评论
打印
“Writing is easy,” the sports columnist Red Smith once said. “You just open a vein and bleed.”
体育专栏作者瑞德o史密斯曾说过：“写作并不难，只需掏心挖肺地对待读者即可。”
The same might be said of the car business. It’s easy: You just design and build great cars.
汽车行业可能也有类似的表述。这不是件难事：只需要设计并造出好车就行。
Of course, it isn’t that simple. As the recent misfortunes of General Motors GM 0.19% and Ford Motor F -0.30% demonstrate, something as straightforward as installing foolproof ignition switches or accurately calculating fuel economy can elude the most experienced of automakers.
当然，事情并没有这么简单。通用汽车（General Motors）和福特汽车（Ford Motor）最近的负面新闻表明，最为老道的汽车制造商也会在傻瓜式点火开关的安装或燃油经济性计算精确性上面栽跟头。
When it comes to marketing cars, there is an emerging debate that can most succinctly be described as mass vs. class.
在汽车营销领域，一场争论正在如火如荼地进行当中，简而言之就是：车型数量与档次之争。
On the mass side is analyst John Murphy, author of the long-running “Car Wars” study for Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Murphy is a fan of new models, the more the merrier. He has consistently demonstrated that market share is directly related to the number of new models a company introduces and the speed with which it refreshes them. While he concedes the importance of mix, pricing, execution, distribution, and brand power, he argues that the more rapidly product lines are expanded and refreshed, the more rapidly sales will grow. “Our measures of replacement rate and showroom age are the major driver of market share gains and losses,” he writes. “Successful new products drive higher market share.”
分析师约翰o墨菲是“数量”派，他是美银美林（Bank of America Merrill Lynch）长期调查《汽车之战》（Car Wars）的作者。墨菲钟爱新车型，而且车型越多越好。在他的不懈努力之下，他所得出的结论是，市场占有率与制造商推出新车型的数量和速度有直接关系。在承认搭配、定价、执行、销售和品牌影响力的重要性的同时，他还认为，生产线扩张、更新的速度越快，销售业绩的增长也就越快。他写道：“更新率和展厅年限指标是企业获得/失去市场份额的主要原因。成功的新产品会带来更高的市场份额。”
Leading the arguments for the class side is longtime marketing consultant and self-styled industry curmudgeon Peter De Lorenzo. De Lorenzo, who is based in Detroit, leads the AutoExtremist blog, calls himself “a purveyor of the bare-knuckled, unvarnished, high-octane truth,” and has been a rigorous defender of brand integrity. “How a brand is perceived can make or break a car company, regardless of how long and illustrious a run that brand has enjoyed up until any given point in time,” he wrote in June.
“档次”派阵营的主要人物则是资深营销顾问、自称行业异类的皮特o德o罗伦索。德o罗伦索常驻底特律，是博客“汽车极端分子”的博主。他称自己是一位“非常规、朴实无华、最热门事实的提供者”，而且一直是品牌诚信的忠实拥趸。他在6月的博文中写道：“人们对品牌的看法能造就、也能毁掉一家汽车公司，无论这个品牌在此前任何一段时间内拥有多么悠久或辉煌的历史。”
De Lorenzo has been a persistent critic of luxury brands that use new models to grow volume. He believes they are compromising their identity by using their brand for vehicles that have no connection to heritage and history. “They believe that if they cover every niche in the market–both real and imagined–it will ensure their survival and profitability,” he contends. “But it doesn’t work,” he writes. “There are painful ramifications that come with their actions.”
德o罗伦索一直都在批评豪华汽车品牌使用新车型来提升销量的做法。他认为，这种做法会有损品牌形象，因为品牌被用在了与其传承和历史毫无关联的车型身上。他指出：“这些厂商认为，如果公司能照顾到每一个细分市场（有的是真实存在的，有的是公司想象出来的），他们的生存和利润就有了保障。但这是行不通的，而且这种举措会带来痛苦的后果。”
One of the unique strengths of “Car Wars” is its distillation of competitive intelligence, press clippings, speculation, and rumor analysis into a rigorous analysis of future product trends. In the most recent edition covering the years 2015 to 2018, Murphy identifies by model name and segment, every redesign and new model coming to the U.S. market. He sees a surge of new crossovers vehicles bearing the badges of luxury manufacturers that previously concentrated on sedans, coupes, and sports cars–among them Audi, BMW, Jaguar, and Bentley–and writes approvingly about the positive impact on sales. “If the numerous new German Lux CUVs are well received in the market,” he writes, “there may be some upside risk” in the market share of European OEMs.
《汽车之战》的一个独特优势在于，它将竞争情报、新闻简报、观察评论和传闻分析进行过滤加工，然后整合成为未来产品趋势的严密分析。在最近一期涵盖2015-2018年趋势的调查中，墨菲按照车型名称和类别分别列出了进入美国市场的每一个重新设计的车型和新车型。他发现了新跨界车型的崛起，而这些车型出身于过去专注于轿车、轿跑和跑车的业界豪门，例如奥迪、宝马、捷豹和宾利，而且他还以赞许的口吻提到了这个趋势对于销售的积极影响。他写道：“如果大量的新型德系豪华CUV（混合型多用途车）在市场上得以热销，那么欧洲OEM（原始设备制造商）厂商的市场份额可能会面临一些上行风险。”
Such product line extensions into unfamiliar segments by long-established brands induce a state of near apoplexy in De Lorenzo. Brandishing no research but effectively flexing his instinct from years in the business, he argues that automakers–particularly those with a racing heritage–should stick to making cars and leave crossovers and SUVs to the likes of Jeep and Land Rover. He gets especially vitriolic in discussing the strategies of the fast-rising German luxury makers, which seem to keep adding more body styles–BMW Active Tourer anyone?– aimed at freshening up their product lines and adding incremental volume:
知名品牌这种将产品线扩展到陌生领域的做法几乎让德o罗伦索感到抓狂。德o罗伦索并不会拿什么调查来说事，而是有效地借助多年来形成的行业直觉。他指出，汽车制造商，尤其是那些拥有赛车传承的制造商，应该致力于制造轿车，同时将跨界车型和SUV交给吉普和路虎这样的生产厂家。讨论迅速崛起的德国豪华车制造商的决策时，他会变得尤为刻薄，因为这种讨论似乎总是围绕增加车型的种类——宝马Active Tourer车型，有人要吗？——它们的目的在于更新产品线，从而增加销量：
o “[Audi] seems to be falling victim to the disease that’s infecting all of the German brands of late, the dreaded being all things to all people daze that leads these manufacturers to drop their guard and make mistakes.”
