洋品牌要如何吸引中国消费者

Bringing a product to the Chinese market can be a major hurdle for a burgeoning company looking to expand abroad. But according to a new research in consumer behavior and global marketing, for a Western brand to crack the Chinese market, the name's the thing.

对于一个发展迅速的公司来说，要想拓展海外业务，将产品引入中国市场将是一大难关。然而，一项针对消费者行为和全球市场营销的新研究指出，对于一个想要拓展中国市场的西方品牌来说，名字是关键。

Young, educated Chinese consumers who are highly bicultural tend to more favorably evaluate brand translations that keep both the sound and the meaning of the original name, says Carlos J. Torelli, a professor of business administration at Illinois.

美国伊利诺斯州的一位工商管理学教授卡洛斯·J·托列利表示，深受双元文化熏陶且受过良好教育的中国年轻消费者，他们往往会把更多好评给予那些既保留了品牌原名读音又兼具其含义的译名。

The study examines how integrative responses to culture mixing, in the context of Western brand names translated into Chinese, can influence consumer evaluations of products.

在西方品牌名称被译成中文的情况下，消费者对文化交融的综合反应会如何影响其对产品的评价，这项研究对此作出了调查。

"What we found is that if you're targeting young Chinese consumers, they tend to be more bicultural," Torelli said. "The established view of Chinese consumers is that they are conservative in the sense that they value tradition and conformity, whereas Westerners tend to be more open to new experiences or are individualistic in the sense that they emphasize new things like autonomy and pursuing one's own goals."

托列利说：“我们发现，如果你把年轻的中国消费者作为目标客户，他们往往更倾向于接受双元文化。中国消费者过去给我们的印象是，他们比较保守，也就是说他们重视传统和一致性;然而，西方人往往更愿意接受新体验，或者说他们更具个人主义色彩，重视自主权一类的新事物且注重追求个人目标。”

Younger Chinese consumers, however, were born after the one-child policy and have much more exposure to the West than previous generations.

但是，年轻的中国消费者是在实行独生子女政策之后出生的，他们比上一代人接触过更多的西方文化。

"When they are the target, since they are much more westernized in their values, they have a more bicultural mindset. So young Chinese consumers fall somewhere in the middle, modulating between those two poles of valuing tradition and embracing what's new."

“当我们把年轻的中国消费者定位为目标客户的时候，因为他们的价值观更加西化，所以他们更容易接受双元文化。因此年轻的中国消费者就处于注重传统和崇尚新事物的两种极端主义之间。”

Because of that, the researchers hypothesized that young Chinese consumers would respond much more favorably to cultural mixing.

也因如此，研究员推测年轻的中国消费者会更愿意接受文化交融。

"It's a foreign brand that's making an effort, and is respecting and valuing the culture, thereby integrating the Western values of self-expression and autonomy while also paying tribute to traditional Chinese value of conservatism," he said.

他表示，“外国品牌要付出点努力，尊重并重视这种文化，由此在整合注重自我表现和自主权的西方价值观的同时，尊重中国传统的保守主义价值观。”

For marketers, the benefit is if you're an American or Western European company trying to break into the Chinese market, "you might want to think carefully about adopting a phonosemantic translation for your product," he said.

对营销人员来说，好处就是，如果你服务于一家试图打入中国市场的美国或西欧公司，“你可以仔细考虑一下为你的产品选择一个音意皆具的译名，”托列利说道。

"That might be the best approach, especially if you're targeting this young, affluent, cosmopolitanmarket."

“特别是当你把年轻、富足且见多识广的人作为目标客户的时候，这可能会是最好的方法。”