除臭香體露在國外大行其道，但在中國卻怎么也火不起來，若干知名公司都在產品推廣中栽了跟頭。無論是請明星打廣告，請顧客做測試，還是贊助演唱會，都無功而返。而工作生活在中國的老外也不得不趁回家時囤貨自用。

Unilever brought its Rexona deodorant to China a decade ago, dreaming of a market with 2.6 billion armpits.
聯合利華十年前就把舒耐香體露帶進了中國，夢想著一個有26億腋窩的市場。

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.
工資在增長，消費者在花錢，彼時即將舉行的2008年北京奧運會也使中國人更有國際化的感覺。按理說，會有更多人愿意接受這個西方的衛生用品。

“We had an extremely ambitious plan at the time,” Mr. Braeken said.
（聯合利華大中華區前總裁）薄睿凱說：“我們當時有一個非常有野心的計劃。”

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.
但文化差異和簡單的生理問題——科學家已經證明許多東亞人并沒有西方人的體味問題——阻撓了這些計劃。薄睿凱說，舒耐在中國的銷售總量只達到市場營銷預算的一小部分，據估計，目前中國只有不到10%的人口使用香體露，在大城市之外更加難找。

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.
中國不斷增長的消費階層推動著全球經濟增長，為星巴克、肯德基等一大堆西方品牌增添了財富。許多中國人現在會喝咖啡而不是喝茶，即使可能會出現腸胃不適也要吃奶酪和冰激凌，而在這個老奶奶見到低于室溫的飲料都會表現出極度恐懼的國家，人們也開始狂飲冰冷的汽水。

But the drive to win China’s consumers has had its notable failures. Like tampons and Weetabix.
但一些商品贏得中國消費者的努力曾有過重大失敗，比如衛生棉條和谷物餅干維多麥。

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.
蘋果和星巴克等公司能夠成功，部分原因在于向中國消費者出售了能向世界彰顯他們的成功的產品，而這個任務對于人們看不到的產品來說更加困難。

“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.”
“它必須是能看得見，或能聞得到的東西，”上海獨立經濟學家葉檀說，“香體露的失敗部分是因為人們看不見它。”

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.
這些產品也有中國的追隨者。北京38歲的媒體人蔡謙一（音）從2006年開始使用香體露，那時他正在法國學習，他覺得自己沒有體味，但認為汗漬是個問題。

“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.
他說：“夏天的時候出汗會在T恤上留下汗漬，這樣非常難看，尤其是在腋下附近。從社交的角度來說，這很尷尬。”

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.
但他說，大多數的家人和朋友并不知道什么是香體露，有一次，一個親戚誤把它當成香水，還問他為什么這是固體的。

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.
當全球香體露廠商進軍中國市場時，他們強調的是流汗給社會交往帶來的尷尬，這個核心信息在西方證實是有效的：出汗會讓你在社會交往中被人冷落，也會破壞情場上的機會。

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.
參與了2011年至2016年舒耐市場推廣的聯合利華護膚產品助理經理露西亞?劉說，這個宣傳方式在中國沒有產生效果。

“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.”
她說：“在中國的傳統觀念里，出汗是件好事，因為它會幫助排毒，這個市場營銷上的障礙很難克服。”

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.
的確，中國的健康網站長期以來一直在宣傳出汗的益處，從增強免疫力、提高記憶力到肌膚恢復活力。對于很多中國人而言，排汗是新陳代謝的自然組成部分，不應該被阻礙。

There’s another reason few Chinese consumers buy deodorant: basic biology.
此外，購買香體露的中國消費者很少還因為：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.
科學家近年來已經證明，很多東亞人攜帶的一種基因可以降低產生強烈“人體腋窩氣味”（體臭的科學說法）的可能性，這個群體包括占中國大多數的漢族人口。

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.
因此這從根本上減少了他們使用香體露的可能性。這項2013年的研究由英國布里斯托大學和布魯內爾大學的研究人員聯合開展，研究人員調查了近6500名來自不同背景的女性。

“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.
研究結論稱：“香體露的使用可能不是非常普遍，這是因為對很多東亞人而言，他們不需要。”

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.
聯合利華沒有因此卻步，它使用了一系列傳統市場推廣手法，包括聘請最紅的名人打電視廣告、店內產品試用和排汗測試，以及贊助演唱會等。

Many of its efforts seem tone deaf in retrospect.
但該公司的許多努力似乎都沒有奏效。

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.
一系列舒耐的平面廣告刻畫了一個人的腋窩成為他人的潛在威脅。在一則廣告中，一名持槍劫匪的腋窩在畫面前景搖晃，他似乎沒有使用手槍就制服了對手。在另一個類似廣告中，一名拳擊手只靠自己的體香就擊倒了對手。

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.
主管這個廣告系列的新加坡創意總監黃田一對視覺效果感到很滿意。但他說，這些廣告似乎脫離了許多不熟悉美國西部槍戰、職業拳擊和冒犯性腋臭的中國消費者的生活。

“The series of advertisements we designed relied on the Western sense of humor,” he said. “Not many Chinese would understand this.”
“我們設計的這個系列的廣告是基于西方的幽默，”他說，“很多中國人并不一定能明白。”

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.
據市場調研公司歐睿國際的數據，香體露2016年在美國的銷售額為45億美元（約合288億元人民幣），而在中國的銷售額總共1.1億美元（約合7億元人民幣），同時，香體露在其他東亞市場的銷售也表現不佳。日本2016年香體露的銷售總額大約是美國的十分之一。

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.
希望在中國銷售香體露的公司不得不從其他感官上想辦法。德國拜爾斯道夫集團旗下品牌妮維雅試圖在香體露中加入美白功效來吸引中國女性消費者。

Simon Cao, Nivea’s China marketing director, said that the deodorant was popular but that “the room for growth is very limited.”
妮維雅中國區市場主管西蒙?曹說，香體露很受歡迎，但“增長空間非常有限”。

“We will not spend too much energy on deodorant, because the investment is not proportional to the return,” he said.
他說：“我們不會在香體露上花太多精力，因為投入和回報是不成比例的。”

The dearth of deodorants in China has forced some expatriates to hoard.
同時，香體露在中國的稀缺迫使一些外國人不得不囤貨。

Alex Stevens, a 26-year-old American former public relations professional who left Beijing last year after living there nearly a decade, said he loaded up on deodorant every time he was back in the United States.
26歲的美國人亞力克斯?史蒂芬斯是一名前公關從業者，在北京生活了近十年，直到去年離開，他說他每次回到美國都會大量購入香體露。

“It’s really become the only thing I stock up on when I go back home,” he said, “and I don’t give any away to friends, not even for a price.”
“它已經變成了我回家時唯一會囤的東西，”他說，“而且我一個都不會送給朋友，就算他們花錢來買也不行。”

來源：紐約時報、參考消息網
翻譯&編審：yaning