China’s Garment Industry behind Olympic Economy

The once in four years Olympic Games is not only a sporting event but also a gradually fierce commercial battle for the clothing brands. It can be said that the Olympic Games is not only a global sports arena， but also the runway for the world’s commercial brands. Especially in the backdrop of the financial crisis， such large-scale sporting event as the Olympic Games is a strong impetus for stimulating economic development as well as an excellent opportunity to build the brand.

In the 2012 London Olympic Games， there are a few events that are impressive to us. The first one is the copycat incident of Egypt. The Egyptian Olympic team wore the Chinese cheapcopy uniforms. Its officials recognized that the clothing was fake products， but said “they are of good enough quality”. While the domestic brands still had no response， Nike had already sent its sportswear to London for the Egyptian team for free. The news effect of “free”went much farther than the real sponsorship.

The second one is Nike’s swift new creative advertising in major media after Liu Xiang injured himself. The warm slogan of “Love sports， even if it breaks your heart” minimized Nike’s own risk. In the handling of emergencies， the use of marketing tools and the capability of rapid response， Nike has demonstrated a strong sense of reaction and competitiveness. If commercial competition is also regarded as a race in the Olympic Games， no doubt we have missed a lot of opportunities.

Another incident is the US senator’s boycotting of the US Olympic uniforms. In fact， it is Ralph Lauren， the long-term sponsor of the US Olympic Team that entrusts Trands， a clothing company in Dalian China， to produce these uniforms. Trands not only provided the uniform of the current Games， it also created the US uniforms for the last Olympic Games in Beijing.

Originally， it was an excellent opportunity for Olympic marketing. For such a small quantity of clothing of just over 2000 sets that required separate plate and fast production， the company needed high quality control requirements and rapid response capacity to take this kind of orders. It was not a casual business which could be finished in a short period of time with quality and quantity. The difficulty of finishing the order was also consistent with Trands’ self-promoting feature of separate cutting of single product. From this perspective， Trands could vigorously promote its high quality of products using this incident， thus promoting its high-end brand image， boosting its transformation from a production company to an enterprise with its own famous brands. However， seeing from its coping strategies， Trands only claimed that it was “innocent” and sighed for the possible loss of orders for the next Olympic Games. It did take advantage of this event to achieve the above goals， so it might have wasted the valuable Olympic marketing opportunity to some extent.

Those events have reflected the embarrassment and dilemma of the Chinese garment industry. First， although they have the capacity of producing first class products， they can only make modest profits through processing， and cannot get the addvalues as first class products; the second one is that they have no rules and lack of respect for intellectual property， as well as the popularity of copycats; the third one lies in the serious lack of capacity of grasping the consumer demand， crisis management， event marketing and other aspects. The Olympics is a contest for athletes from various countries; underlying that surface， it is also a rough business competition.

For businesses or brands， to compete in another arena in the most direct and fastest way， it requires not only rapid response capabilities， but also long-term business intelligence. Putting aside business interests to try to prove to the world the good quality of things made in China， is a positive event marketing for China’s clothing enterprises and industries.

China is the clothing production plant of the world， and also the OEM base for a large number of international brands. What the Chinese garment enterprises need to think about now is how to change the embarrassing situation from the downstream industry chain of “Made in China” to the virtuous circle of “Created in China”.