“（奥迪）似乎患上了最近所有德国品牌无一幸免的传染病，这是一种面面俱到的可怕打法，它让消费者眼花缭乱，而且也让这些制造商放松了警惕，开始犯错误。”
o “Almost everything that made BMW a BMW has been lost in translation.”
“似乎BMW的一切精髓都已在车型大战中消失殆尽。”
o “When [Mercedes-Benz is] off, well, they can stink up the joint like no other. Daimler is forced to stretch out its model lineup because it’s trying to fight a brutally competitive auto world without the resources of the other auto manufacturer conglomerates.”
“当（梅赛德斯-奔驰）遭遇滑铁卢时，它的东施效颦能力较其他品牌有过之而无不及。戴姆勒被迫扩充车型数量，因为它没有其它汽车制造巨头的所拥有的资源作为依靠，而且还得硬着头皮去在这个竞争异常激烈的汽车产业中寻求自己的一席之地。”
Murphy and De Lorenzo agree on some things. In the latest “Car Wars,” Murphy singles out Ford and Honda for their speedy replacement of existing models, and predicts that each will gain half a point of market share over the next three years. De Lorenzo likes both companies too. But he worries that if Ford “allows itself to get complacent, its prospects will be less than stellar,” and wonders about Honda, “will it stumble again and lose its way?”
墨菲和德o罗伦索并不是在所有的观点上都格格不入。在最新一期的《汽车之战》中，墨菲单独例举了福特和本田，介绍了他们快速更换现有车型的举措。而且他还预测，在未来的三年中，这两家的市场份额都会增长0.5个百分点。德o罗伦索也很喜欢这两家公司。但是他担心，如果福特“放任自己不思进取，它的前景并不会太好。”同时他也为本田感到担忧，“它会再次摔倒而变得一蹶不振吗？”
Who is the winner in this faceoff? The Car Wars analysis has a lot to recommend it. With statistics on new models going back to 1987, it possesses unusual depth. It is even-handed, and if it occasionally misses some fine points, it projects a reasonably accurate view of a company’s relative position in the market compared to its competitors. But Car Wars may be of less value going forward. As foreign automakers fill out their product lines and as all manufactures achieve more consistency in their product renewal cycles, there will be fewer big shifts in market share.
在这场对峙中，谁会成为赢家？《汽车之战》的分析有很多都值得称道。调查涵盖了1987年的新车型的数据，深度非比寻常。这项调查十分公正，就算偶尔会遗漏一些细节之处，但它以合理的方式准确地展现了公司相对于竞争对手的市场位置。但是从长远来看，《汽车之战》调查的价值可能会缩水。因为随着外国汽车制造商生产线扩充的完成，以及各大制造商的更新周期变得更为一致，市场份额的波动将会更小。
De Lorenzo plays favorites and rarely lets the facts get in the way of a good argument. German luxury car makers are enjoying record years, and despite some grumbling about the quality of lower-priced models and unconventional body styles, they appear to be holding on to their existing customers at the same time as they attract new ones. Passionate though he is, De Lorenzo can shift gears. At one time a ferocious opponent of Porsche’s diversification away from sports cars into SUVs and four-doors, he now praises the company for being “relentlessly focused” and “peerless” in its execution.
德o罗伦索打的是喜好牌，而且很少让事实成为其有力观点的障碍。近几年，德国豪华车制造商的销售业绩接连创下历史新高，尽管人们对他们的低价车型和非传统车型的质量仍存在一些抱怨，但这些制造商不仅留住了现有的客户，还吸引到了新客户。虽然德o罗伦索是一个狂热分子，但他也有可能会反其道而行之。曾几何时，他曾强烈地抨击保时捷的多元化举措，即从跑车转向SUV（）和四门轿跑领域，然而如今，他却对这家公司“不懈的关注”和“无与伦比”的执行表示赞许。
And in the end, it is execution more than anything else that determines success or the lack of it. Look at Tata, owner of both Jaguar and Land Rover. Jaguar concentrated on sedans and coupes for its entire life and nearly expired. Now the first Jaguar crossover, the XQ, is due in 2017. Land Rover, on the other hand, has stayed focused on SUVs and thrived. Even its Sport model is expedition-capable and there are no signs of an active tourer on the horizon.
最后，在所有的要素中，执行才是决定成败的决定性因素。我们不妨看看捷豹和路虎的母公司塔塔。捷豹始终专注于轿车和轿跑，差点破产。如今，捷豹的第一款跨界车型XQ将于2017年面世。另一方面，路虎一直专注于做SUV，并因此而兴盛起来。即使路虎的跑车车型都具有越野能力，而且它目前也并不打算推出类似于active tourer这样的车型。
