施坦威的中国野心 百年品牌的年轻市场(上)
NINGBO, China — Dozens of girls in tiaras and boys in tuxedos who dreamed of becoming China’s next musical sensation stared at the beast on stage. At nine feet long and nearly 1,000 pounds, with a steely black sheen and a price of more than $200,000, the Steinway & Sons D-274 concert grand piano seemed designed to intimidate.
中国宁波――几十个梦想成为中国下一个音乐明星的孩子凝视着台上那个庞然大物；女孩们戴着头冠，男孩们身穿礼服。那是一架施坦威D-274音乐会三角钢琴。琴身有9英尺长（约2.7米），重量将近1000磅（约450公斤），泛着金属般的黑色冷光，价格超过20万美元——仿佛是专门设计出来吓唬人的。
There were whispers that the piano had come from far away, in Germany; that it could kill you in an instant if it rolled off the stage; that it had the power to turn even the sloppiest of scales into material primed for Carnegie Hall.
有人窃窃私语，说这台钢琴是从遥远的德国运来的。也有人说，如果从台上滑下来，能立刻砸死人；还有的说，用它来弹琴，就算弹得再烂，也配得上卡耐基音乐厅的水准。
“It’s flawless, exquisite, with a special sound,” said Li Wei, the mother of an 11-year-old boy who had come to the theater to take part in the final round of the Steinway & Sons International Youth Piano Competition in China last winter.
“完美，精密，音色很特别，”李薇（音）说。去年冬天，她带着11岁的儿子来到这座剧场，参加施坦威国际青少年钢琴比赛(Steinway & Sons International Youth Piano Competition)中国赛区的决赛。
“Everyone wants a Steinway,” said Xiao Yunchu, a quiet 13-year-old who favored the pyrotechnics of the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt. “But none of us can afford it.”
“每个人都想拥有一台施坦威，”性格文静的肖云初（音）说。这个13岁的孩子偏爱匈牙利作曲家富朗茨·李斯特(Franz Liszt)精湛的技巧。“但是我们没人买得起。”
Steinway, one of the world’s most prestigious musical instrument brands, is looking to China to breathe new life into lackluster sales. To succeed, the company will need more than smart marketing. It will to need to fine-tune a cultural mind-set in a country that once dismissed pianos as bourgeois luxuries.
施坦威是世界上最负盛名的乐器品牌之一。现在，它正把目光投向中国，希望给死气沉沉的销售量注入新的生机。为了达到这个目的，公司需要的不仅仅是精明的市场营销策略。它还需要精心调校一个国家的国民心理——在中国钢琴一度被认为是资产阶级奢侈品，受到排斥。
Steinway dealers have to convince their wealthier clientele that the instruments make good investments, avoiding the overly aggressive sales tactics that tripped up some early efforts. They have to educate parents about the potential payoff of buying a piano that can cost as much as an apartment. And they need to woo music students who are increasingly turning to lower-cost keyboards and so-called smart pianos, which use lights, iPads and other technical tools to teach basic skills.
施坦威经销商尽力避免过分激进、导致了初期失败的营销策略，让富有的客户群相信，购买这种乐器是极好的投资。他们得教育父母，告诉他们，购买一台价格和一套房子差不多的钢琴会有潜在的回报。他们还得争取那些学音乐的学生们的支持，他们愈来愈青睐那些价格低廉的键盘乐器，以及使用光学、iPad和其他技术手段传授基本技巧的所谓“智能钢琴”。
The company, known for its painstaking craftsmanship, has grudgingly entered the digital game. The new Steinway Spirio is a high-tech take on the jazz-era player piano, loaded with standard classical fare and customized for a Chinese audience with local pop hits like “The Moon Represents My Heart” and compositions like “The Yellow River,” a piano concerto that dates to the Cultural Revolution.
这家以严格工艺著称的公司不情愿地进入了数字领域。新款施坦威Spirio新悦钢琴就是一款应用了高科技的爵士乐时代自动演奏钢琴，内置除了标准古典曲目，还有为中国顾客定制的《月亮代表我的心》等本地流行音乐，以及文革时代的《黄河》钢琴协奏曲等作品。
Founded in 1853 in a Manhattan loft by a German immigrant, Steinway flourished for generations by selling high-end pianos, each crafted by hand from materials like Sitka spruce and cast iron, in the United States and Europe. But the company has suffered as piano playing wanes in the West. Music schools and concert halls have cut back on orders. Piano stores have closed. In the face of uncertainty about its future,Steinway was sold three years ago to an investment firm owned by the hedge fund Billionaire John A. Paulson.
