5 trends to explain the growth opportunities of the sports outdoor market in the second half of the year

Is it an opportunity or a challenge? The sports market is very hot. Let's take a look at what the merchants in these sports markets are doing!

“Life is a wilderness, not a track.”

In the 2012 movie "Prometheus", this sentence said by the robot Feifa to the protagonist who was on the run has traveled through time and space and hit the mark on the eyebrows of countless ordinary people today.

This is a science fiction film about the search for the origin of mankind, inspired by ancient Greek mythology. The god Prometheus created humans and brought fire to the world, and since then humans have begun to multiply, build houses and bridges.

Humans hide under the eaves for safety, but the desire for the wilderness is like a fire, deeply imprinted in the subconscious. The brief separation from nature in the past period of time has made people cherish the opportunity to go outdoors even more.

The essence of business is people. The deep spiritual yearning and needs of people have created the hot sports and outdoor industry. From lululemon to Arc'teryx, many "super brands" have come from the sports and outdoor industry in the past two years, and sports and outdoor brands are ushering in their heyday.

In 2022, the total scale of the national sports industry exceeded 3.3 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.9%. It is expected that by 2025, the total scale of the national sports industry will reach 5 trillion yuan. According to the Outline for Building a Powerful Sports Nation, by 2035, the sports industry will become a pillar industry of the national economy.

Judging from the data, the explosion of China's sports and outdoor industry has just begun. If brands seize the opportunity, there will be great potential.

In 2024, the big year for sports marketing and the Olympic Games, Xiaohongshu and Kantar jointly released the 2024 "Xiaohongshu Sports Outdoor Industry White Paper" (hereinafter referred to as the "White Paper") to create great things with sports outdoor brands. Growth Black Box will exclusively analyze the panoramic insights and latest trends of the sports outdoor industry.

1. Why is Xiaohongshu the birthplace of sports and outdoor trends?

For a long time, outdoor sports have been a "luxury" for many people.

For most people born in the 1990s or earlier, the only way to get in touch with sports is through physical education classes. Outdoor activities are a high-cost niche hobby. When people mention the outdoors, the first thing they associate with them may be adventure, mountaineering, hiking and various extreme sports.

The relatively high cost of outdoor sports, as well as the limitations of infrastructure and sports venues, are obstacles to its popularization.

As per capita income increases, sports venues and facilities increase rapidly, the threshold for people to participate in outdoor sports is lowered, and outdoor sports are gradually becoming popular. In 2022, the scale of sports market consumption will be 1.5 trillion yuan, and it is expected to reach 2.8 trillion yuan in 2025. This shows that the public's willingness and ability to consume sports are constantly improving, and the innovation and vitality of the sports consumption market will be further stimulated.

But at the same time, most people are still in the "novice" stage of going from being familiar with outdoor sports to being passionate about them, and they need a lot of knowledge sharing. Where to go, how to go, how to play, and what equipment do you need? These questions need to be answered.

And Xiaohongshu is the book of answers.

Sports and outdoor people prefer Xiaohongshu not only because it is an "encyclopedia", but also because Xiaohongshu is the birthplace of sports and outdoor trend inspiration and a long-term business platform for sports and outdoor brands. Whether it is a niche or a general interest, people can find a sense of belonging and identity in this community, thus bursting out with vigorous vitality.

The sociology book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" mentioned that all human needs are essentially the need to be valued. It's just that in each era, people feel valued in different ways. The Xiaohongshu community originated from spontaneous sharing and communication between users. Mutual assistance and altruism are its basic attributes, which is also the fundamental reason why users can feel valued on Xiaohongshu.

In the 11 years since its establishment, Xiaohongshu has become a recognized guide for consumer decision-making. It has even replaced search engines to a certain extent, and "checking Xiaohongshu when in doubt" has become a habit for many young people.

Xiaohongshu is home to many "folk experts" in various niche segments, and the sports and outdoor sector is no exception. As sports and outdoor become more popular, the "human touch" content shared spontaneously by these users will attract more and more people to pay attention to sports and outdoor, and also lay the seeds for the birth of trends.

In order to make the map of the sports outdoor market clearer, the "White Paper" summarizes the five major trends of Xiaohongshu's sports outdoor market: competition, attack, connection, wildness, and trend.

