为何除臭香体露在中国不受欢迎？中国人自带除臭基因

Unilever brought its Rexona deodorant to China a decade ago, dreaming of a market with 2.6 billion armpits.

联合利华十年前就把舒耐香体露带进了中国，梦想着一个有26亿腋窝的市场。

Wages were rising, consumers were spending and the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics was making Chinese people feel more cosmopolitan. More of them, it stood to reason, would be open to a Western hygiene product.

工资在增长，消费者在花钱，彼时即将举行的2008年北京奥运会也使中国人更有国际化的感觉。按理说，会有更多人愿意接受这个西方的卫生用品。

“We had an extremely ambitious plan at the time,” Mr. Braeken said.

（联合利华大中华区前总裁）薄睿凯说：“我们当时有一个非常有野心的计划。”

But cultural differences and simple biology — scientists have shown that many East Asian people don’t have Westerners’ body odor issues — scotched those plans. Sales totaled only a fraction of the Chinese marketing budget for Rexona, Mr. Braeken said. Today, by some estimates, less than 10 percent of China’s population uses deodorant, and it can be hard to find outside major cities.

但文化差异和简单的生理问题——科学家已经证明许多东亚人并没有西方人的体味问题——阻挠了这些计划。薄睿凯说，舒耐在中国的销售总量只达到市场营销预算的一小部分，据估计，目前中国只有不到10%的人口使用香体露，在大城市之外更加难找。

China’s growing consumer class has fueled global growth and lifted the fortunes of Starbucks, KFC and a host of other Western brands. Many Chinese people now drink coffee instead of tea, eat cheese and ice cream despite potential tummy tremors, and guzzle ice-cold sodas in a country where grandmothers express a mortal fear at any liquid below room temperature.

中国不断增长的消费阶层推动着全球经济增长，为星巴克、肯德基等一大堆西方品牌增添了财富。许多中国人现在会喝咖啡而不是喝茶，即使可能会出现肠胃不适也要吃奶酪和冰激凌，而在这个老奶奶见到低于室温的饮料都会表现出极度恐惧的国家，人们也开始狂饮冰冷的汽水。

But the drive to win China’s consumers has had its notable failures. Like tampons and Weetabix.

但一些商品赢得中国消费者的努力曾有过重大失败，比如卫生棉条和谷物饼干维多麦。

Companies like Apple and Starbucks have prospered in part by selling aspirational products to Chinese consumers who want to show the world that they have made it. That task is tougher for products that nobody sees.

苹果和星巴克等公司能够成功，部分原因在于向中国消费者出售了能向世界彰显他们的成功的产品，而这个任务对于人们看不到的产品来说更加困难。

“It has to be something visible or something you can smell,” said Ye Tan, an independent economist in Shanghai. “Deodorant fails partly because it is invisible.”

“它必须是能看得见，或能闻得到的东西，”上海独立经济学家叶檀说，“香体露的失败部分是因为人们看不见它。”

The products have their Chinese adherents. Cai Qianyi, a 38-year-old media professional in Beijing, started using deodorant in 2006, when he was studying in France. He doesn’t think he has body odor but sees a problem with sweat stains.

这些产品也有中国的追随者。北京38岁的媒体人蔡谦一（音）从2006年开始使用香体露，那时他正在法国学习，他觉得自己没有体味，但认为汗渍是个问题。

“Sweat leaving wet spots on your T-shirt in the summer is extremely ugly, especially around the armpits, which could be really socially embarrassing,” Mr. Cai said.

他说：“夏天的时候出汗会在T恤上留下汗渍，这样非常难看，尤其是在腋下附近。从社交的角度来说，这很尴尬。”

But most of his family and friends have no idea what deodorant is, he said. Once, a cousin mistook his deodorant stick for perfume and asked him why it was solid.

但他说，大多数的家人和朋友并不知道什么是香体露，有一次，一个亲戚误把它当成香水，还问他为什么这是固体的。

When global deodorant makers began their foray into China, they highlighted the social embarrassment caused by perspiration. Their central message was a proven winner in the West: Sweating will get you shunned socially and ruin your chances for romance.

当全球香体露厂商进军中国市场时，他们强调的是流汗给社会交往带来的尴尬，这个核心信息在西方证实是有效的：出汗会让你在社会交往中被人冷落，也会破坏情场上的机会。

That pitch fell on deaf ears in China, said Lucia Liu, a skin care assistant manager at Unilever who was involved in Rexona’s marketing between 2011 and 2016.

参与了2011年至2016年舒耐市场推广的联合利华护肤产品助理经理露西亚.刘说，这个宣传方式在中国没有产生效果。

“The traditional thinking here is that sweating is good because it helps people detox,” said Ms. Liu. “There is a marketing barrier that is really hard to overcome.”

