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今天读一篇《金融时报》上的文章，讲的是社交网络帮助中国品牌战胜外国竞争对手。 Social media influencers help Chinese brands outfox foreignrivals 社交媒体红人帮助中国品牌战胜外国对手 我们先来解决标题中的两个词-influencer和outfox。 ►influencer必定和influence有关，就是指“有影响的人”，这个词在社交网络盛行后，主要指有一定影响力的“网红”。 ►outfox除了是个合成词，还带有些文化思维在背后。 前缀out-表示在……之外；fox 无论是在东方还是西方文化中，都表示“狡猾，耍手段的”人。 所以outfox就是表示“比狐狸还狡猾”，即比某人聪明，智胜。 Politics is often the art of knowing how to outfox the opposition.-政治通常是关于如何智取对手的艺术。 Homegrown groups threaten likes of Coca-Cola and L’Oréal with savvy marketing and supply chain prowess 国产品牌通过机智的营销手段和强大的供应链，对可口可乐和欧莱雅的用户青睐度带来威胁。 ►homegrown同样是个合成词，意为“国产的”。 这样的词，再比如homebrew-自酿（啤）酒，自制 ►savvy这个词,如果你读原版书，就会尝尝见到它。我在读《马斯克传记》和《乔布斯传记》时都遇到过好几次。 ►savvy即可以做名词也可以做形容词，表示悟性，洞察力，实际知识；聪慧的，有实际知识的。 如market savvy 市场洞察力；savvy marketing 具有营销知识 ►prowess 英勇，超凡技术，能力 someone's prowess is their great skill at doing something. For western companies such as Coca-Cola, Maybelline and Nestlé, century-old brands havelong offered a formidable advantage over local rivals in China. 在中国，与当地竞争对手相比，有着百年历史的西方公司如可口可乐，美宝莲和雀巢具有更大的优势。 ►这段中的几个牌子，可以注意下：Coca-Cola 可口可乐；Maybelline美宝莲；Nestlé 雀巢 ►formidable 巨大的，强大的 ►advantage over 占优势，优于 But these established groups are increasingly being threatened by Chinese start-ups whose growth has been turbocharged by savvy social media marketing and optimised supply chains. 但是，这些老牌公司正不断遭受着中国新兴公司的威胁。这些公司在精准的社交媒体营销手段和结构优化的供应链的帮助下，加足了发展的油门。 ►established早已成立的，资深的，老牌的 ►turbocharge 给（引擎、车辆）装备涡轮增压器 这是一个很形象的说法，名词动词化，可以让表达更加灵动。 我们常见的shoulder the responsibility也是如此。还有 head for some place 等。 后面的部分，可以作为泛读，也可以看下如何翻译。 That shift was underscored during this month’s “618” ecommerce festival, China’ssecond-biggest annual shopping event, as local brand Babycare outpaced Procter& Gamble’s Pampers in terms of sales volumes, according to data released by internet group Alibaba. underscore 强调 It wasn’t a one-off: Genki Forest, a Chinese beverage company, overtook Coca-Cola and Pepsi inonline sales during last year’s “Singles’ Day”, a multibillion-dollar extravaganza that is the country’s biggest shopping holiday. A year earlier, Perfect Diary, a homegrown cosmetics brand, leapfrogged Maybelline and Estée Lauder to become number one on Singles’ Day, while in 2019, snack brand ThreeSquirrels overtook Nestlé. “Foreign brands used to have an edge in the China market by representing a superior western lifestyle. But Chinese consumers are now more confident in 'China style’,” said Albus Yu, investment manager at China Growth Capital, a venture-capital fund that has backed brands such as Maia Active, a Chinese challenger to Lululemon. The pre-eminence of Chinese brands marks a turnround in a country where foreign products have historically been viewed as safer and of higher quality. It also poses a big challenge for multinationals that are increasingly looking to China for growth. “This next decade is going to be the decade of Chinese brands,” said Elijah Whaley, vice-president of Asia-Pacific marketing at Launchmetrics, an analytics company. “The domestic brands will take a large share of China’s growing consumer market.” In the first three quarters of 2020, domestic sales for Chinese fast-moving consumer goods brands increased 2 per cent while those of foreign brands shrank 6 per cent year-on-year, according to a report by Kantar Worldpanel and Bain. Much of the recent success of local brands comes down to hefty investments in marketing, particularly on social media, analysts said. That has been fuelled by strong backing from venture capital. “Marketing has made Chinese products cool. They don’t have heritage brand equity that they’re trying to protect, which means they’re willing to take risks and move quickly,”said Mark Tanner, managing director of Skinny China, a marketing company. Marketing can account for upwards of 60 per cent of Chinese consumer start-ups’ spending, according to Launchmetrics, compared with 15-25 