When we put these five trends into the user life cycle, we will find that these five trends are also the five growth stages of the sports and outdoor crowd on Xiaohongshu. In the process of users' contact, interest, love, hardcore players and trend leaders in sports and outdoor on Xiaohongshu, they are not only simply being planted and shopping, but also have a deeper emotional connection. The platform role of the brand is more like a close friend who accompanies its growth all the way.

Taking "Sai Shi" as an example, many users who have never watched a game have completed their enlightenment about sports events on Xiaohongshu.

During major sports events such as the Winter Olympics, the World Cup, and the Asian Games, Xiaohongshu, as a new social platform, provides users with a place to share and pass on information. People discuss the game situation, share their feelings, recommend the same products as star players, and schedule offline activities on Xiaohongshu. Sports events are like a fuse that ignites users' enthusiasm for outdoor sports and attracts more users to participate in the form of person-to-person communication.

Since 2022, the search growth rate of Xiaohongshu's sports and outdoor categories has maintained an annual growth rate of more than 80% , and popular events such as the Olympics, Asian Games, NBA, and European Cup have become popular topics that lead the popularity of Xiaohongshu. Many niche sports have the opportunity to be exposed to and even loved by more people. For example, during the French Open, the search volume for "Tennis Beginner's Tutorial" on Xiaohongshu increased 10 times month-on-month. During the F1 event, the growth rate of searches related to "racing style/motorcycle style" outfits increased 6 times month-on-month.

Xiaohongshu also played a very important role in the process of users going from "familiar" to "expert" in outdoor sports - this also gave birth to the second trend: advancement.

As professional hardcore sports gradually break out of the circle and become popular, users have entered the stage of "knowing what they want". For example, fitness people have shown more precise and hardcore training needs - in the hot search terms under the fitness category of Xiaohongshu, segmented needs such as hip training, abdominal muscle training, shoulder and back training have attracted users' attention. As a niche hardcore event, the year-on-year search growth rate of marathon on Xiaohongshu has increased by 4 times in the past year.

At the same time, users' demand for professional equipment is also upgrading. In 2023, Xiaohongshu will have more than 1.75 million sports equipment notes and more than 2.05 million outdoor equipment notes. The era of "running the world with a pair of running shoes" is over. Users share equipment on Xiaohongshu, not only sharing sports lifestyle, but also recording their own growth.

The trend of hardcore sports and outdoor activities is an inevitable result of the atmosphere of the Xiaohongshu community. Professional bloggers share knowledge and show off their equipment in the community, providing ordinary users with a lot of reference for decision-making. This real interaction and emotional connection between users promotes the common growth of users and the platform.

*Data source: Xiaohongshu Lingxi platform

Looking at the three trends of connection, wildness and fashion, their essence is the users' re-creation of lifestyle based on sports and outdoor activities on Xiaohongshu.

When sports are no longer aimed at competition, more and more people begin to enjoy the relaxed atmosphere and fun of sports, and it has become a "social glue" for urban youth. From beauty to fashion clothing, Xiaohongshu has made many people with similar interests become partners. Today, sports and outdoor activities have become a new medium. If you want to experience any sport, you can find a "partner" on Xiaohongshu, and you no longer have to worry about being alone.

*Data source: Xiaohongshu Lingxi platform, June 2023-June 2024

There are more than 10,000 online sports and outdoor communities on Xiaohongshu. Countless sports and outdoor enthusiasts share their notes and vlogs here, find like-minded partners and their own circles, share happiness when they successfully challenge themselves, and get encouragement after failed attempts.

The social attributes and emotional value of outdoor sports are fully demonstrated on Xiaohongshu, which not only helps users expand their social circles in a high-quality manner, but also expands the brand's reach.

However, Xiaohongshu users’ interest in outdoor sports is not limited to the “nearby”. Their ambitions lie in the more distant nature, where they want to go crazy in the mountains and fields and heal their souls.

In this process, Xiaohongshu continuously provides inspiration to users through various hot topics, allowing their wildness to blossom everywhere.

*Data source: Xiaohongshu Lingxi platform, note click volume and growth rate, June 2023-June 2024

The popularity of camping and cycling has remained high, cross-country running and river tracing are becoming popular, and extremely niche outdoor exploration projects such as ice climbing, hydrofoil, and caving are taking root on Xiaohongshu.

Don’t know what to do for the first time? It’s okay, Xiaohongshu will teach you.