她说：“在中国的传统观念里，出汗是件好事，因为它会帮助排毒，这个市场营销上的障碍很难克服。”

Indeed, Chinese health websites have long promoted the benefits of sweating, ranging from a boost in immunity to memory enhancement to skin rejuvenation. To many Chinese, perspiration is a natural part of metabolism that should not be blocked.

的确，中国的健康网站长期以来一直在宣传出汗的益处，从增强免疫力、提高记忆力到肌肤恢复活力。对于很多中国人而言，排汗是新陈代谢的自然组成部分，不应该被阻碍。

There’s another reason few Chinese consumers buy deodorant: basic biology.

此外，购买香体露的中国消费者很少还因为：基本的生理特性。

Scientists in recent years have shown that many East Asians, a group that includes China’s ethnic Han majority, have a gene that lowers the likelihood of a strong “human axillary odor” — scientist-speak for body stink.

科学家近年来已经证明，很多东亚人携带的一种基因可以降低产生强烈“人体腋窝气味”（体臭的科学说法）的可能性，这个群体包括占中国大多数的汉族人口。

That lowers the likelihood that they will use deodorant to begin with, according to a 2013 study by researchers at the University of Bristol and Brunel University in Britain, after a survey of nearly 6,500 women of various backgrounds.

因此这从根本上减少了他们使用香体露的可能性。这项2013年的研究由英国布里斯托大学和布鲁内尔大学的研究人员联合开展，研究人员调查了近6500名来自不同背景的女性。

“It is likely that deodorant usage is not widely adopted because there is, for much of the East Asia population, no need for it,” it said.

研究结论称：“香体露的使用可能不是非常普遍，这是因为对很多东亚人而言，他们不需要。”

Unilever was not deterred. It deployed a range of traditional marketing tools, including signing top celebrities to appear in TV ads, in-store product sampling and sweat tests, and concert sponsorships.

联合利华没有因此却步，它使用了一系列传统市场推广手法，包括聘请最红的名人打电视广告、店内产品试用和排汗测试，以及赞助演唱会等。

Many of its efforts seem tone deaf in retrospect.

但该公司的许多努力似乎都没有奏效。

A series of Rexona print ads portrayed a person’s armpits as potential threats to others. In one, a gunslinger — his armpit hovering over the scene in the foreground — appears to take down his opponent without touching his revolver. In a similar ad, a boxer appears to knock out his opponent with little more than his aroma.

一系列舒耐的平面广告刻画了一个人的腋窝成为他人的潜在威胁。在一则广告中，一名持枪劫匪的腋窝在画面前景摇晃，他似乎没有使用手枪就制服了对手。在另一个类似广告中，一名拳击手只靠自己的体香就击倒了对手。

Ng Tian It, a Singaporean creative director who oversaw the ad campaign, was proud of the look. But he said the ads appeared to be out of touch with many Chinese consumers unfamiliar with Old West shootouts, professional boxing and the prospect of offensive underarm smells.

主管这个广告系列的新加坡创意总监黄田一对视觉效果感到很满意。但他说，这些广告似乎脱离了许多不熟悉美国西部枪战、职业拳击和冒犯性腋臭的中国消费者的生活。

“The series of advertisements we designed relied on the Western sense of humor,” he said. “Not many Chinese would understand this.”

“我们设计的这个系列的广告是基于西方的幽默，”他说，“很多中国人并不一定能明白。”

Deodorant sales in the United States reached $4.5 billion in 2016, according to Euromonitor, a market research firm. China’s total: $110 million. Deodorant also does not sell well in other East Asian markets: Japan’s sales that year were about one-tenth those of the United States.

据市场调研公司欧睿国际的数据，香体露2016年在美国的销售额为45亿美元（约合288亿元人民币），而在中国的销售额总共1.1亿美元（约合7亿元人民币），同时，香体露在其他东亚市场的销售也表现不佳。日本2016年香体露的销售总额大约是美国的十分之一。

Companies hoping to sell deodorant in China have had to appeal to other senses. Nivea, a brand owned by Beiersdorf A.G. of Germany, has tried to lure female Chinese consumers by rolling out deodorants with whitening functions.

希望在中国销售香体露的公司不得不从其他感官上想办法。德国拜尔斯道夫集团旗下品牌妮维雅试图在香体露中加入美白功效来吸引中国女性消费者。

Simon Cao, Nivea’s China marketing director, said that the deodorant was popular but that “the room for growth is very limited.”

妮维雅中国区市场主管西蒙.曹说，香体露很受欢迎，但“增长空间非常有限”。