2018.6.21英译汉训练：千禧一代掀起全球消费狂潮
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When Scott Norton and Mark Ramadan were undergraduates at Brown university in Rhode Island a decade ago, they were horrified not by the 2008 financial crisis but by Heinz tomato ketchup. The bright red sauce was so common in shops and kitchens round the world that it seemed it would be there forever. “At the centre of supermarkets were all these classic American brands that hadn’t evolved in 70 years,” recalls Mr Norton.
十年前，当斯科特•诺顿(Scott Norton)和马克•拉马丹(Mark Ramadan)还在美国罗德岛布朗大学(Brown University)念本科时，他们并未对2008年金融危机感到恐惧，倒是亨氏(Heinz)番茄酱有点吓到他们了。这种鲜红色的酱汁在世界各地的店铺和厨房中是如此常见，以至仿佛它们永远不会消失。诺顿回忆道：“超市正中央总是堆放着这一经典美国品牌，70年都没变过。”
As they talked to their student friends, they realised that none of them wanted bland, mass market products shipped from factories by huge corporations. So they started to mix their own organic ketchup in an off-campus apartment. On graduation, they founded a company and, having no origin story with resonance, invented a joke one. They named it after a mythical Victorian called Sir Kensington, a monocled adventurer who had “advised the British East India company in the acquisition of spices”.
然而当他们与学校里的朋友交流时才发现，竟然没有一个人喜欢大公司生产的没劲的大众市场产品。于是二人开始在一间校外公寓自制有机番茄酱。毕业时他们创办了一家公司，由于没什么能引起共鸣的创业故事，他们就弄了个有趣的。他们将自己的产品命名为“肯辛顿爵士”(Sir Kensington)——一个虚构的维多利亚时代的人物，戴着单边眼镜的冒险家，曾“为英国东印度公司在香料收购上提供建议”。
The pair are now 31, at the heart of a millennial generation that has come of age, transforming business not only in the US but round the world. In April, their company was acquired by Unilever, the British-Dutch group that had fended off a takeover by Kraft Heinz. Their ketchup, once a student jape, has just gone on shelves in Walmart and Target. “Sir Kensington’s is the playbook for reaching millennials,” says Richard Hartell, president of strategy and transformation at Publicis Media.
这对儿搭档今年都31岁，是“千禧一代”(millennials)的中心人群——这代人已步入成熟，正给美国和全世界的商业领域带来变革。今年4月，二人的公司被联合利华(Unilever)收购，这家英荷集团是击败卡夫亨氏(Kraft Heinz)才达成此项交易的。肯辛顿爵士番茄酱，这个昔日学生时代的笑谈，如今已摆上了沃尔玛(Walmart)和Target的货架。阳狮媒体(Publicis Media)战略与转型总裁理查德•哈特尔(Richard Hartell)表示：“肯辛顿爵士番茄酱的故事是打入千禧一代的范本。”
Millennials are ‘core’ business
千禧一代是“核心”生意
This is the millennial moment, long expected and feared by companies that built their brands for baby boomers. They are ageing and their offspring, once called the “echo boom”, are no longer teenagers, or even students. Pew Research Center, the US research group, defines millennials as the 73m Americans aged between 22 and 37, who will next year overtake boomers in number. “We don’t think of them as special or different any more. They are the core of our business,” says Alan Jope, president of beauty and personal care at Unilever.
这是千禧一代的时刻，那些为婴儿潮一代创建起来的品牌早就预料到，也恐惧着这一刻的到来。这代人正迈入成熟，而他们的后辈——曾被称为“回声潮”(echo boom)一代——也不再是青少年，甚至不再是学生。美国研究组织皮尤研究中心(Pew Research Center)将千禧一代界定为目前年龄介于22岁至37岁之间的人群，在美国达到7300万人，明年他们的人数将超过婴儿潮一代。联合利华的美容及个人护理部门总裁乔安路(Alan Jope)表示：“我们不再把他们看做特殊的或不同的人群。他们是我们业务的核心。”
The coming of age of the world’s 2bn millennials is not only a generational shift: it is one of ethnicity and nationality. Forty three per cent of US millennials are non-white, and millennials in Asia vastly outnumber those in Europe and the US. Despite China’s former one-child policy, it has 400m millennials, more than five times the US figure (and more than the entire US population) while Morgan Stanley estimates that India’s 410m millennials will spend $330bn annually by 2020.