#Photos of life taken while hiking#Hugging a tree heals me#What is more lethal than beautiful photos is vitality#Mom, life is a wilderness#The brave enjoy the world first#Conspicuous cycling bag#The mental state of outsiders... After reading these topics, every user can follow Xiaohongshu to go crazy outdoors.

If that’s not crazy enough, then mixing sports and outdoor activities with fashion trends is the ultimate expression of Xiaohongshu users’ attitude towards life.

Fashion and beauty are Xiaohongshu's advantage tracks. When they are combined with sports and outdoor activities, they will bring more possibilities to users and brands. On Xiaohongshu, sports and outdoor activities are not limited to sports scenes, but can be integrated into daily life and become fashionable items. Yoga pants, tennis skirts, jerseys, sun protection clothes, and jackets can be combined with y2k, ballet style, and dopamine style, and can also be integrated with ethnic style and retro elements. The matching methods are beyond your imagination.

Dressing is a fashion, but also an attitude. The popularity of sports and outdoor styles such as #山系穿搭, #功能风, #urbancore, and #gorpcore on Xiaohongshu has also given rise to a trend recognized by sports and outdoor people. The brand focuses on differentiated marketing across categories and styles, which can better stimulate user interest.

*Data source: Xiaohongshu Lingxi platform, note click ranking, 2023.6-2024.6

From exam-oriented education to universal access, the market demand for the sports and outdoor industry has experienced an unprecedented explosion.

The awakening of countless health awareness and the yearning for a free lifestyle are giving birth to new demands and huge business opportunities.

Sports and outdoor activities are no longer just a form of leisure, but have become an important way for people to showcase their lifestyles, socialize, and express their personal attitudes towards life. This coincides with Xiaohongshu’s philosophy of “sharing lifestyles” and “providing life guides.”

Xiaohongshu's unique "crowd anti-funnel model" gradually expands its influence from the core group to the interest group to the general group. In this process, only the content that is recognized by users, closely related to their life scenes, and willing to be shared spontaneously by them, and can resonate with them, can be amplified, spread, and finally become a trend.

It is important to note that Xiaohongshu is not a summary of trends, but a birthplace of trend inspiration. The vitality of users, community atmosphere and unique commercial model allow trends to grow naturally on the platform.

This also brings more growth possibilities for sports and outdoor brands. Brands discover and understand trends on Xiaohongshu, which is actually completing in-depth communication with users to achieve in-depth seeding and establish brand awareness and image.

Xiaohongshu is also actively exploring the commercialization of the sports and outdoor industry, holding the "2024 Xiaohongshu Sports and Outdoor Summer Summit" in Anaya , inviting representatives from the Institute of Sports Science of the State General Administration of Sports, Kantar, Xiaohongshu Marketing Laboratory, brand partners, sports and outdoor bloggers, etc. to share multi-dimensional content and provide systematic solutions and methodologies for brand marketing.

2. Expand horizontally and internally, and rethink the sports outdoor market

In the past, due to the limitations of outdoor sports, the market was firmly in the hands of a few brands. It is not easy for new brands to stand out. The five major trends of outdoor sports on Xiaohongshu show us that as outdoor sports become more popular, user needs are gradually upgraded and segmented, and the opportunities for new and mature brands are becoming more equal.

In professional vertical fields, emerging brands can focus on specific sports and consumer groups to quickly open up the market. The key lies in how to accurately identify the niche areas and populations, which requires an accurate global understanding of the sports outdoor market.

The White Paper studied a large amount of data and found that the sports outdoor market showed a two-way growth trend that intersected vertically and horizontally.

1. On the one hand, it is horizontal expansion: no matter the participating population, project scope, implementation scenarios, or cultural trends, it is constantly expanding to a wider dimension;
2. On the other hand, it is a vertical extension: extending to deeper dimensions in terms of the professionalism, cultivation of consumer habits and structural advancement in the field of outdoor sports.

1. Horizontal expansion

The generalization of the population is one of the most obvious characteristics. As the concept of health is deeply rooted in people's hearts and the trend of sports sweeps the whole nation, the number of sports people in the country continues to rise.

From teenagers to middle-aged and elderly people, more and more people are joining the ranks of outdoor sports, and the proportion of people who regularly participate in physical exercise has reached 38.5%. Focusing on the outdoor sector, according to iResearch Consulting's estimates, the current outdoor population size is about 540 million, and the potential population that expresses strong intention to participate is about 230 million, which is an incremental space in the future .

