新别克君越(Buick LaCrosse)豪华轿车的后座，很大程度上是专为中国企业家设计的，该品牌正帮助通用(GM)重振其在美国的命运。最古老的美国牛仔裤品牌李维斯(Levi Strauss)来到中国，推出了一款新的廉价牛仔裤品牌，将在全球范围销售。
随着中国在全球消费市场上成为超级大国——最大的汽车市场，第二大奢侈品市场，最大的……中国消费者正越来越影响到其他人的购买选择。
怀有民族主义情绪的美国消费者可能不会喜欢如下观点：美国制造的汽车越来越迎合中国企业大亨的需求。但这是现实——全球汽车业重心已经决定性地转向了东方。
这不仅意味着在中国销售和制造汽车，而且还意味着在那里进行设计。通用在上海设立的泛亚汽车技术中心(Pan Asia Technical Automotive Centre)在新君越的设计中起到了作用：充裕的腿部空间、收音机和空调的额外控制键等深受众多消费者喜爱的后座设计，专门针对的是中国消费者。
通用驻上海发言人表示：“在中国，君越等车型的所有者往往一周内都由司机开车，因此他们希望后座更舒适一些，因此在开发同时在美国和中国销售的新君越时，我们特别关注了后座设计。美国客户将从中受益。”
重心东移的不仅仅是全球汽车行业：全球所有的大型消费品企业都明白，它们在中国失败不起。
中国不只拥有13亿潜在的客户，还拥有世界上增长最快的中产阶级。而且锦上添花的是，中国政府正努力鼓励他们加大消费。
李维斯决定选择在中国推出面向新兴市场消费者的廉价牛仔裤品牌，表明这家实力强大的美国牛仔裤品牌，正毕恭毕敬地讨好亚洲消费者。美国牛仔裤一度是适合资本主义、而不适合共产主义的有力象征。
新的全球品牌单宁镇(Denizen)负责人Terence Tsang表示，这是李维斯首次在美国本土以外发布新的全球品牌。单宁镇将面向中国、新加坡、韩国以及印度的18-29岁的消费者。
对这些消费者而言，李维斯目前在华销售的牛仔裤价格过高。单宁镇售价将低于李维斯其它品牌，但比本土品牌贵10%至15%。Terence Tsang表示，顾客将为拥有“如此丰富的牛仔服饰文传统”的公司生产的裤子支付溢价。
但是新牛仔裤不只是在价格上迎合中国消费者。Terence Tsang表示，单宁镇还将在版型上进行竞争——中国人购买美国牛仔服时经常遇到的一个问题。
中国市场研究集团(China Market Research Group)的雷小山(Shaun Rein)表示，“中国消费者抱怨称，（相对于普通美国人），他们的胯部较窄，臀部较小，腿较短”。
单宁镇可能反映出了牛仔裤以外的趋势：跨国消费品企业越来越需要进军低端市场。这些企业一直通过向中国痴迷名牌的消费者销售高端品牌，以获取巨额利润。
阿迪达斯(Adidas)最近表示，将为中国“富裕的穷人”推出价格较低的产品，并在中国小城市大举扩张。
中外消费品公司高管们都喜欢援引麦肯锡(McKinsey)一份有创意的报告——该报告预计，到2025年，中国城市居民将达到10亿人。关注这些人的需求——它可能决定全球其它地方的消费者买什么。
译者/君悦
The new Buick LaCrosse luxury sedan, which is helping revitalise GM’s fortunes in the US, has a back seat largely designed for Chinese entrepreneurs. Levi Strauss, the oldest American jeans name, came to China to launch a new cheap jeans brand to sell around the world.
As China gains superpower status in global consumer markets – the biggest vehicle market, second largest luxury market, the superlatives go on and on – its consumers are increasingly influencing what the rest of us buy.
Nationalistic US consumers may not like the idea that their cars are increasingly built to please Chinese tycoons, but that is the reality of a world whose automotive centre of gravity has shifted decisively to the east.
That means not just selling and building cars in China, but designing them there too. GM’s Pan Asia Technical Automotive Centre in Shanghai was instrumental in designing the new LaCrosse: some of the design features that many consumers love about the LaCrosse back seat – extra legroom, extra controls for radio, heating and cooling –- were designed for China.
“In China, the owner of a car such as a LaCrosse tends to be driven during the week. So he or she wants extra comfort in the back,” says a GM spokesman in Shanghai. “So when developing the new LaCrosse – which is sold in the US and China – we paid special attention to the back seat. Customers in the US will benefit from this.”
It is not just the global auto industry that is seeing a shift in the balance of power toward China: all the big global consumer goods companies know they cannot afford to fail there.
China not only has 1.3bn potential consumers, it has the fastest growing middle class in the world. And to make things even better, the Chinese government is working hard to encourage them to spend more.
The decision by Levi Strauss to choose China as the place to launch a cheap jeans brand for emerging-market consumers, brought the mighty American legwear – once a potent symbol of all that is right about capitalism and wrong about communism – cap in hand to woo the all-powerful Asian consumer.
Terence Tsang, head of the new global brand Denizen, said it was the first time Levi had launched a global brand outside the US. It is aimed at 18-29-year-olds in China, Singapore, South Korea and, eventually, India.
Levi’s jeans in China are currently priced too high for such consumers. The Denizen brand will cost less than other Levis, but 10-15 per cent more than local brands. Mr Tsang says the buyers will pay the premium for a trouser from a company “with so much heritage in jeanswear”.
But the new jean will not just be specially tailored on price. Mr Tsang says Denizen will also compete on fit – often a problem for Chinese buying American jeans.
“Chinese consumers complain their hips are narrower, their bottoms are smaller and their legs shorter,” compared with the average American, says Shaun Rein of China Market Research in Shanghai.
Denizen may reflect a trend beyond jeans: multinational consumer goods companies, which have long been able to reap big profits by selling premium brands to China’s brand-crazy consumers, may increasingly have to go downmarket.
Adidas said recently it would launch cheaper products for “affluent poor” in China, and expand aggressively in smaller Chinese cities.
Consumer goods company executives, both Chinese and foreign, love to quote a seminal McKinsey report predicting China would have 1bn city dwellers by 2025. Watch what they want – it may dictate what the rest of the world buys.
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