施坦威公司1853年由一位德国移民在曼哈顿的一间阁楼上创立，靠着销售高端钢琴代代繁荣，每一台钢琴都是在美国或欧洲手工制造，使用西提卡云杉和铸铁等材料。但是，钢琴演奏在西方开始衰落，这家公司颇受打击。音乐学校和音乐厅的订单在减少。钢琴店陆续关门。面对不确定的未来，三年前，施坦威公司被卖给纽约的亿万富翁对冲基金经理约翰·A·保尔森(John A. Paulson)。
In China, Steinway sees potential in what it calls the “tiger mom” phenomenon, middle-class parents willing to spend small fortunes to produce high-achieving children with musical talent. By some estimates, the country has as many as 40 million piano students, compared with six million in the United States.
在中国，施坦威从“虎妈”现象中看到了潜在的机会。中产阶级父母希望投入小笔财富，把有音乐天赋的孩子培养成才。有估计认为，这个国家学钢琴的孩子有4000万人，美国只有600万。
“In America, you’ve already had the piano for hundreds of years,” said Lang Lang, a classical pianist with a rock star flair who is one of China’s most prominent musicians. “In China, it’s fresher, it’s newer. Everyone wants to play.”
“美国人弹钢琴已经有几百年了，”带点摇滚明星气场的古典钢琴家郎朗说。他是中国最有名的音乐家之一。“在中国，它还很新鲜，是新事物，所有人都想弹钢琴。”
As it pushes to remake the country into a cultural superpower, the Chinese government has encouraged students to take up the piano by building concert halls and investing in music education. Among the country’s wealthiest families, the arts have become a source of spiritual fulfillment and a status symbol. In rich coastal cities, real estate scions and technology executives are buying Steinway pianos — some outfitted with diamonds and wood from Africa and India — to complement collections of Porsches and Picassos.
中国政府也在致力于将中国重塑为文化大国，因此鼓励学生们学习钢琴，兴建音乐厅，并投资音乐教育。对于这个国家最富有的家庭来说，艺术已经成为一种充实精神生活的来源，以及一种地位的象征。在富有的沿海城市，除了保时捷跑车和毕加索名画，地产商的子弟和科技公司的老总也开始买施坦威钢琴，有些琴上还装点着来自非洲和印度的名贵木材和钻石。
Steinway has pitched its pianos both as durable instruments and luxurious artifacts. It has recruited celebrities like Mr. Lang to offer endorsements, which carry special force in the crowded Chinese marketplace. And it has infused its messaging with themes of success and ambition.
施坦威既把公司出品的钢琴当做耐用的乐器，也把它们当做奢侈的工艺品。它聘请郎朗之类名人为自己做宣传，这对于拥挤的中国市场来说，有特别的效力。它还在公司的商业宣传里面渗透了有关成功和雄心大志的主题。
As China’s middle class swells to some 200 million people, many Western brands like Steinway have arrived in search of a new generation to offset slowing sales at home. Mattel, the toymaker, has entered the market with products like Violin Soloist Barbie. La Perla, an Italian lingerie maker founded in 1954, has 11 stores in mainland China, its fastest-growing market.
中国的中产阶级规模扩大到了2亿人，包括施坦威在内的许多西方品牌争相来到中国，寻觅新一代市场，弥补本土市场发展缓慢的销量。美泰(Mattel)玩具公司带着小提琴乐手芭比等产品进入中国。创建于1954年的意大利内衣生产商La Perla在中国大陆已经有11家分店，这里是它增长最快的市场。
For Steinway, China has proved to be a shot to the arm. Sales increased more than 15 percent a year over the last decade, far outpacing the single-digit growth of the United States and Europe. China is now Steinway’s largest market for pianos outside the United States, representing about one-third of global sales. In a sign of China’s importance, the company next year will unveil a 60,000-square-foot headquarters for Asia in Shanghai, complete with a recital hall.
对于施坦威来说，中国可谓是一剂强心针。过去10年间，它在中国的销量每年增长15%，远远超过在欧美国家个位的增长幅度。中国如今已是施坦威在美国之外的最大市场，占全球销量的三分之一。公司明年将在上海开设占地6万平方英尺的亚洲总部，其中包括一座表演厅，显示了中国市场的重要性。
The youth piano competition in Ningbo from Dec. 10 to 13, the seventh of its kind on the mainland, was the marquee event of the year, a chance to imprint the Steinway lore into the minds of thousands of students, parents and teachers. Students ages 6 to 16 came from across China to Ningbo, a Silk Road trading port three hours south of Shanghai, to compete for an opportunity to perform overseas in Hamburg, the birthplace of Brahms and one of Steinway’s main hubs.