At the same time, sports are becoming more and more diverse.

The proliferation of various sports events continues to infect the public with the joy of enjoying sports.

According to the data, lightweight sports are gaining popularity, and health and healing sports are also popular. Some high-intensity niche emerging sports are no longer exclusive to athletes or extreme enthusiasts. In the past year, hiking, cycling, and mountaineering have become the three sports most tried by new users. Judging from the Baidu search index, Ba Duan Jin, skiing, skateboarding, diving and other projects have also attracted much attention.

*Data source: Kantar Sports Outdoor Sports Research (N=1000)

People participate in outdoor sports not only to keep fit, but also to enjoy the natural outdoor atmosphere, develop a self-disciplined lifestyle, and interact closely with family and friends. As sports become an attitude and choice of life, sports scenes are infiltrating users' daily lives and social interactions.

When outdoor sports are embedded in the current popular lifestyle, they become more closely connected with users.

"Citywalk + Outdoor Sports", "Gapday + Outdoor Sports", "Weekend + Outdoor Sports", "Holiday + Outdoor Sports"... Users exchange experiences, evaluate equipment, and share strategies on the platform, making the community atmosphere more active. No matter what kind of lifestyle enthusiast he or she is originally, he or she can find the most suitable partner in the outdoor sports circle.

In addition, the integration of outdoor sports and cultural trends has added more possibilities to this circle.

Basketball gave birth to Nike, skateboarding gave birth to Vans, mountaineering gave birth to Arc'teryx... Outdoor sports themselves are the birthplace of fashion trends. As the former grows, it is also constantly absorbing elements of cultural trends to enhance the attractiveness of the track.

Outdoor sports and fashion trends have a symbiotic relationship that complements each other and together guide consumption trends.

For example, modern life concepts such as outdoor sports + environmental protection/exploration/food can lead to a variety of activities.

For example, Plogging, which combines jogging and picking up trash, exercises the body while protecting the environment; Bikepacking, which is riding in the wild to explore the world and the soul, is becoming popular; and Wildeat, which is enjoying delicious food in the wild, is also a new trend.

In the fashion industry, more and more luxury brands are launching sports-style watches, hiking shoes, jackets and other products. At the same time, new consumption methods such as taking pets to participate in sports, carrying out parent-child outdoor activities, and outdoor healing communities are also emerging.

2. Vertical extension

The improvement of the overall professional level of the sports outdoor industry, as well as the optimization and advancement of consumption structure, have led to the emergence of many opportunities in segmented tracks.

The first is the professional hardcore upgrade of sports equipment. As the number of people participating in outdoor sports becomes wider and more professional, users have higher requirements for the performance and quality of equipment, and the demand for various sports goods and professional equipment has increased significantly.

According to the "White Paper on Sports Outdoor Consumer Operations" by Euromonitor and Kearney, the consumer market size of sports outdoor products is expected to continue to expand at a double-digit compound growth rate by 2025, reaching nearly 600 billion yuan.

*Data source: EUROMONITOR, Kearney's "Sports Outdoor Consumer Operation White Paper"

According to Euromonitor and China Business Industry Research Institute, the outdoor equipment market will grow rapidly from 58 billion in 2020 to 111.3 billion in 2028. Among them, the consumer market for sports outdoor equipment such as skiing, water sports, camping, and fishing has huge potential for segmented opportunities.

*Data source: EUROMONITOR, China Business Industry Research Institute "2024 China Outdoor Equipment Industry Market Prospect Forecast Report"

In terms of equipment demand, consumers are more concerned about specialization and intelligence, followed by price - this means that only products with high quality and cost-effectiveness can impress consumers. In addition, consumers do not pay much attention to whether the equipment is an international brand or a niche brand, which provides opportunities for emerging brands.

In terms of specific needs, consumers have strong demands for functionality, comfort and portability of sports and outdoor products and equipment.

In 2024, when Xiaohongshu users searched for sports and outdoor equipment, the proportion of keywords such as windproof, waterproof and quick-drying increased by 30% year-on-year. At the same time, consumers also want more fashionable sportswear to show a full of vitality. It can be seen that keywords such as sun protection, body shaping and whitening are the focus of Xiaohongshu users' searches.

