CIC Report: IWOM and Sports Brands in China

With the Beijing Olympics less than three months away and China’s branded clothing market growing at a pace, smart foreign and domestic sportswear companies should be closely monitoring blogs, BBS (bulletin boards), and other forms of online social media to fine tune their marketing strategies. An insightful (free) new report from Shanghai-based CIC Data entitled “Tuning into Sports IWOM”, for which the company analyzed over 4 million messages from China’s online message boards, throws up some interesting findings/conclusions. These include:

* Nike led Q4 buzz among the 14 tracked brands with over 42% share of voice. New product and campaign launches had a noticeable impact on buzz volume for several brands including Nike, Adidas and Reebok. For example, the launch of Nike’s new basketball sneakers and the launch of Adidas’ and Reebok’s campaigns in Q4 drove the high buzz volumes around these three brands.

* Basketball and football dominate the sports category buzz. Yao Ming and Houston Rockets topped the basketball player and team buzz, with 7.7% and 13% share of voice respectively. Football star Kaka and football team AC Milan occupied the top positions for football players and teams.

* Compared to those on larger portals or sports vertical communities, online fan club community members are over 2 times more active in creating content. Administrators of these fan clubs are not only among the most active content creators, but also possess rich knowledge of the forum discussions and utilize a number of tactics to influence others’ messages.

* Sports net culture is filled with a number of unique elements and serves as both media and communication platforms. E-zines (e-magazines) are created and/or supported by brands, websites and fans, rivaling traditional magazines in terms of content and overall quality. “Group reporting” of live matches on BBS is similar to recent development of Twitter “sports groups” (i.e. “Twitter Super Bowl”) in the West (though predates Twitter by many years). Cartoon blogs are finding new ways to communicate and represent fans’ passion and love of sports.

The full report can be downloaded here.

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