全球千禧一代的20亿人步入成熟，不仅仅是一种世代的更替，更是种族和民族的转变。美国43%的千禧一代是有色人种，亚洲千禧一代的人数远超欧洲和美国。中国虽然此前实行独生子女政策，但千禧一代人口多达4亿，不但是美国千禧人口的5倍以上，甚至超过整个美国人口。摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)估计至2020年，印度4.1亿千禧一代每年消费将达3300亿美元。
Millennials have reached what the bank calls “the most important age range for economic activity”, when households are formed, babies are born and money is spent not just on going out but on settling down. Simon Isaacs, co-founder of Fatherly, an information and ecommerce site for millennial parents, cites family camping as one of its most popular topics. “That does extremely well for us. They like to buy cool family tents and share videos of their trips.”
千禧一代已经进入了这家投行所谓的“经济活动最重要的年龄段”，当他们结婚生子后，不仅外出活动要花钱，安家置业也要花钱。Fatherly是一家面向千禧一代家长的资讯及电子商务网站，其联合创始人西蒙•艾萨克斯(Simon Isaacs)表示家庭露营是该网站上最受欢迎的主题之一。“这对我们特别好。他们喜欢买时髦的家庭帐篷，分享自己的旅行视频。”
This reflects the depth to which technology is integrated into millennials’ lives and habits. The oldest were teenagers at the time of the Netscape initial public offering in 1995, as the internet became a mass medium, and the youngest were 11 when the Apple iPhone was launched in 2007. They are used not only to communicating online but buying most things: $25bn was spent on Alibaba’s Singles Day online shopping festival in China on November 11.
这反映了科技对千禧一代生活和习惯的融入之深。1995年网景(Netscape)首次公开发行(IPO)时，最大的千禧一代不过是青少年，当时互联网已成为一种大众媒介；2007年苹果(Apple)发布iPhone时最小的千禧一代已11岁。千禧一代不仅习惯了通过网络交流，购物也基本在网上：去年11月11日阿里巴巴(Alibaba)“光棍节”在线购物狂欢活动卖出250亿美元。
Big companies have scrambled to adjust to millennial tastes. “Local, original, and what they can feel and trust are all good. Maybe there is a bit of a reaction to globalisation,” says Laurent Freixe, who heads Nestlé’s US and Americas business, “Organic, natural, and non-GMO are crystallising in the US very fast.” Nestlé last year bought the Blue Bottle chain of coffee shops and in May signed a $7.1bn licensing deal with Starbucks to refresh its Nescafé and Nespresso brands.
各大企业竞相迎合千禧一代的口味。雀巢(Nestlé)美国及美洲业务负责人劳伦特•弗雷谢(Laurent Freixe)表示：“本土、原创，只要是能让他们有感觉、产生信任的，就是好的。也许这是对全球化的某种抵触。有机、天然和非转基因这些概念在美国迅速形成。”去年雀巢收购了Blue Bottle咖啡连锁店，今年5月又与星巴克(Starbucks)签订了一项价值71亿美元的特许协议，为旗下Nescafé和Nespresso品牌注入活力。
But it is placing immense strain on institutions that once thrived on mass marketing of products through television advertising. Growth has slowed and investors are unhappy. “They are only about global brands, one size fits all. That was great in the ’80s and ’90s but the world has changed. Millennials want these little brands, local brands,” Nelson Peltz, the 75-year-old activist investor, said last year as he attacked Procter & Gamble.
但这给那些曾经靠在电视上做广告进行无差别营销成长起来的公司带来了巨大压力。它们增长放缓，引起投资者不满。“他们还沉迷于全球品牌，还想着一招鲜吃遍天。这在八十年代、九十年代是不错，但这个世界已经变了。千禧一代想要的是小众品牌、本土品牌。”75岁的维权投资人纳尔逊•佩尔兹(Nelson Peltz)去年在抨击宝洁(Procter & Gamble)时说道。