12月10日至13日在宁波举办的青少年钢琴大赛是在中国大陆举办的第七届比赛，是这一年最盛大的活动，也是将施坦威的传说植入成千上万学生、家长和老师内心的良机。参赛选手的年龄从6岁到16岁，他们从中国各地来到宁波。这里曾是海上丝绸之路的贸易港，在上海以南三小时车程。大赛的奖励是去汉堡演奏的机会，那里是勃拉姆斯的故乡，也是施坦威的一座重镇。
Over lunch at a downtown hotel, Steinway executives celebrated the success of the competition, which attracted more than 15,000 applicants, a record. Steinway executives said they dreamed of a day when the company’s pianos filled living rooms across China and the company name was as well known in the country as Gucci. But they acknowledged that if Steinway were to thrive in China, it would need a cultural shift in a country where low-end pianos have dominated the market for decades.
在市中心的酒店吃午饭时，施坦威的高管庆祝这次比赛的成功。它吸引了1.5万名报名者，创下了记录。高管们说，他们梦想有一天公司的钢琴能走进中国各地家庭的起居室，施坦威的名字在中国像古驰一样知名。但是他们也承认，几十年来，中国的钢琴市场一直是低端钢琴的天下，施坦威要在这里繁荣发展，需要出现一场文化上的转变。
As the competition kicked off in Ningbo and children took to the stage to perform Mozart, Brahms and Gershwin, the president of Steinway’s Asia division, Werner Husmann, said the piano maker would need to establish a new audience in China to survive.
竞赛在宁波开始了，孩子们纷纷上台，演奏莫扎特、勃拉姆斯和格什温。施坦威亚洲总裁沃纳·哈斯曼恩(Werner Husmann)说，公司要生存，需要在中国培育一批新的听众。
“These people are our customers of the future,” he said. “We need to keep piano playing popular.”
“这些人是我们未来的客户，”他说。“我们需要让钢琴演奏持续流行。”
Piano-Shaped Objects
钢琴形状的物体
Wherever Mr. Husmann went during a trip to China for Steinway in the late 1990s, he saw what he began referring to as P.S.O.s, or piano-shaped objects — instruments that had long ago lost their music-making abilities. Some had uneven legs and drifted toward the audience during performances. Others sat on street corners, rain or shine.
20世纪90年代末期，哈斯曼恩为公司业务来到中国。不管他走到哪里，总能看到被他称作“钢琴形状的物体”的琴，它们早已经失去了演奏音乐的功能。有些琴四腿不平，在演奏时向观众滑去。有些被放在街角，受着日晒雨淋。
Even so, Mr. Husmann came away with a sense that there was a love of Western music in Chinese society, and there would soon be a market for high-quality instruments. When he returned to Hamburg to sell his colleagues on the idea, they laughed.
即便如此，哈斯曼恩还是感到中国人喜爱西方音乐，高端乐器很快就会有市场。回到汉堡，他向同事们推销自己的想法，只换来他们的大笑。
“The first reaction was more or less that I should see a doctor to do a mental check,” he said. “It was like, ‘What the hell can you do in China?’”
“他们最初多少都觉得我该找个精神病医生看看了，”他说。“他们觉得，‘在中国那种地方到底能干什么？’”
Steinway had been selling its artisanal pianos, each consisting of more than 12,000 parts, to China since 1880. But many employees were wary of establishing a permanent outpost in a place where cheap manufactured goods were king.
施坦威自1880年起便向中国出口手工制造的钢琴，每台钢琴的零部件超过1.2万个。但是中国毕竟是个便宜制品为王的地方，许多雇员都对在那里建立永久性据点持审慎态度。
Fans liked to say Steinway invented the modern grand piano. The company has 127 patents. Unlike its competitors, Steinway refused to churn out hundreds of pianos each day by machine. And it kept factories in its two main bases in Long Island City, Queens, and Hamburg, even as other instrument makers like Yamaha moved manufacturing operations from the United States to low-cost Asian countries.
粉丝们常说，施坦威发明了现代三角钢琴。公司拥有127项专利。与竞争对手们不同，施坦威拒绝用机器每天生产数百架钢琴。其他乐器制造商，比如雅马哈(Yamaha)，把制造业务从美国搬到了成本低廉的亚洲国家，可是它依然只在皇后区长岛市和汉堡这两个主要基地设立工厂。
When Steinway opened an office in Shanghai in 2004, most of its sales in China were to music conservatories. It was not until the global financial crisis struck four years later that the importance of the Chinese market became clear.
2004年施坦威在上海设立办公室时，它在中国的销售主要是面向音乐学院。直到四年后全球金融危机爆发，中国市场的重要性才显现出来。
As the world economy weakened, piano sales in the United States and Europe, already in decline, fell sharply. In 1909, 364,000 pianos were sold annually in the United States; by 2009, that number had slumped to 30,000, according to the National Association of Music Merchants. Doomsday scenarios predicted the extinction of pianos.