per cent for foreign brands inChina. “Overseas brands are much more organic in their marketing approach, they want to grow slowly, and that’s how it works in other markets. But here everything is accelerated because there’s so much venture capital involved,” said Jenny Chen, co-founderof WalkTheChat, a cross-border marketing software agency. Chinese brands have also been nimble in terms of developing their supply chains. Being close to manufacturing clusters in China, they have cultivated relationships with suppliers, allowing them to accelerate development of new products and trimcosts. Often, these suppliers are the same ones through which premium foreign brands source goods. “The magic is in the small-batch ordering. You can produce thousands of items and see whatsticks,” said Rui Ma, China tech analyst at TechBuzz. Shanghai Chicmax, a cosmetics brand, went from designing to selling a face mask in three days. That process took a foreign shampoo brand three years, Skinny China’s Tanner pointed out. Variety and speed matter because young Chinese consumers have eclectic tastes and a keener desire to chase trends than their western counterparts, analysts said. While GlaxoSmithKline had 400 products for European customers in one oral care category, it had 12,000 for China, Tanner added. Young Chinese consumers also expect a sophisticated ecommerce experience. When buying a lipstick, they might first watch an influencer promote it on Douyin, China’sversion of TikTok, and then switch to social media platform Xiaohongshu for reviews from professional beauty bloggers before finally buying it on Alibaba’s Taobao after consulting customer feedback and photos. Some Chinese influencers have amassed huge fanbases, such as “Lipstick King” Li Jiaqi, who has 45m Douyin followers. An endorsement from Li can lead a product to sell out in minutes and he has previously criticised foreign brands such as Hermès and Chanel. It was watching Li’s livestreams that Zhang Qiping, a 28-year old professional at a foreign company in China, discovered domestic brands Florasis and Perfect Diary. “I thought the lipsticks looked great, and then I went on Xiaohongshu and found there were lots of people recommending them so I went ahead and bought them,” said Zhang,who had previously bought lipsticks from Dior and Yves Saint Laurent. But “micro-influencers”,who have a much smaller reach of fewer than 10,000 followers, are also an important group for brand marketing. They are often regular customers who companies have converted into brand advocates, giving them free products orsmall payments. “In China’sinfluencer industry, you can find a price for almost everything: a sponsored campaign that looks like it’s native content or a tiny post by amicro-influencer,” said WalkTheChat’s Chen. Another effective way for brands to reach customers in China is via groups on messaging platforms such as Tencent’s WeChat, where they are limited to 500 users. This allows brands to interact with consumers in a more intimate environment, but some western companies see them as offering an uncertain return on investment. “Chinese brands are more willing to take the risk,” said Whaley. Chinese media hasdocumented how Perfect Diary has opened thousands of WeChat groups led by“Xiaowanzi” or “Abby”, a virtual beauty influencer backed by a large marketingteam. Over the finalweekend of 618 promotions, one of Abby’s WeChat groups of 200 people wasinundated with brand promotions, while shoppers posted pictures, askedquestions and gave feedback. Asked how international brands could win her back, Zhang, the consumer working for a foreign company, replied: “When it comes to switching brands, I usually look at reviews on Douyin and Xiaohongshu. It all depends on whether the brands can get beauty bloggers to promote them.” 网红：influencer 美妆博主：beauty bloggers 元气森林：Genki Forest |
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