*Data source: Xiaohongshu Lingxi platform, search terms related to the functionality of sports and outdoor equipment, June 2023-June 2024

Secondly, professional events are becoming more and more popular among the general public, giving many enthusiasts the opportunity to prove themselves and move towards more professional sports. For example, in the past two years, marathon, Frisbee, and cross-country events have become increasingly popular, which not only makes the development of these sports more standardized, but also allows enthusiasts to accumulate skills and knowledge more scientifically.

Consumers are more willing to spend money in the sports and outdoor fields, and they are more willing to spend money. Whether it is horizontal expansion or vertical extension, what we see is not only data, but also the diversity and concreteness of user needs.

3. Twelve major lifestyle groups in sports and outdoor activities: seeing “specific people” in the scene

The White Paper shows that the sports outdoor market has great potential, which also means that brand competition is extremely fierce. At present, the sports outdoor market is facing pain points such as product homogeneity and difficulty in product innovation:

1. How to meet the personalized needs of young consumer groups and build brand trust and loyalty?
2. What kind of marketing method can effectively capture the minds of consumers?
3. Faced with competition from international brands , how can domestic brands leverage their advantages to meet the challenge?

The communication between brands and users, after all, is the connection between people.

Understanding the psychological needs of users is the foundation of all effective marketing. However, if you want to truly understand users, relying solely on data analysis is far from enough. Only in each specific life scenario can you see "specific people".

To this end, Xiaohongshu breaks away from the fixed mindset of defining users with labels, and based on life scenarios, summarizes the “12 major lifestyle groups” in sports and outdoor activities to help brands better understand users – this includes two major categories: “sports rejuvenation” and “free outdoor activities” .

When dividing the "sports-revitalized" population, Xiaohongshu's starting point of thinking is "What do people want to get from sports?" Based on different core driving forces, the sports population is divided into six types: relaxed fitness group, line sculptors, fun-seeking sports group, active insiders, self-transcenders and body and mind perceivers .

This unique classification method may seem unconventional, but it actually pays rare attention to the user's attributes as a "person".

Everyone has different growth environments and information channels, and the reasons for participating in sports are also different. Different core driving forces will be externalized into different forms of consumer demand.

Understanding “why” consumers do something, rather than just looking at what they do and how they do it, can help brands tap into the true emotional resonance points and communicate effectively with consumers.

For example, the easy fitness group aims to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Psychologically, they need direct, "visible" exercise effects to motivate themselves and keep exercising. This group of people prefer to choose exercises that do not require much space and do not consume too much physical energy, and are best done at home, in the office, or even in bed. For them, the "cost-effectiveness" of exercise is very important, and it is best to achieve the goal of maintaining good health at a low cost without investing too much energy and time.

With this insight, brands can provide targeted products and services based on the needs of the group. For example, based on the psychological need to see health effects, brands can promote sports bracelets and watches to this group of people ; based on their desire to exercise anytime and anywhere, brands can add sedentary reminder functions to the devices, etc.

Compared with the relaxed fitness group, line sculptors prefer to shape perfect body lines through exercise.

They will carefully plan the calorie intake and nutritional composition of each meal, and will invest more in sports at any cost. They will develop special training plans for the waist, legs, and buttocks, so they have a greater demand for training equipment. The desire to show off their body lines also makes them the target group for sportswear.

Similarly, when dividing people into "free outdoor" types, Xiaohongshu's starting point is "What does nature mean to them?" From the four relationships between man and nature, we find four driving forces for people to go outdoors: challenge and transcendence, exploration and experience, energy replenishment, and social connection, and then divide them into six major groups: those who challenge their limits, wild explorers, short escapes and self-healing people, spiritual travelers, outdoor conspicuous bags, and outdoor gatherings .

Kotler, the father of marketing, proposed the "people-oriented" marketing concept a long time ago.

He believes that the era of Marketing 3.0 is the "humanistic era" . Marketers no longer regard customers as mere consumers, but as complete human individuals with independent thoughts, hearts and spirits. The profitability of a company is closely related to whether it has assumed corporate social responsibility and resonated with customer values.

The era of Marketing 4.0 is based on big data, community, and value-based marketing. Companies shift the focus of marketing to how to actively interact with consumers, respect the value of consumers as the "subject", and allow consumers to participate more in the creation of marketing value.

We believe that marketing 1.0-4.0 is not a linear development, but a spiral. It does not mean that the 3.0 concept is outdated in the 4.0 era, but it is based on the previous methodology and goes a step further.

