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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.
所有奢侈品公司都惧怕“丹妮拉•韦斯特布鲁克(Danniella Westbrook)效应”。这个根据前伦敦东区女演员命名的现象让人们想起她对博柏利(Burberry)服饰品牌造成的伤害，此前，她和自己蹒跚学步的女儿被拍到从头到脚一身都是博柏利经典的米色格纹。势利的时尚界把这看做是一场拙劣的模仿，博柏利在英国的销量因而受到了冲击。
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.
法国奢侈品零售商路威酩轩集团(LVMH)旗下品牌路易威登(Louis Vuitton)在中国也面临着类似的问题。虽然LVMH没有遭遇任何的“博柏利时刻”，但英国《金融时报》旗下调研机构《中国投资参考》(China Confidential)的数据表明，随着中国一线城市消费者越来越避免选择其产品，该集团同样在经历品牌衰退。在某种意义上，路易威登的问题与博柏利很相似的：物极必反。
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.
《中国投资参考》数据显示（见图表），在中国一线城市——北京、上海、广州和深圳，只有18.8%的受访者称路易威登是他们最渴望拥有的奢侈品牌，而在三线城市，这一比例为38.3%。数据显示，虽然路易威登在中国的确仍是最受欢迎的奢侈品牌，但在一线城市，普拉达(Prada)正盖过其风头。
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国较富裕阶层的时代精神，以及越来越见多识广的消费者对个性和独特性的追求。这类人不愿看到自己身穿与“暴发户”的情妇同样的品牌——暴发户是指一夜暴富、身价百万或亿万的煤老板，通常来自内陆山西省的尘土飞扬的中小城市。
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”.
这种厌恶在调查中显露无疑。一线城市的很大一部分受访者称，他们特意避免购买那些被很多其他人拥有的品牌。当被要求对购买奢侈品的理由进行从1至5(分数越高表明越认同)的打分时，受访者对“展示个人品味”给出了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.
路易威登下滑的人气也反映在到海外购物的中国游客身上。《中国投资参考》最近对1277名中国出境游客的年度调查显示，最近一次海外旅行中购买过名牌商品的游客中，只有10.7%的人购买了路易威登的产品，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.
这种降低在高收入游客中表现尤为明显，家庭年收入超过35万元人民币（合5.65万美元）的游客中，只有12.9%的人在最近一次旅行中购买过路易威登的产品，而去年同期的比例为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已经开始对其品牌进行重新定位以应对这些变化，包括扩大带有不易察觉标识的路易威登产品的范围，并给予诸如赛琳(Céline)和芬迪(Fendi)等增长更快的子品牌更多的重视。LVMH也在努力控制中国专卖店的扩张步伐。
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.
而其最新财报表明，还有大量工作要做。LVMH在亚洲地区（日本除外）的收入——中国是主要的贡献者——今年第一季度同比下降6%，大大超过2014年1%的同比跌幅。中国的反腐行动没有任何放松的迹象，加上消费者越来越偏爱一些标识不显眼、不为大众熟知的品牌，这让LVMH面临着一个难题：在其无处不在的影响力的式微中，如何重新树立起独一无二的品牌威望。
