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Every luxury company fears the “Danniella Westbrook effect”. The phenomenon named after the former EastEnders actress recalls the deleterious impact she had on the Burberry clothes brand after she and her toddler daughter were photographed clad head-to-toe in beige check. The snobbish world of fashion judged the photo a travesty and Burberry’s sales in the UK were hit.
所有奢侈品公司都懼怕“丹妮拉•韋斯特布魯克(Danniella Westbrook)效應”。這個根據前倫敦東區女演員命名的現象讓人們想起她對博柏利(Burberry)服飾品牌造成的傷害，此前，她和自己蹣跚學步的女兒被拍到從頭到腳一身都是博柏利經典的米色格紋。勢利的時尚界把這看做是一場拙劣的模仿，博柏利在英國的銷量因而受到了沖擊。
Louis Vuitton is facing a similar issue in China. While the brand’s owner, the French luxury retailer LVMH, has not fallen foul of any Burberry-style moment, it is nevertheless experiencing brand fade as consumers in higher-tier cities increasingly shun its products, according to data from China Confidential, an FT research service. LV’s problem in one sense is much like Burberry’s: it has become too ubiquitous for its own good.
法國奢侈品零售商路威酩軒集團(LVMH)旗下品牌路易威登(Louis Vuitton)在中國也面臨著類似的問題。雖然LVMH沒有遭遇任何的“博柏利時刻”，但英國《金融時報》旗下調研機構《中國投資參考》(China Confidential)的數據表明，隨著中國一線城市消費者越來越避免選擇其產品，該集團同樣在經歷品牌衰退。在某種意義上，路易威登的問題與博柏利很相似的：物極必反。
Just 18.8 per cent of survey respondents in China’s first-tier cities — Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen — said LV was the luxury brand they most aspired to own, compared with 38.3 per cent among consumers surveyed in third-tier cities, China Confidential’s data show (see chart). Indeed, although LV remains the most popular luxury brand in China, Prada is eclipsing it in first tier cities, the data show.
《中國投資參考》數據顯示（見圖表），在中國一線城市——北京、上海、廣州和深圳，只有18.8%的受訪者稱路易威登是他們最渴望擁有的奢侈品牌，而在三線城市，這一比例為38.3%。數據顯示，雖然路易威登在中國的確仍是最受歡迎的奢侈品牌，但在一線城市，普拉達(Prada)正蓋過其風頭。
This is at least partly because of the zeitgeist among China’s wealthier and more cosmopolitan consumers for individuality and exclusivity. Such people recoil from the idea that they will be seen sporting the same brand as, say, the mistress of a “bao fa hu” — overnight millionaires or billionaires — coal mine owner from a lower-tier city in the gritty inland province of Shanxi.
至少部分原因在于中國較富裕階層的時代精神，以及越來越見多識廣的消費者對個性和獨特性的追求。這類人不愿看到自己身穿與“暴發戶”的情婦同樣的品牌——暴發戶是指一夜暴富、身價百萬或億萬的煤老板，通常來自內陸山西省的塵土飛揚的中小城市。
This aversion comes through in surveys. A large proportion of first tier city respondents said they specifically avoided purchasing brands that too many other people owned. When asked to rate the reasons for their luxury purchases on a scale of one to five (with higher scores indicating greater agreement), survey respondents gave a 3.92 rating to “expressing my personal tastes”.
這種厭惡在調查中顯露無疑。一線城市的很大一部分受訪者稱，他們特意避免購買那些被很多其他人擁有的品牌。當被要求對購買奢侈品的理由進行從1至5(分數越高表明越認同)的打分時，受訪者對“展示個人品味”給出了3.92分。
The dwindling popularity of LV also shows up among Chinese travellers making purchases overseas. China Confidential’s recent annual survey of 1,277 Chinese outbound travellers showed that just 10.7 per cent of travellers who purchased designer goods on their most recent trip overseas purchased an LV-brand item, down from 15.5 per cent in a 2014 survey.
路易威登下滑的人氣也反映在到海外購物的中國游客身上。《中國投資參考》最近對1277名中國出境游客的年度調查顯示，最近一次海外旅行中購買過名牌商品的游客中，只有10.7%的人購買了路易威登的產品，相比2014年的15.5%有所降低。
The decline was particularly pronounced among high-income travellers, with just 12.9 per cent of those with annual household incomes in excess of Rmb350,000 ($56,500) buying LV on their most recent trip, compared with 24.3 per cent a year earlier.
這種降低在高收入游客中表現尤為明顯，家庭年收入超過35萬元人民幣（合5.65萬美元）的游客中，只有12.9%的人在最近一次旅行中購買過路易威登的產品，而去年同期的比例為24.3%。
LVMH is already moving to reposition its brand in response to these shifts, including an expansion of LV product ranges with subtler logos, as well as a greater emphasis on its faster-growing sub-brands such as Céline and Fendi. The French luxury retailer is also working to control its pace of store expansion in China.
LVMH已經開始對其品牌進行重新定位以應對這些變化，包括擴大帶有不易察覺標識的路易威登產品的范圍，并給予諸如賽琳(Céline)和芬迪(Fendi)等增長更快的子品牌更多的重視。LVMH也在努力控制中國專賣店的擴張步伐。
But its latest financial results suggest that there is plenty of work to do. LVMH’s Asia ex-Japan revenue, to which China is the main contributor, fell 6 per cent year on year in the first quarter of this year, steeper than the 1 per cent year-on-year decline in regional revenue in 2014. With China’s anti-corruption campaign showing no sign of relenting and with consumers increasingly favouring subtler, lesser-known brands, the company faces a struggle to reclaim the cachet of exclusivity from the atrophying impact of ubiquity.
而其最新財報表明，還有大量工作要做。LVMH在亞洲地區（日本除外）的收入——中國是主要的貢獻者——今年第一季度同比下降6%，大大超過2014年1%的同比跌幅。中國的反腐行動沒有任何放松的跡象，加上消費者越來越偏愛一些標識不顯眼、不為大眾熟知的品牌，這讓LVMH面臨著一個難題：在其無處不在的影響力的式微中，如何重新樹立起獨一無二的品牌威望。