Theories are often ahead of the times, and many companies are still stuck in the 2.0 or even 1.0 stage, which is centered on the company itself. However, the sports and outdoor crowd is independent, opinionated, and has a mature core. The brands that can be enthusiastically pursued by them must also have a sufficiently stable brand core and consistent values.

Xiaohongshu’s crowd classification is based on the “people-oriented” concept.

Data is rational, but truly rational people only exist in the assumptions of The Economist. It is the irrational part of human nature that gives brands the opportunity to impress users.

In specific scenarios, carefully understanding the user's behavioral motivations and the deep needs behind them, and finding the "irrational moments" in them may be able to achieve true resonance with users.

4. From products, brands to business, sports and outdoor brands are growing comprehensively on Xiaohongshu

Market trends and population classification can provide guidance on brand direction, and when it comes to specific product launches, business strategies and business growth, the "White Paper" also provides clear methodology and cases.

There are more ways to play sports and outdoor activities, which gives brands more opportunities to reach consumers, but also increases the risk of brands being forgotten and ignored. In the flood of information, most brands stay in consumers' minds for only 5 seconds at most. If you want to leave a mark, it seems that there is always a "decisive moment" missing.

To create this moment, meaningful differentiated products, resonant brand content, and a well-tuned communication platform are all essential.

In the past year, many brands such as Anta, HOKA, and FILA have successfully created "decisive moments" on Xiaohongshu. Through these cases, we can summarize a replicable growth path.

As mentioned above, the five major trends of Xiaohongshu's sports and outdoor activities run through the entire life cycle of users, which also means that Xiaohongshu covers the entire consumer decision-making cycle of users' awareness-understanding-favorability-purchase . This not only creates opportunities for new brands to reach users, but also gives mature brands the opportunity to refresh their cognition and reshape their image.

Therefore, Xiaohongshu has become a must-have platform for sports and outdoor brands to launch new products and promote long-term products. If brands learn to use trends and deeply understand the crowd on Xiaohongshu, they will have the opportunity to achieve comprehensive growth from products, brands to business.

1. Brand management, shaping industry mindset

A sad fact is that there are no truly loyal users in the world. Brands can only find a sense of existence by constantly creating differentiated advantages. This is why brands are now building IPs and establishing personalities.

But sometimes there is only a fine line between attraction and offense, and the subtle differences between brand positioning and its own growth stage and target user needs may have a fatal impact on the results. Especially for emerging brands, a slight mistake can lead to a huge difference.

On Xiaohongshu, identifying the core group and making a detailed layout are the secrets for new brands to grow rapidly from 0 to 1. Just like "Super Girls" to lululemon, in many cases, the "100 people" closest to the brand determine the ceiling of the brand.

Yottoy, which focuses on the female sports market , has anchored the "urban white-collar" market segment among female fitness people based on its own brand positioning and Xiaohongshu's insights, achieving a more refined population layout.

After accurately positioning the target group, Yottoy's next step is to "find the right people" as much as possible. Therefore, around the interest vertical category of "fitness", Xiaohongshu anchored the five major search behaviors of users to divide quadrants, refined and mined hot search terms, and connected the dots into a network in the form of 2x/3x/4x phrases, forming a search logic for segmented groups, helping brands to achieve accurate breakthroughs in the search stage.

Through intensive cultivation of the urban white-collar fitness women, the brand's penetration rate among the fitness population has increased by 200% month-on-month, and the search penetration ranking in the fitness track of Xiaohongshu has entered the top 10 in the industry (as of H1 2024). In 2024, the brand's sales in online channels will account for the top 5 in the fitness track.

In addition to precision, some brands also use scenarios as an entry point to penetrate the core circle and achieve vertical brand breakthrough. For example, HOKA started by deepening its roots in the running scene. First, through insights from the Xiaohongshu platform, it anchored the "night running" segment trend scene, combined with the IP "Nocturnal Animals Run Now", which attracted the attention of runners. Then it gradually penetrated multiple scenarios such as morning running, marathons, cross-country running, and finally penetrated the core running circle.

2. Focus on products and efficiently promote marketing

As the first link for consumers to know brands, the importance of star products is self-evident. However, product promotion is not something that can be effective by writing 100 notes. With the help of the power of trends, it is like sowing seeds in the wind, and the efficiency is greatly improved.

