A Talking Pink Tree Might Be Just Perfect This Christmastime
SHENZHEN, China -- For a glimpse of the ghost of Christmas future, step into a gleaming refrigerator-white lab here, where a technician adjusts electronic probes on a 7?-foot plastic structure. The probes hook up to a computer that logs temperature readings and sounds an alarm if the lights overheat. Another tech does remote testing of the controls on a fuse box hidden deep in the branches of another product, ramping up its lights from steady glow to disco flash with a series of rapid-fire clicks.
A third technician checks on a machine that has been whirling nonstop on a stand for two months and 17 days. "It has to last 90 days, or it's back to the drawing board," says Alan Leung , head of research at Boto Co., one of the world's largest manufacturers of artificial Christmas trees.
The fake tree, a mainstay of China's booming, low-cost Christmas merchandise industry, is going high-tech. Over the past few years, China has been producing increasingly real-looking, easier-to-assemble artificial trees. Some drip with lights that can last a decade. Others shoot out fake snow, play Christmas jingles or even count down to the New Year.
These features are helping to propel artificial-tree sales in the U.S. to new highs. According to the National Christmas Tree Association in St. Louis, sales of fake trees have surged nearly 32%, to 9.6 million, over the past four years, even as demand for natural trees has dropped about 16%, to 23.4 million.
Leading the charge into America's living rooms this yuletide is Vivian Kao, 32-year-old heiress to a fake-fir dynasty. Last year, