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DEN LI CHEN graduated in industrial production management from National Cheng Kung University and worked as secretary to founder Liehuo Huang; because he saw opportunities in badminton, he invested in the shuttlecock market and founded the Victory Badminton Association on 10 October 1968. Using his knowledge of industrial production management gained at university, he analyzed every high-quality and low-grade shuttlecock and researched the basic structure , such as weight, length, depth and angle of feather insertion, and simulated producing the finished product. He also established a standard production process, and supplied trial products to badminton players. He constantly improved his process, until finally his research matched world-class competition-level shuttlecocks. As soon as they went to market, supply could not meet the demand. In two short years, Victory’s sales volume exceeded that of the leading brands at the time; Victory became the number one shuttlecock brand in the Taiwanese market.
In order to become the overall leading specialist badminton brand, Dengli Chen founded the VICTOR racquet factory in 1980; the factory especially employed researchers to analyse the racquets on the market to find out the quality standards. At the time, all racquets were made of iron or aluminium alloys; once again VICTOR hired specialists to begin research and development of an all-carbon-fibre racquet, and the first VICTOR carbon-fibre racquet was born that year. In the same year, VICTOR sponsored the European badminton championship, the “VICTOR Cup” for the first time, and sponsored the shuttlecocks used in the championship; the VICTOR brand was praised overseas.
In 1983, VICTOR continued the expansion of its product lines, and began to design and manufacture clothing. There was a lot of sports clothing at the time, but not much specialized badminton clothing. VICTOR hired clothing designers and printers to show the elegance of the players through fashion, vitality and individuality, and proved that VICTOR’s brand strategy was successful. Consequently, VICTOR not only had its own brand, but also a whole series of merchandise.
When VICTOR gained success in Taiwan supply could not meet the demand. In order to ensure sufficient volume of supply and a high standard of quality, Dengli Chen set up a temporary manufacturing base in Zhuhai; later, considering Wuhu in Anhui to be the heartland of badminton and, given the higher population and convenience of transport in Nanjing, chose Nanjing, nearer to Wuhu, to be the product base. On 1 January 1994, the base formally commenced production; this was the beginning of VICTOR’s development in mainland China.
In order to raise the profile of the brand, VICTOR began to proactively contact famous sports star. In 1999, VICTOR sponsored the famous badminton player Feng Chen, as well as the Taipei Badminton Open, the China Badminton Open and the Master’s Competition; since then entering a phase of sponsoring sports marketing events.
Since then, VICTOR has built up a wealth of experience in sponsorship and competitions. To become the leading company in badminton sports equipment, it was necessary to gain the favour of world-class badminton players. Consequently, VICTOR set its sights on the leading players of the day. VICTOR successively signed contracts with world-famous players, such as world champion Hong Chen, Taiwan gold women’s doubles player Wenxing Cheng, Thai mixed doubles players Jite Su and Lali Sa, and Malaysian national players Zhongming Chen and Junying Zou. Each time VICTOR researched and developed a new product it first gave it to its players to test out and, in the process of collecting feedback and improving the products, steadily established an image of a champion brand. Additionally, VICTOR also took part in various amateur badminton competitions, aiding badminton at grass-roots level.
In 2009, VICTOR formally signed a sponsorship contract with the world champion Korean badminton team, providing them with a full set of VICTOR products, and writing a page in the history books. VICTOR also signed a contract with the national Philippines badminton team in the same year. Together with its partners, VICTOR is striving towards the achievement of an even higher goal.
In 2010, VICTOR is sponsoring the super series – the Korean Open. Furthermore, starting in 2011, VICTOR will also collaborate with the Korean Badminton Association to actively promote badminton; the cooperation will raise the prize money for the Korean Open to a record-breaking $1.2 million U.S. dollars, the highest prize in the history of the super series.
With over 40 years of innovation, diligence and accumulated experience, VICTOR has finally become what it is today. Even though we already enjoy the status of number one brand in the Chinese world, we are not satisfied with this; our goal is that “VICTOR will be the number badminton brand name in the world”, and we are moving towards this target determinedly, one step at a time.
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