Challenger Japanese Sport Brand Descente Backs China’s Winter Sport Teams 

Earlier in November, Japanese sport brand Descente has scored a partnership deal with the China’s national U-Shaped Snowboard and Alpine Ski teams.   

The deal sees Descente providing both apparel and equipment for the teams. It is also flogging a dedicated national team inspired collection at designated stores nationwide, the brand’s WeChat Mini Program, and its Tmall flagship store.   

Besides livestreaming the launch to an audience of over 13 million viewers, Descente also banked on a ski-inspired campaign featuring homegrown entertainer William Chan, the celebrity endorsee of the brand, to engage the audience.    

According to ASN data, Descente—whose parent company Itochu Corporation has a strategic partnership with major Chinese sport brand Anta—has spent about US$8.9m (0.8% of its category’s total spends) since Q121, making the sport apparel and equipment brand just outside the top 10 of the sport apparel and equipment category. 

These spends have been focused on five different markets namely Japan (36.9%), Hong Kong (24.7%), South Korea (17.7%), China (14.3%) and Taiwan (6.5%). Apart from an almost US$300k and US$670k celebrity endorsements (non-sport) with Chinese idol William Chan and Hong Kong based American-Chinese actor and director Daniel Wu, the bulk of the Descente’s spends tend to be in motorsports, winter sports and golf. In Q423, the brand’s spends is tipped to hit almost US$1.2m, about 1.5x of the quarterly investment average of US$806k.