【商业周刊 20150129】奢侈品牌喜欢中国的《欲望都市》

满仓

【中文标题】为什么奢侈品牌喜欢中国的《欲望都市》
【原文标题】Why Luxury Brands Love China’s Sex and the City
【登载媒体】商业周刊
【原文链接】http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-29/why-luxury-brands-love-china-s-sex-and-the-city-


在中国大制作系列影片《小时代》的最近一部作品中，一位打扮时尚的女演员在罗马追一个小偷的时候，停下来到芬迪的奢侈品旗舰商店里购物。

芬迪的首席执行官皮耶特罗•贝卡里说，《小时代》“在罗马的芬迪奢侈品店里拍摄了三天，我们的商店是主要的背景”。与这种大制作的明星合作往往要价颇高，“我们很幸运，有机会展示商品，又不需要支付任何费用。”

其它奢侈品牌，包括迈克高仕和欧莱雅旗下的兰蔻，也在寻求与这个被批评的体无完肤、却有很多观众捧场的《小时代》系列作品合作。相关的电影和书籍讲述4个上海女人的故事，她们的生活富足，穿皮草，喝香槟，周围都是男模特。（想想《性欲都市》，只不过性少一点，鞋子多一点。）


影片的重头戏在罗马拍摄，大部分昂贵的皮草服装由芬迪提供。

《小时代》的演员——清一色20出头的美女帅男——专门迎合中国的年轻人。政府的反腐败运动让企业高官和官员之间的礼物交易明显萎缩，所以这些人就变成了大公司推广奢侈生活的主要目标消费者。据贝恩咨询公司提供的数据，中国的奢侈品销售额在2014年下降了一个百分点，为1150亿元人民币（185亿美元）。一些公司——比如芬迪——可以用微乎其微的成本采取娱乐业的方式来向中国的年轻人展示它的品牌，其它公司也越来越愿意采取这样的方式，即使需要一些成本。

《小时代》的第四步影片正在制作过程中，其中当然有更多昂贵的品牌展示。很快，北京的网易公司会推出一款视频游戏，玩家可以选择其中一名年轻的女明星作为游戏中的虚拟身份，并且选择服装和社交活动，来开启她们的明星生涯。网易副总裁王怡说，公司正在与“若干品牌”接洽产品整合事宜，包括迈克高仕和兰蔻。


《小时代》中的年轻男性也同样足够时尚。

王在电子邮件中写到：“中国出生于1990年之后的年轻一代有巨大的消费潜力，愿意尝试新的品牌。《小时代》在中国十几岁的人群中汇集了一大批拥趸，这让一些品牌在目标客户面前有最大的曝光度。”

芬迪和迈克高仕都说，他们没有为《小时代3》的产品植入支付任何费用，仅仅是向剧组出借服装。但是奥美广告公司北京娱乐行销总监马筱箴说，其它公司对于电影或电视的品牌植入，愿意支付50万元到500万元人民币，取决于不同的曝光度。马说，制作人在影片制作过程中会定期开发与品牌的合作机会，以吸引公司的加入，汽车和互联网公司是最活跃的参与者。“各种品牌都对与中国影视节目的合作持积极的态度。”

由郭敬明根据自己的畅销小说改编的《小时代》系列影片，在2013年第一步上映以来，已经取得了超过13亿元人民币的票房收入，是中国国产系列影片的票房纪录。影片在中国产生了两极分化的社会观点，有人批判它对物质的崇尚，与习主席简朴、反腐败的政策方向背道而驰。中国党报《人民日报》在影片2013年第一部上映后，在一篇评论员文章中说，《小时代》对物欲的崇尚“‘小’了时代，窄了格局，矮了思想”。

上海一家咨询公司的分析师孙茉莉说，尽管如此，年轻的中国人还是对影片趋之若鹜，因为那些女主角的华美服饰和奢侈的生活方式，影片代表了年轻人的一种渴望。“《小时代》的出现标志着新一代的消费力量，肤浅、物质至上、有创造力、没有负担和限制。他们敢于梦想，敢于为其付出。”

