施坦威的中國野心 百年品牌的年輕市場(下)

Instruments as Investments

是樂器，也是投資

His father was skeptical. His mother worried he would drive the family business into turmoil.

他的父親表示懷疑。他的母親擔心他會把家族生意搞得一團糟。

But Nick Liu, a 26-year-old heir to a large musical instrument company in eastern China, was determined. He would open a store focused exclusively on selling the brand of pianos he had worshiped during his days as a budding concert pianist.

不過，26歲的劉騁心意已決。他是中國東部一家大型樂器行的繼承人。他想開一家店，專門銷售他作爲音樂會鋼琴演奏者初露頭角時最崇拜的鋼琴品牌。

Mr. Liu’s father had tried selling Steinway pianos a decade earlier with limited success. The concept of a high-end instrument is unfamiliar in a country where the average income for a middle-income family is about $12,000, according to a report last year by Goldman Sachs. Most people won’t spend more than $1,000 on a piano.

十年前，劉的父親曾嘗試銷售施坦威鋼琴，不太成功。據高盛公司(Goldman Sachs)去年的一份報告，中國中等收入家庭的年均收入約爲1.2萬美元，高端樂器的概念在中國並不爲人們所熟悉。大部分人不會購買超過1000美元的鋼琴。

Mr. Liu, who studied piano and finance at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, sensed an opportunity. He believed that China’s nouveaux riches were in the market for new symbols of wealth. “I knew rich people wanted something more subtle to show their taste and sophistication,” he said.

劉曾在北卡羅來納州的韋克福里斯特大學(Wake Forest University)學習鋼琴和金融。他看到了商機。他認爲，中國的暴發戶正在市場上尋找新的財富象徵。“我知道有錢人想要一些更精緻的東西來展示自己的品味和修養，”他說。

Shortly after New Year’s Day last year, in a sleepy business complex in Ningbo that housed a fine-wine store and an art gallery, Mr. Liu opened a Steinway dealership, the latest addition to his family’s business empire, Tianmu Music.

去年新年之後不久，劉在寧波一個安靜的商業綜合樓裏開設了一家施坦威專營店，這是他的家族企業天目琴行的最新分支。這個商業樓裏還有一家高檔紅酒店和一個畫廊。

Mr. Liu found the space with the help of Wang Zhaochun, a technology executive and one of Steinway’s most enthusiastic Chinese customers, who owned the building.

劉在王兆春的幫助下找到了這個空間。王是一家技術公司的總裁，是施坦威最熱心的中國顧客之一，也是這座商業樓的所有者。

Mr. Wang was an avid fan of sports cars and watches. But his latest obsession was a red Steinway concert grand piano valued at more than $300,000, which he showed off to friends in a private salon decorated with fur rugs and bottles of Royal Salute whisky on the building’s ninth floor.

王是跑車和手錶的狂熱愛好者。不過他最近癡迷的是一架紅色施坦威音樂會三角鋼琴，價值超過30萬美元。他在這座商業樓九層的一個私人會客廳裏向朋友們炫耀這架鋼琴，會客廳裏裝飾着皮毛小地毯和一瓶瓶皇家禮炮威士忌(Royal Salute)。

“I wanted to buy something special,” Mr. Wang said. “It’s just like a Rolls-Royce.”

“我想買點特別的東西，”王說，“它就像勞斯萊斯。”

In his store on the ground floor, Mr. Liu arranged dozens of pianos, polishing them with cloths made of chicken skin to make each look as seductive as possible. He turned an empty wall into a timeline of Steinway history, beginning with a portrait of Henry E. Steinway, the company’s founder, in a top hat and holding a cane. He created a mock living room, complete with Steinway-branded teacups and tissue boxes, to help customers visualize high-end pianos in their own homes.

劉在底層的店裏佈置了幾十架鋼琴，用雞皮做成的布擦拭它們，讓每架鋼琴儘可能看起來充滿誘惑力。他在一面空白的牆上展示施坦威大事記，開頭是公司創始人亨利•E•施坦威(Henry E. Steinway)的肖像，他戴着大禮帽，拿着手杖。他還設計了一個模擬客廳，佈置着施坦威品牌的茶杯和紙巾盒，幫助顧客想像自己家裏有一架高端鋼琴的樣子。

Yet Mr. Liu struggled to make a sale. “It was hell,” he said. “No customers, just three employees in the store and me.”

不過，劉的銷售情況不佳。“很糟糕，”他說，“沒有顧客，店裏只有三名員工和我。”

His sales team, accustomed to using a pushy manner to peddle far cheaper products, had difficulty connecting with elite customers. Mr. Liu, a classically trained pianist, felt more comfortable speaking about the musical aspects of the instruments than investment value.

