I’ve had this conversation dozens of times. A brand director flies to Shanghai, visits a few malls, sees Lacoste everywhere, and concludes the brand is doing well in China. Then they look at the actual numbers.
Lacoste is a case I come back to repeatedly when I work with mid-market fashion brands entering China. Not because the brand failed completely, but because it demonstrates a specific mistake that I see over and over: positioning confusion driven by a gap between how a brand sees itself and how Chinese consumers actually categorize it.
What Went Wrong with Lacoste in China
Lacoste positioned itself as a luxury brand in China. The price points, the flagships, the marketing tone all pointed at the premium segment. The problem: Chinese consumers already knew exactly what Lacoste was. It is a mid-market sportswear and casualwear brand with strong heritage. The crocodile is recognizable. But recognizable and luxury are not the same thing, and in China’s 2020s market, consumers have high precision about where a brand sits in the hierarchy.
The trademark dispute with Crocodile International compounded the problem. Lacoste registered its logo in China only in 1995, while its Singaporean competitor had filed in 1951. Losing a Shanghai court battle over your own logo is not just a legal problem. It is a brand legitimacy problem that generates years of negative content in Chinese digital spaces.
The environmental allegations from Greenpeace added another layer. The Yangtze and Pearl River pollution accusations gave ammunition to Chinese consumers who were already skeptical of the brand’s claims. On Xiaohongshu and Weibo, these stories live far longer than the original reporting cycle.
The Positioning Mistake Every Mid-Market Brand Makes
I worked with a British casualwear brand a few years ago that was making the same error. They had a heritage story, good product quality, and a retail presence in UK department stores where they sat comfortably in the premium casualwear tier. In China, they tried to position above their actual price point because they thought that was what the market expected of European brands.
It failed. Chinese consumers who researched the brand on Xiaohongshu found UK retail prices that contradicted the Chinese premium positioning. The dissonance killed purchase intent. The brand corrected course: priced correctly for its actual tier, stopped the aspirational luxury messaging, focused on authentic heritage storytelling. That worked.
Lacoste’s recovery attempt with the Zhou Bichang “BEGINS” collaboration was the right instinct. Partner with a credible Chinese designer, create a product that is genuinely positioned at a real price point (850 yuan), make it available where the actual consumer is (Taobao, not only flagship malls). That is the honest version of the brand. The market responds to honesty.
What to Do Instead: Positioning Clarity Before Market Entry
The question every fashion brand should answer before entering China is not “where do we want to be positioned?” It is “where will Chinese consumers actually place us, given our prices, our distribution in our home market, and our product quality?” Those two answers are often different, and the gap between them is where China market entries fail.
On Xiaohongshu, the consumer does this research automatically. If your brand sells at X price in Europe and tries to charge 3X in China, someone will post about it. If your brand is sold in Zara-tier retailers in your home country and you try to position next to Bottega Veneta in China, creators will write about the gap. Transparency is built into the platform by default.
Our China strategy team starts every market entry engagement with a positioning audit: where the brand actually sits versus where it plans to position, and what the gap means for pricing, distribution, and communication. Xiaohongshu and Douyin strategy only works when the positioning underneath it is honest.
| Lacoste mistake | The correction |
|---|---|
| Positioning above actual tier | Price and communicate at honest tier |
| Trademark registered too late | Register IP in China before market entry |
| Environmental allegations unaddressed | Proactive supply chain transparency |
| Generic luxury messaging | Authentic heritage story specific to brand |
Philip Chen is co-founder of GMA (Gentlemen Marketing Agency), China’s leading digital marketing agency for fashion and luxury brands. Connect on LinkedIn.
Sources: FCA: International Marketing in China 2026 | FCA: Chinese Gen Z 2026