在7月份上映的第三部影片中，4个女人搬到上海的一所新公寓里，名贵的衣橱中摆满了时髦的大衣、裙子和高跟鞋。她们去罗马旅行，带着芬迪的大衣和手袋，这个品牌属于酩悦轩尼诗路易威登集团。云开集团旗下的宝缇嘉让影片中的一位女演员穿上一袭红色晚礼服。在影片的推介会上，迈克高仕给一位明星穿上2014年的新款产品。


几位女演员之间的关系吸引了大批观众。

唯品汇集团是中国一家网络服装零售店，其产品覆盖从雅诗兰黛化妆品到古驰太阳镜。其品牌部副总裁冯佳路说，中国的产品植入“是必须采取的策略，如果你想在80后、90后，甚至00后人群中打开市场。传统的广告渠道已经不那么有效了。”

这家广州的零售商与中国和韩国的多部网络肥皂剧达成协议，在剧中植入它的网络销售平台和手机应用。冯说：“这是非常自然的产品广告植入，几个女孩子凑在一起，她们就会用手机购物。”



中国仅次于阿里巴巴的第二大电子零售商京东，也与《小时代》联手。京东发言人Josh Gartner说：“产品植入是强化我们在中国消费者心目中正品形象的好方法。”对于植入的费用，他不予置评。

韩国化妆品公司爱茉莉的产品包括售价525美元的一盎司活肤血清，它利用流行的韩国肥皂剧来打开中国市场。《来自星星的你》这部肥皂剧风靡亚洲，有27亿中国人在爱奇异网站上观看，爱茉莉去年在中国的广告代言人就是其中的女主角。公司的首席战略官金承焕在去年说，到2020年，中国市场将占据爱茉莉30％的销售额。而在2013年，这个数字只有11％。

19岁的上海大学生胡迈克看过《小时代》的三部影片，他说利用电影做广告是个好方法，可以引起关注。“电影内容和现实生活有些脱节，我们买不起那些奢侈品。但是或许年龄再大一些我们就买得起了。”市场人士希望他说对了。




原文：

In a scene from the latest installment of the Chinese blockbuster movie series Tiny Times, a glamorously dressed actress pauses while chasing a thief in Rome to do a bit of shopping at luxury house Fendi’s flagship store.

Tiny Times  “shot for three days in Palazzo Fendi in Rome, so our stores were featured,” says Pietro Beccari, Fendi’s chief executive officer. Approaching some of the stars of such productions has become very expensive, he says. “We had the luck to have been chosen for product placement without having to pay for it.”

Other luxury brands, including Michael Kors and L’Oréal’s Lancome, are also looking to profit on the buzz generated by the critically panned but wildly popular Tiny Times series of books and films, which follows four women from Shanghai as they live opulent lives dressed in fur coats, sipping Champagne, and surrounded by male models. (Think Sex and the City, with less sex but more shoes.)

For a key segment filmed in Rome, most of the pricey furs were provided by Fendi.

The Tiny Times cast—uniformly beautiful and in their 20s—appeals to young Chinese. Such consumers are becoming a prime target of brands selling a luxurious lifestyle now that the government’s antigraft campaign has crimped gift-giving between business executives and officials. Luxury sales in China fell about 1 percent in 2014, to 115 billion yuan ($18.5 billion), according to Bain & Co. Some companies such as Fendi are able to use entertainment to put their brands in the sights of younger Chinese at little cost; others increasingly are willing to pay up for such placement.

A fourth Tiny Times film is in the works, and pricey brands are sure to play a part. Soon there’ll even be a video game, produced by Beijing-based NetEase. Players can choose one of four starlets as their virtual character, pick outfits, and plan social events to kick off their celebrity careers. NetEase is in talks with “several brands,” including Michael Kors and Lancome, on product collaborations, says vice president Ethan Wang.

The young men in Tiny Times 3 are equally style-conscious.

