Metersbonwe and Me & City: Do not take the unusual road!

In the traditional sense, garment companies, dragged down by hard conditions such as factories, equipment, and production workers, are unable to flex their muscles in profits and markets. At the moment when OEMs and OBM are talking about the sky, this issue may not have much discussion value. But 15 years ago, Zhou Chengjian, who first thought about this issue, made it a big deal, and thus created MTS. Bonwe is a large company with annual sales of 5 billion yuan. In the past 15 years, Metersbonwe has leveraged the “light model” to incite “heavy assets” and to walk between light and heavy weights. This is a brand legend.

Lightly put into battle: brand strategy stuck in multiple puzzles

When Zhou Chengjian established Metersbonwe in 1995, he did not know the concept of “virtual management” proposed by Roger Nagel, a well-known American scholar. However, with the intuition of an entrepreneur, he had been using it well. This "virtual management" concept.

From the very beginning of its creation, Zhou Chengjian outsourced the production-related heavy asset business of the Smith Barney's production chain to various types of processing companies. At the same time, he handed over the product sales to the chain operation channels in various places, and he focused on resources and energy for the products themselves. Design R&D and brand marketing circumvent risks in production and sales.

In 2008, Smithsonian’s listing on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange marked its great success as a “light asset strategy.” The Zhou Chengjian family also became the richest man with “17 million yuan in assets” in the “Hurun Garment Rich List”. However, in the same year, the "light asset model" also met with a dramatic "Waterloo" - this year, Smith Barney launched a new higher-priced brand Me & City.

In the following year or so, Zhou Chengjian generously invited Hollywood celebrities to endorse and at the same time widely used commercial real estate throughout the country to provide "Me&City" shops. However, Zhou Chengjian may not have expected that in the first quarter of 2010, Smith Barney made an announcement that its net profit declined by 90% year-on-year. The company explained that the multi-brand strategy has just started, and both the decision-making team and the business team lack experience. In addition, the obvious lack of planning, the overall cost control is ineffective, and some of the resources are not used efficiently.

It is undeniable that all aspects of Me&City have consumed a lot of costs.

At the end of 2008, the company made drastic changes within the company, dividing Metersbonwe and Me&City into two business units and operating independently. Marketing methods also try to distinguish from Metersbonwe. The early spokesperson for Metersbonwe was Aaron Kwok, and the successor was Jay Chou. Me&City started to look overseas. In addition to the earliest spokespersons, Winterworth Miller and supermodel Bruneteno, they later signed Orlando Bloom, the "prince of the elf", and recruited internationally renowned photographers.

However, it is most representative of management's cherishment for Me&City. In 2009, all stores were opened directly, and they were not open to join. And Metersbonwe is already the mainstream franchise store. As of the end of 2009, there were 2863 stores in Meibang Garments, including 523 directly-operated stores and 2,340 franchised stores.

The endorsement of international celebrities and a large number of publicity and promotion are just the tip of the iceberg of huge investment. Over the past year or so, the company has spent most of its costs on commercial real estate.

The company's annual report disclosed that in 2009, the company spent 820 million yuan in shop purchases and leases, and spent more than 50 million yuan on decoration of stores. Or buy or rent, Smith Barney has a large number of shops, and most stores are in a loss-making state. Throughout 2009, Metersbonwe’s sales revenue was 4.8 billion yuan, while Me&City was 350 million yuan. Me&City needs Metersbonwe to "transmit blood."

The dream of Zhou Chengjian's advancement into the high-end may not be difficult to understand, but it is much more difficult to “go upwards” than “go down”. In this regard, Yuan Yue, Chairman of Zero Research Consulting Group, stated that some companies starting from low-end brands have adopted the “isolation” method in order to build high-end brands, and they have not allowed the outside world to know the connection between the new brand and the original brand. . Under normal circumstances, high-end brands are easy to drive low-end brands, while high-end brands are based on the high-end, consumers will reject.