他的銷售團隊習慣於採用糾纏不休的方式兜售便宜得多的產品，很難與高端顧客建立聯繫。劉是一位受過正規訓練的鋼琴演奏者，他更喜歡談論樂器的音樂價值而非投資價值。

Selling a Steinway in China is a particularly trying task. Unlike sports cars or watches, pianos are not easy to show off. Many older people in China never developed a talent for playing the piano. The instrument was shunned during the Cultural Revolution, and widespread poverty in the ensuing decades made it inaccessible to many Chinese families.

在中國銷售施坦威尤爲困難。不像跑車或手錶，鋼琴不好炫耀。很多年齡稍長的中國人從未開發過彈鋼琴的天賦。“文革”期間，人們對這種樂器避而遠之，在之後的數十年裏，中國家庭普遍貧窮，買不起鋼琴。

Steinway has depended on salesmen in more than 25 cities to educate and excite its customers. The company has instructed them to play up the potential return on investment of a Steinway — a message that resonates strongly with frugal Chinese families — and to speak at length about the company’s history.

施坦威依靠在超過25個城市的銷售人員教育和激勵顧客。公司指導銷售員強調購買施坦威鋼琴的潛在投資回報——這一點在節儉的中國家庭中很能引起共鳴——並詳細講述該公司的歷史。

Mr. Liu thought back to his days as an intern in China selling English lessons to working-class families. He remembered the time he had sold more than $6,000 worth of lessons to a woman who made only $460 a month.

劉回想起自己在中國當實習生時向工薪家庭推銷英語課程的情形。他記得，有一次，他把價值6000多美元的課程推銷給一個月薪僅爲460美元的女人。

“That was an achievement,” he said. “It was like ‘The Wolf of Wall Street.’ You have to figure out their motivations and their pressure point.”

“那是一種成就，”他說，“就像《華爾街之狼》(The Wolf of Wall Street)。你必須找出他們的動力和壓力點。”

Mr. Liu invited families in for concerts. He began courting music teachers and local performers. He recruited a Bentley salesman to help market the pianos to affluent customers.

劉邀請家庭觀看音樂會。他開始討好音樂教師和當地演奏者。他聘請了一名賓利(Bentley)銷售員，幫助向富有顧客推廣鋼琴。

“We had to convince them that pianos should be a noble good, not something people buy from the grocery store,” he said.

“我們必須說服他們，鋼琴是一種高貴的東西，不是從雜貨店買的那種東西，”他說。

By March, Mr. Liu had made his first sale, and he was beginning to learn to accommodate the peculiar requests of his clients. A customer called one morning to say she wanted to buy a grand piano costing more than $20,000. But there was a catch: She demanded that it be delivered at 8 p.m. that same day, on the advice of her spiritual master, who had said that time would accord with the laws of feng shui.

3月，劉售出了第一架鋼琴，並開始學着適應客戶的特殊要求。一天早上，一名客戶打電話說她想買一架鋼琴價格超過2萬美元的鋼琴。但有個難題：按照她找的大師的建議，她要求在當天晚上8點送到，在那個時間入戶有利於風水。

Mr. Liu scrambled to make it happen.

劉竭盡全力滿足了這個要求。

By December, Mr. Liu had sold 50 pianos at his store in Ningbo. In his office, he kept a supply of single-malt whiskey he sometimes used to celebrate milestones. At the end of his first year, it had begun to run low.

到12月，劉在寧波的店面已經賣出50架鋼琴。在他的辦公室裏常備單一麥芽威士忌，有時被用來慶祝達到某個銷售里程碑。在第一年年底，威士忌已經所剩不多。

‘A Fighting Hero’

“戰鬥英雄”

In a sleek office tower in the heart of Beijing’s high-tech hub, 60 engineers and 20 musicians work day and night to perfect a product they hope will one day compete with traditional instruments from makers like Steinway.

在北京的高科技中心的一座豪華寫字樓裏，60名工程師和20名樂師日以繼夜地完善一種產品，他們希望有一天它能與施坦威這種傳統樂器製造商的產品競爭。

The device is a smart piano known as the One, and it uses synchronized lights and video games to show children how to play the piano — no teacher required. With a compact design and a price starting around $600, it has proved to be popular among Chinese parents; the company sold 85,000 units in two years.

這是一種智能鋼琴，名爲the One。它使用跟燈模式和電子遊戲來向孩子們展示如何彈鋼琴——不需要老師。The One外形小巧，起價600美元，事實證明，它受到了中國家長的青睞，兩年就銷售了逾8.5萬架鋼琴。

Founded by an engineer with no background in music, the company that produces the One, Xiaoyezi Technology, has not been shy about its ambitions. “Witness the rebirth of the classical piano,” reads one advertisement.

The One是由一位沒有音樂背景的工程師創辦的，這個名爲小葉子科技的公司的雄心在一個廣告中一覽無餘：見證古典鋼琴的重生。

There are now some 300,000 digital pianos in China, about the same number as acoustic pianos. Some forecasts say the total could reach one million within five years.

