除臭香体露在国外大行其道,但在中国却怎么也火不起来,若干知名公司都在产品推广中栽了跟头。无论是请明星打广告,请顾客做测试,还是赞助演唱会,都无功而返。而工作生活在中国的老外也不得不趁回家时囤货自用。 Unilever brought its Rexona deodorant to China a decade ago, dreaming of a market with 2.6 billion armpits. 联合利华十年前就把舒耐香体露带进了中国,梦想着占领一个有26亿腋窝的市场。 Wages were rising, consumers were spending and the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics was making Chinese people feel more cosmopolitan. More of them, it stood to reason, would be open to a Western hygiene product. 工资在增长,消费者在花钱,彼时即将举行的2008年北京奥运会也使中国人更有国际化的感觉。按理说,会有更多人愿意接受这个西方的卫生用品。 “We had an extremely ambitious plan at the time,” Mr. Braeken said. (联合利华大中华区前总裁)薄睿凯说:“我们当时有一个非常有野心的计划。” But cultural differences and simple biology — scientists have shown that many East Asian people don’t have Westerners’ body odor issues — scotched those plans. Sales totaled only a fraction of the Chinese marketing budget for Rexona, Mr. Braeken said. Today, by some estimates, less than 10 percent of China’s population uses deodorant, and it can be hard to find outside major cities. |