The so-called trend is essentially a collection of user needs.

In order to develop targeted grass-planting strategies, we need to have a deep understanding of users' needs and preferences, carefully plan various types of content at every stage from grass-planting to decision-making, sow the seeds of interest in users' minds, and ultimately influence their purchasing decisions.

For example, Kalenji uses the anti-funnel model of Xiaohongshu to match the target group with the ultimate professional chain high-level demand scenarios and quickly enter the interest circle. The brand first finds mountaineering vertical bloggers to gain the favor of the core mountaineering interest group, and at the same time launches the "First Snow Mountain Challenge in Life" event. The information flow amplifies and exposes the highlight content of mountaineering, and cooperates with the search to focus on defending the hard-core group such as "mountaineering routes" and "mountaineering equipment", and quickly accumulates the deep grass-planting group of single products.

By analyzing the interests of mountaineers through the Lingxi platform of Xiaohongshu, the brand targets the hiking population based on the general interest group of mountaineers.

Through this strategy, Kalas not only deepened its connection with mountaineering enthusiasts, but also expanded its brand influence to the hiking field, achieving wider coverage of the outdoor sports market and successfully making the new MONT-X hardshell jacket the brand's hottest item. The penetration rate of Kalas content under the jacket category increased by 14%, and the assets of the mountaineering population increased significantly by 23%.

After successfully creating a star product, the brand can build a product line matrix to seek a broader growth space. For example, Saucony chose to enter the three major scenarios of daily training, marathon racing, and outdoor cross-country, and laid out the three major product lines of "Essence", "Focus Speed" and "Peregrine Falcon", and differentiated the running shoe product line matrix to meet the needs of different running enthusiasts.

On the delivery side, Saucony uses the Lingxi tool of Xiaohongshu to penetrate different target groups according to different scenarios, and accurately reaches female training groups, professional marathon runners and cross-country runners based on product attributes, achieving full coverage from the general public to professional minds, deeply cultivating running scenes, and cultivating the running shoe category mindset.

FILA has co-created the "tennis old money style" with the emerging sports trends and popular dressing trends of Xiaohongshu. By creating momentum through celebrity-style products, it has gradually penetrated the tennis and "old money style" groups, and started with large tennis skirts, reaching the target groups layer by layer from the precise to the general, thus achieving a stable occupation of the core group and the expansion of the potential group.

Through the promotion of Xiaohongshu, the FILA tennis skirt product soared to the top of the ranking in the site's related searches for "tennis skirt". At the same time, the brand's ranking in the sports and outdoor market rose by 3 places month-on-month to No. 6. In the month of launch, the overall sales of tennis skirts increased by 370% year-on-year, a 5-fold increase month-on-month.

After the successful breakthrough of tennis skirt, the brand took advantage of the opportunity to reshape tennis wear in the minds of consumers. Through a series of OOTD such as tennis skirt + POLO shirt, tennis skirt + vest, tennis skirt + sports T-shirt, etc., it met the users' desire to extend sports and vitality into their daily lives and occupied the entire tennis wear track.

4.3 Link business and accelerate conversion

For brands, the value of Xiaohongshu lies not only in the promotion of products and the establishment of brand awareness. Only by fully tapping into the multiple conversion channels of Xiaohongshu and achieving promotion of products on Xiaohongshu and full conversion can the greatest possibility of business growth be found.

Between brands and users, there is a crucial role of "buyer", whose understanding of brand value and opinions on products will directly affect the consumer group.

Buyers can accurately match product selling points with target consumers, and buyers’ live broadcasts are becoming an accelerator for Xiaohongshu’s single product business. The KOS model expands the combination of online seeding and offline conversion, improving the user’s purchasing experience with professional knowledge and instant services, and opening up new growth space for brands.

Sports brands HOKA and adidas have both tasted the sweetness of the buyer model. HOKA cooperated with sports vertical buyer Jiang Sida to release exchange reviews and share trial experience before the live broadcast, fully mobilizing fans' expectations. Adidas cooperated with top celebrity buyer Dong Jie to exclusively launch the new metal color of SAMBA, which quickly attracted the attention of fashion trend users across the platform. The new product was quickly sold out after it was put on the shelves, and the volume of the new color increased by 270 times month-on-month.

