From Li Zongsheng to Papi酱, what does NewBalance want? ——the market segmentation change of NewBalance

Zhang Xuanting(1155082066)

“不要为了天亮去跑， 跑下去，天自己会亮！” 

 Recently, Papi酱, who is regarded as the Chinese most popular online celebrity, published an advertising film for NewBalance. It is over a hundred thousand read in a short time.

  It’s the second time that Papi酱 shoot the advertising film for a brand with the first time speaking for Jaeger-LeCoultre, a famous high-end watch brand from Switzerland. On 1^st March, NewBalance’s Chinese official Weibo account formally published a topic called To My Future Self with Papi酱’s advertising film, up to now, it has received over 40 millions of read and raised 4 thousands of discussion, which caused huge diffusion among the netizens.

  However, it makes me think back to the previous advertising film of NetBalance using Li Zongsheng, who is respectfully addressed as the godfather of music by people, as its spokesman. From a 60-year-old man with rich life experiences to a 30-year-old young lady who is popular on the Internet for creating funny videos, such a big adjustment of NewBalance’s advertising strategy also reflects to the fact that NewBalance is changing its market segmentation. Start from the new spokesman with a completely different style, NewBalance is putting its eye on a different segmentation of its target customers.

From the middle class to millennials

  Before Papi酱, a famous singer, Li Zongsheng was invited to shoot an advertising film called Every Step Counts for NewBalance’s 110 years anniversary. The film used Li’s ingenuity as the unique selling point, which matched those middle-class people’s pursue of the quality life. NewBalance still leaves some of their factories in the UK and America and these high-end series of shoes focus more on the quality. Using this advertising film, NewBalance emphasized the image of its focusing on the shoes’ quality that it wants to set up among the middle-class customers.

  If Li Zongsheng represents of those 30 to 40-year-old middle-class people who have more ability to pay for their quality life, then I would say Papi酱 represents of the growing-up millennials, born between 1984 and 1995.

  NewBalance used Papi酱 as a key opinion leader to express the positive life attitude. It aims at encouraging people by illustrating a young girl’s own experience of being confused of her future life, then gradually find her clear goal through running. The key word that NewBalance tried to emphasize is grow up, and NewBalance is acting as the position of a friend during this process, accompanying the young people to go through their growing up process.

  This kind of new strategy meet NewBalance’s new target groups’ psychographic needs, as the young generation is growing up, they must experience a confusing period and have to find out the answer by themselves. At this point, NewBalance used a young opinion leader’s similar example to raise their customers’ common sense, and convey them a positive life attitude through running, which also match their personality of active and energetic.

  Another advantage of using Papi酱 as the spokesman is that, as the hottest Chinese KOL with more than 20 millions of followers, Papi酱 herself is so influential and most of her followers are the young people who exactly match the NewBalance’s new target group. This condition is also beneficial to the advertisement’s diffusion since Papi酱 has her own celebrity charms to attract customers. However, Papi酱 herself also has some opponents who doesn’t like her style. But from my perspective, this kind of discussion is also the effect that NewBalance wants to raise.

  Why did NewBalance change its target customers in the new advertising film? In my opinion, on one hand, even though the millennials may not have as much buying power as the middle-class people now, they are the next main strength of the consumers’ market, so it’s important to attract this group of potential buyers. On the other hand, NewBalance want to change its brand image from the old-style shoes with good quality to fashionable shoes with warmth and attitude.

Papi酱 and the female market

  Why use Papi酱 as the new spokesman? Apart from she is young, popular among the young generations, another reason I believe is her gender.

  Besides an energetic person who positively run through her confusing period, find her goal and finally become successful, Papi酱 also shows a healthy and independent female image. It’s acknowledged that she is successful through her own work and although she is 30 years old, she always maintains a 18-year-old fit body status.

  It has been investigated by NewBalance that 45 percent of the customers in Chinese gym are female, which means that the female sports market is significant to the sports brands. Papi酱’s independent and healthy image is also universally accepted by most of the young ladies who emphasize on self-development more than being the subsidiary in their family.

  In conclusion, it’s breakthrough of NewBalance’s brand image and a change of its market segmentation as well as the corresponding strategies. And the style of the advertising film also shows that NewBalance tends to emphasize more on the psychographic segmentation in order to use common sense to attract the target customers. Although the advertising film seems to be so emotional, it really works among the millennials.

References

NewBalance:#致未来的我http://myfutureself.newbalance.com.cn/

Papi酱穿着NB跑了？这只是草根网红代言进击的第一步：https://www.yidianzixun.com/home?page=article&id=0Fm8ZuvK&up=0

NewBalance × Papi酱：#致未来的我# 跑下去，天自己会亮：http://www.digitaling.com/projects/20945.html