing three golds, two silvers and one bronze in the gymnastic events he competed in.

He retired from active competition in 1988 when injury prevented him from continuing his gold rush.

Two years later, he started the sportswear company bearing his name.

In Beijing's Yizhuang industrial development zone, a Swedish-style office architecture complex wears the LI-NING brand. It is more like a sports and recreation resort with a full-sized swimming pool, basketball and football courts and fitness equipment seen scattered around the offices.

Paths both inside and outside are marked like racetracks. Li Ning's employees, mostly young, wear tracksuits and casual attire from other sports brands.

"There is no taboo here," Li says. His office is perched on the top floor, as large as a gym. But it is simply furnished. There is no laptop or fax machine on his Chinese rosewood desk, and there are only some photographs of his family, and one of him and Buddhist Master Hsing Yun.

As he relaxed behind his desk, Li Ning seems very much unchanged from his heyday on the gym floor. His spiky hairdo still sits straight up, and his dimples still twinkle. The only signs are some gray at the temple, and a few wrinkles etched on his face.

"Establishing the brand used to be my personal ambition, but now building up an international brand is the dream of our staff members as well as that of many Chinese," the chairman starts on his favorite subject.

This year, he has just launched a flagship store in Portland, Oregon, a location very near Nike's headquarters. The Chinese brand is endorsed by a few top National Basketball Association players including a high profile $1.5 million deal with Shaquille O'Neal of the Boston Celtics.

But it was money well spent. The Hong Kong-listed company has reported about 8.3 billion yuan in sales in 2009 with a year-on-year rise of 25.4 percent. It opened 1,004 new outlets in 2009, boosting its total number of stores to 7,249 by the end of 2009.

Fang Shiwei, chief marketing officer of Li Ning, says sales in China exceeded Adidas in 2009, and it is now the second-largest brand after Nike.

Now that his company is on course, the taciturn chairman has turned over much of the running to his management team.

"I'm willing to be an anchor for the company. Most of all, I am glad to see so many of our young consumers buying the Li Ning brand because they like the products. They don't know who I am. The marketing does not need my name anymore," he says.

The newly released Hurun report on the wealthiest Chinese lists Li Ning as the 64th richest with a personal fortune of $12 billion yuan. But he brushes it off with his usual nonchalance: "I am just a common man doing common things."

But he is certainly unusual in his people skills.

On the day the company turned 20 in late June this year, Li Ning sat alone in the company canteen having a simple lunch. His meal was constantly interrupted by reporters, colleagues and others who stopped by with congratulations. Li Ning stood up every time and greeted and thanked them all - everyone, strangers and friends alike.

The man himself sums it up. "My whole life is married to sports and I'm happy just to do things related to sports and being together with athletes." That is great sportsmanship.

Two years later, he started the sportswear company bearing his name.

In Beijing's Yizhuang industrial development zone, a Swedish-style office complex bears the Li Ning brand. It is more like a sports and recreation resort with a full-sized swimming pool, basketball and football courts and fitness equipment placed strategically around the offices.

Paths both inside and outside are marked like racetracks. Li Ning's employees, mostly youthful executives, wear tracksuits and casual attire, some from other brands.

"There is no taboo here," Li says. His office is perched on the top floor, as large as a gym.

But it is simply furnished. There is no laptop or fax machine on his Chinese rosewood desk, and there are only some photographs of his family, and one of him and Buddhist Master Hsing Yun.

As he relaxed behind his desk, Li Ning seems very much unchanged from his heyday on the gym floor. His spiky hairdo still sits straight up, and his dimples still twinkle. The only signs are some gray at the temple, and the few wrinkles etched on his face.

"Establishing the brand used to be my personal ambition, but now building up an international brand is our company's vision as well as that of many Chinese," the chairman starts on his favorite subject.

This year, he has just launched a flagship store in Portland, Oregon, a location very near Nike's headquarters.

The Chinese brand is endorsed by a few top National Basketball Association players including a high profile $1.5 million deal with Shaquille O'Neal of the Boston Celtics.

But it was money well spent. The Hong Kong-listed company has reported about 8.3 billion yuan in sales in 2009 with a year-on-year rise of 25.4 percent. It opened 1,004 new outlets in 2009, boosting its total number of stores to 7,249 by the end of 2009.

Fang Shiwei, chief marketing officer of Li Ning, says sales in China exceeded Adidas in 2009, and it is now the second-largest brand after Nike.

Now that his company is on course, he has turned over much of the day-to-day running to his management team.

"I'm willing to be an anchor for the company. But I am glad to see so many of our young consumers buying Li Ning now because they like the products. They don't know who I am. The marketing does not need my name anymore," he says.

The newly released Hurun report lists Li Ning as the 64th richest man in China with a personal fortune of $12 billion yuan. But he brushes it off with his usual nonchalance: "I am just a common man doing common things."

But he is certainly unusual in his people skills. On the day the company turned 20 in June this year, Li Ning sat alone in the company canteen having lunch. His meal was constantly interrupted by reporters, colleagues and others who stopped by with congratulations. He stood up every time and thanked them all - everyone, strangers and friends alike.

The man himself sums it up. "My whole life is married to sports and I'm happy just doing things related to sports and being together with athletes."

That is great sportsmanship.