現在中國消費者擁有30萬架數字鋼琴，與聲學鋼琴的數目大抵相同。一些人預測說，五年內這個數字將達到100萬架。

For generations, Steinway has thrived by ignoring competitors claiming to have reinvented the piano. But the surging popularity of digital pianos like the One, as well as concerns that a slowing Chinese economy could hurt demand, have prompted the company to reconsider.

幾十年來，施坦威無視那些自稱重新創造了鋼琴的競爭對手，一直髮展得有聲有色。但隨着the One這種數字鋼琴的興起，以及擔心中國經濟放緩可能減緩需求，該公司已經開始重新考慮這個問題。

In Beijing this month, Steinway unveiled a product that executives heralded as one of the most significant innovations in the company’s 163-year history: Spirio, an acoustic piano equipped with a digital brain so that it can play without human intervention.

施坦威本月在北京推出了一個產品，被高管們譽爲該公司163年曆史上最重要的創新之一：配備了數字大腦的聲學鋼琴Spirio，它可以播放音樂，完全無需人工干預。

Spirio, which starts at about $147,000 in China, traces its roots to a generation of player pianos that filled homes across America in the early 1900s, the golden age of pianos. It was a time when jazz and ragtime flew off the keys, and Steinway was producing more than 6,000 pianos a year, triple what it makes today.

在中國起價約爲14.7萬美元的Spirio，起源可追溯至上世紀初全美幾乎一戶一臺的那一代自動鋼琴。那是鋼琴的黃金時代，琴鍵間流淌着爵士樂和雷格泰姆音樂，施坦威一年生產的鋼琴超過6000架，是現在的三倍。

Steinway sees China as the best shot at rekindling the fervor of that era. Indeed, for two months last year, the company sold more grand pianos in China than in the United States.

施坦威認爲中國最有可能重新點燃那個時代對鋼琴的熱情。的確，在去年的兩個月裏，該公司在中國售出的三角鋼琴超過了美國的銷量。

In a somewhat frustrating sign of the company’s growing popularity in China, imitators have began cropping up, including small piano shops that have repurposed Steinway’s lyre logo. One company even usurped the brand name to sell water heaters for showers with built-in televisions.

一個有些讓人心煩的跡象表明了公司在中國的受歡迎程度：模仿者開始涌現了，包括將施坦威的里爾琴標誌用於其他目的的小型琴行。一家公司甚至用該商標銷售安裝了內嵌電視的淋浴熱水器。

But Steinway executives face a persistent worry. No matter how much money the company spends promoting its craftsmanship, no matter how many performers endorse its pianos, China’s middle class might ultimately be unwilling to make the leap to high-end instruments.

但施坦威的高管面臨一個由來已久的擔憂。不管該公司花多少錢宣傳自己的工藝，也不管有多少演奏者稱讚他們的鋼琴，中國的中產階級最終可能還是不願一躍選擇高端樂器。

“When you rule the piano world for 160 years, you can get complacent,” said Mr. Husmann, the company executive. “It can lead to a mentality of, ‘Everyone needs a Steinway anyway.’ Steinway has to be a fighting hero — we have to fight every day for our business.”

“統領鋼琴界160年，可能會讓人沾沾自喜，” 該公司首席執行官胡斯曼說。“可能會讓人產生一種‘反正每個人會買一臺施坦威’的心理。施坦威必須成爲一名戰鬥英雄，我們每天都必須爲了生意而戰鬥。”

Du Ruizhe, a 15-year-old piano student in Beijing, was the model of a next-generation Steinway customer. She grew up revering the Steinway name, associating it with great pianists like Arthur Rubinstein. She practiced five hours a day — six on weekends — and was ecstatic when she learned she had qualified for the Steinway piano competition in Ningbo.

15歲的杜睿哲（音）是北京一名學習鋼琴的學生。她是典型的下一代施坦威用家。她在對施坦威這個品牌的崇拜中長大，將其等同於像阿圖爾•魯賓斯坦(Arthur Rubinstein)那樣的偉大鋼琴家。她每天練五個小時琴——週末六個小時。得知有資格參加在寧波舉行的施坦威鋼琴比賽時，她欣喜若狂。

But at home, she played on a grand piano made by Kawai, a low-cost Japanese maker. Steinway pianos, she said, were simply too expensive.

但在家裏，她彈的是一架出自日本廉價鋼琴生產商河合(Kawai)的三角鋼琴。她說施坦威的鋼琴實在太貴了。

“It feels like Steinway is getting famous,” said the teenager, who plans to become a piano teacher. “But in many people’s eyes it’s still a luxury, and until that changes, it’s not like we’ll be rushing to get it.”

“感覺施坦威越來越有名了，”打算當一名鋼琴老師的杜睿哲說。“但在很多人眼裏，它依然是一種奢侈品，除非這種看法發生改變，否則我們不會急着去買。”