Finding the right buyer is just the beginning. Brands need to work closely with buyers throughout the entire cycle of cooperation to achieve the full chain of audience development, activation, and diffusion.

For example, in its cooperation with Dong Jie, adidas first released a preview tweet of the buyer's live broadcast to attract Dong Jie's fans and fashion trendsetters, and achieve new crowd expansion. It then selected high-quality content from the past SAMBA series, and targeted the brand browsing and interacting people through the information flow to achieve crowd activation. Finally, it carried out secondary creation and dissemination through the high-point materials of the celebrity live broadcast, and targeted the content to more celebrity fans and people interested in fashion trends, triggering a long-tail effect.

In addition, the White Paper summarizes two important business management tools for sports and outdoor brands on Xiaohongshu:

1. One is the live broadcast of sports and outdoor brands’ stores on Xiaohongshu;
2. The second is the offline KOS who is both a professional salesperson and a brand content creator.

Store live streaming is an important means of regular business operation. The combination of Xiaohongshu content promotion and store live streaming effectively improves the efficiency of recruiting new customers, thereby saving customer acquisition costs.

On Xiaohongshu, store live streaming has spawned a variety of models, including domain linkage, long-term store broadcasting, celebrities entering the live streaming room, and managers entering the live streaming room.

Taking MAIA ACTIVE as an example, the brand has successfully established a normalized store broadcast model throughout the year. Through the dual-field linkage of information flow and search, diversified grass-seeking content such as yoga, boxing training, and fat loss strategies are rhythmically recommended to the target population. This strategy not only attracts new customers who are interested in brand content, but also lays a solid foundation for store live broadcasts.

As for how to use the KOS mode, Anta gave a demonstration.

As a leading sports and outdoor brand, Anta has been deeply involved in the market for a long time. It has a huge offline sales network and a large number of professional sales human resources, which is a great test of the brand's refined operation capabilities. As for how to form a closed loop between offline business and online business, Anta has explored an innovative way.

The key to forming a closed loop lies in exploring the potential value of Xiaohongshu group chat. Anta uses KOS notes and various modules to promote users to conduct their first transactions, and after the transaction is completed, it will divert users into the Xiaohongshu group chat matrix.

Using this new model, Anta has used KOS for the first time to achieve a self-closed loop within the site. Compared to diverting users to offline transactions, group chats can achieve user operations more deeply through topics of interest.

By sharing content, products and scenarios that consumers are interested in, high-quality UGC content is generated to achieve a higher repurchase rate. For the increase in consumption amount and cross-category consumption, the brand's influence in the content field has a positive effect.

In short, brands should realize that in the Xiaohongshu community, we cannot just make a high-profile brand account, but a community member who can get along with users.

Communicate with users carefully, create content and emotional resonance, be their companion to grow in the field of sports outdoors, and become one of the trend makers, rather than just catching up with the trend, so that you can have the opportunity to achieve long-term growth of the brand.

V. Conclusion

The story of human origin tells us that human beings come from the wilderness. Whether it is lululemon, Archaeopteryx or other sports outdoor brands that are sought after by consumers, marketing methods and brand building are based on the simplest emotions of human beings - exploring the world and self.

The reason why Xiaohongshu has become the birthplace of inspiration for sports outdoor trends is because its platform tone is itself born based on users' desire to pursue a better life. And in more than 10 years of development and growth, Xiaohongshu has always retained this original intention. On the road of commercialization, it has not wiped out the platform's ability to carry users' true emotions. This is a kind of luck and a rare quality.

Xiaohongshu's strong grass planting ability is not only reflected in the products, but also profoundly affects the user's lifestyle. What understands users best is always the user himself. "People should live in a place without a ceiling" "I took photos of my life in xx", only they can write such heart-wrenching copy, sincerely convey emotional value, and make more people yearn for sports outdoors.

In today's era of information explosion, the contact points between brands and users seem to have increased, but it is more of a brief interaction, and in-depth communication is even more scarce. Xiaohongshu provides brands with an effective and in-depth communication with users. With the help of trends, brands can not only plant grass and promote new products more efficiently, but also plant a seed in the hearts of users, waiting for continuous irrigation and eventually grow into towering trees.

Author: yolo

Source: WeChat public account " Growth Black Box Growthbox" , [Author's job information: company/position, etc.]

This article is authorized by @GrowthBox Growthbox and is published on Operations. Reproduction is prohibited without permission.

The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 agreement