LI-NING, China’s premier sports brand, recently announced a pop-up store that took place on April 23 to celebrate their Bored Ape Yacht Club (#4102) NFT. LI-NING will create a new series of products based on the #4102 design. According to the LI-NING Weibo release, a new design idea titled “bored” tries to give people a special experience with a totally new design style. LI-NING officials also announced a series of activities such as frisbee and locomotives, intending to drive more people to participate in new sports together, convening a concept that “bored is not that boring, as sporty as fashionable”.
Does LI-NING x BAYC also signal the engagement of the NFT market?
This event has attracted the attention of many people. As soon as the news was released, blockchain media and NFT communities were talking about it. As the first Chinese brand in the NFT market to hold BAYC NFT, the association of LI-NING, a Chinese giant sports company, will undoubtedly benefit the market and shine a light on the down-market.
This BAYC product series of LI-NING can be considered a “milestone” in the Chinese blockchain industry. Major crypto media rushed to report it and people in the industry were excited about LI-NING’s entry into the NFT market and speculated about its later business layout. People who are not familiar with NFTs were also curious about what BAYC is. Naturally, the BAYC community in China took this chance to educate people about the most powerful community in the NFT space.
The event was also a catalyst for other major traditional industry giants such as Greenland Holdings (a Chinese real estate developer) and Breo Care (a hi-tech company) to follow with announcements that they also purchased a BAYC. Allen Zhu, Jinsha Ventures founder (who previously declared that NFTs are worthless) spent 70ETH to buy BAYC and changed his Twitter profile image to reflect his change in sentiment. This series of major news not only let more people know about BAYC, but also accelerated the pace of traditional industry giants to deploy their business into the NFT market.
LI-NING has undoubtedly built a bridge between Web2.0 and Web3.0, allowing Web2.0 users to know what NFTs are, while bringing NFTs and BAYC to public users. From Minor to Mass, Li Ning has brought great value to the NFT industry and has helped expose hundreds of millions of new users to NFTs.
Value Superposition of NFT + Brand IP + Sports
The influence of BAYC not only plays an important role in the development of the NFT market, but also creates more possibilities through co-creation with music, fashion, and other fields. So what is the attempt for this association with BAYC by LI-NING? Will LI-NING try to use BAYC to enter into the Metaverse?
Now, whether it is NFT or blockchain, such new business models are prompting enterprises or brands to transform and move closer to Web 3.0, just like the Internet wave, for fear of missing out and being left behind and eliminated by the market. Most companies and brands are using the Web3.0 marketing model, transforming the user’s virtual role from exaggerated play to a real-life value embodiment, realizing the transformation of Web3.0.
However, very few brands have used the heatwave of Web3.0 to reverse the value-added of traditional markets. When everyone want to enter NFT and the Metaverse market, LI-NING made NFT into branded products through BAYC design. Its own brand value and influence, superimposed on the commercial value and attention of the BAYC NFT, have made new changes for LI-NING’s own products, not only popularizing the information of the NFT trend market for the public but also letting everyone know more about the value of the Metaverse world.
The value of the BAYC NFT is as the identification of the digital identity, so the bored ape wearing LI-NING clothing is undoubtedly a synthesis of promoting sports culture, pop culture, and a value consensus from LI-NING’s perspective. As LI-NING brand itself, it is a promoter of sports and pop culture, believes in the process involved in the Metaverse, it will bring a different pop culture + sports Metaverse journey.
From a fashion brand’s perspective, maybe BAYC in the LI-NING pop-up store can be used as a prototype online to carry out the Metaverse Bored Ape Model Fashion Week. The accessories are mainly based on the actual design products of LI-NING, or launching an online dress-up store, carrying out different clothing or DIY designs, and selling offline physical products. In this way, everyone can participate in LI-NING’s design, and the creators of the designs that are used for sale can also get a certain percentage.
These are all some possibilities for the future development of LI-NING.
Website: https://en.lining.com/
Media Contact: Flood Crypto, floodcrypto731@gmail.com