“The younger generation of Chinese consumers born after the 1990s have immense spending potential and are more willing to try new brands,” Wang wrote in an e-mail. “Tiny Times has amassed a huge fan following among teens in China, and this gives brands maximum exposure to the group.”

Both Fendi and Michael Kors say they didn’t pay for their placement in Tiny Times 3, and instead loaned the film clothing. But Janie Ma, director of entertainment marketing for Ogilvy & Mather in Beijing, says other companies can spend from 500,000 yuan to 5 million yuan for a movie or TV tie-in, depending on how extensive a brand placement or promotion is. Ma says producers routinely develop brand cooperation plans when they start productions, then pitch companies to come aboard; auto and Internet companies are the most active collaborators. “Brands are positive about cooperating with Chinese films and TV programs,” says Ma.

The Tiny Times series, directed by Guo Jingming and based on his best-selling novels, has grossed more than 1.3 billion yuan since the first installment opened in 2013, a record box office for a Chinese-made film series. The films have divided social opinions in China, with some critics slamming their glorification of materialism, seen to be at odds with President Xi Jinping’s austerity drive to counter corruption. Tiny Times’ embrace of consumerism “belittles one’s times” and “narrows one’s vision,” the People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party newspaper, said in a commentary after the first film’s release in 2013.

Yet younger Chinese are drawn to the series exactly because of the leading ladies’ designer dresses and lavish lifestyles, with the movie representing the aspirations of teenagers, says Jasmine Sun, an analyst at Shanghai-based consultants SmithStreet. “The emergence of Tiny Times is a symbol of the spending power of the new generation,” says Sun. “One which is superficial, materialist, creative, with less burdens and limitations. They dare to dream and have more faith in dreams.”

In the third film, which hit theaters last July, the four women move into a new Shanghai mansion with tony wardrobes filled with trendy coats, dresses, and pairs of stilettos. Taking a trip to Rome, they don coats and bags from Fendi, the luxury label owned by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. Kering’s Bottega Veneta line loaned a one-of-a-kind red gown worn by one of the actresses in the film, while Michael Kors showcased its 2014 fashion collection by dressing one of the stars for the movie’s promotional posters.

The relationship among the female leads is a draw for many filmgoers.

Product placement in China “is something you can’t do without if you want to market to consumers, regardless of if they are born in the ’80s or ’90s, or even after 2000,” says Tony Feng, the vice president in charge of branding at Vipshop Holdings, an online fashion retailer in China that sells everything from Estée Lauder beauty creams to Gucci sunglasses. “Traditional advertising isn’t as effective anymore.”

The Guangzhou-based retailer negotiates to get mentions of its shopping platform and shopping app for smartphones onto Chinese and Korean soap operas and online dramas. “It’s a very natural product placement,” Feng says. “If a bunch of close girlfriends get together, they shop on their mobiles.”

JD.com, China’s No. 2 e-commerce retailer, behind Alibaba, also teamed up with Tiny Times. “Brand placement is a great way for us to reinforce our reputation for authentic products with Chinese consumers,” says Josh Gartner, a spokesman for JD. He wouldn’t comment on payment for the pitch.

Companies such as Amorepacific, a Korean cosmetics maker whose products include a $525, 1-ounce vial of skin renewal serum, also use popular Korean soap operas to market to Chinese. Amorepacific last year ran ads in China featuring an actress from the South Korean soap opera My Love from the Star, an Asia-wide hit that’s received more than 2.7 billion views on Chinese video website iqiyi.com. The Chinese market may grow to 30 percent of Amorepacific’s total sales by 2020, from 11 percent in 2013, Kim Seung Hwan, chief strategy officer, said last year.

Michael Hu, a 19-year-old college student in Shanghai who’s seen all three Tiny Times movies, says sponsoring items in a film is a good way to advertise and raise awareness. “The movie is somewhat detached from our current lives now, and we can’t afford a lot of those luxuries,” Hu says. “But some of the brands we may buy as we get older.” Marketers hope he’s right.