随着全球经济疲软，美国和欧洲本已下滑的钢琴销量开始猛跌。据美国全国音乐商人协会(National Association of Music Merchants)的数据，1909年，美国每年销售36.4万架钢琴；到2009年，这个数字跌至3万架。人们甚至悲观地预测钢琴会绝迹。
Despite Steinway’s devout following — the company says it is the instrument of choice for 98 percent of the world’s performing pianists, including Billy Joel and the Argentine musician Martha Argerich — it was not immune to the slowdown. Shipments of Steinway pianos dropped substantially in 2009, and the company was forced to lay off workers at its factory in Queens.
尽管施坦威有很多忠诚的追随者——公司称全世界98%的钢琴演奏家都选择施坦威钢琴，包括比利·乔尔(Billy Joel)和阿根廷音乐家玛尔塔·阿赫里奇(Martha Argerich)——但它对经济放缓也没有免疫力。2009年，施坦威钢琴的发货量大幅下降。公司被迫对皇后区的工厂进行裁员。
While sales revived somewhat, the downturn exposed the limits of Steinway’s traditional markets. As they looked to the future, Steinway’s leaders decided to take the company private, away from the short-term glare of public shareholders focused on quarterly earnings.
虽然后来销量略有回升，但销量下降暴露出施坦威传统市场的局限性。施坦威的领导人在展望未来时，决定让公司私有化，远离只关注季度收入的、目光短浅的公共股东的审视。
In 2013, Steinway was sold for $512 million to Mr. Paulson, and musicians worried he would interfere with Steinway’s painstaking production process to increase revenue. Steinway was making only about 2,000 pianos a year in New York and Hamburg.
2013年，施坦威以5.12亿美元出售给保尔森。音乐人们担心他为了提高收益，会干预施坦威不辞辛苦的精工细作流程。当时，施坦威每年仅在纽约和汉堡制造约2000架钢琴。
But Mr. Paulson, an amateur pianist with four Steinway pianos, did not change the company’s methods, which he believed were crucial to dominating the high-end market. He urged the company to move more aggressively in emerging countries, where a growing middle class was spending heavily on education. Steinway drew up plans for a hybrid acoustic-digital instrument and broadly ramped up production of traditional pianos to meet demand.
不过，作为业余钢琴家、有四架施坦威钢琴的保尔森没有改变公司的生产方式。他认为那种方式对于施坦威主导高端钢琴市场非常关键。他敦促该公司更积极地在新兴国家进行推广，那里不断增长的中产阶级正在教育上投入巨资。施坦威制定了计划，生产原声与数字模拟混合的乐器，并全面扩大传统钢琴的产量，以满足需求。
Steinway’s ambitions in China coincided with the government’s efforts to develop the country’s musical talent. China’s leaders welcomed European classical music, investing heavily in education programs and concert halls, like the $200 million Guangzhou opera house designed by the late architect Zaha Hadid. Top Communist leaders espoused their love of classical music. Several of China’s most prestigious state-run music schools agreed to stock their classrooms only with Steinway pianos, a big win for the company.
施坦威在中国定下远大目标的同时，正赶上中国政府努力培养本国音乐人才。中国领导人欢迎欧洲古典音乐，在教育项目和音乐厅建设上投资巨大，比如耗资约2亿美元的广州歌剧院，它是由前不久去世的著名建筑师扎哈·哈迪德(Zaha Hadid)设计的。中国共产党的高层领导人支持他们对古典音乐的热爱。中国最著名的几所官办音乐学院同意只购置施坦威钢琴，这是该公司的一项巨大成功。
When officials from Chongqing, a metropolis in southwest China, held a concert in 2011 to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, they invited Steinway to take part. Li Yundi, a prominent pianist and endorser of Steinway, played a program of traditional Chinese songs. Onstage sat a nine-foot concert grand painted solid red, China’s national color. A Steinway & Sons logo was displayed prominently on its side. Thousands gathered in the sweltering heat to watch the performance, and many lined up afterward to snap pictures with the piano.
2011年，中国西南部大都市重庆的官员举办音乐会庆祝中国共产党成立90周年时，邀请施坦威加入。著名钢琴家、施坦威的品牌代言人李云迪弹奏了一组中国传统乐曲。舞台上放着一架9英尺音乐会三角钢琴，漆成大红色——红色是中国的国色。施坦威的商标醒目地呈现在钢琴侧面。成千上万人顶着酷热聚集在这里观看表演，演出结束后很多人排队与钢琴合影。
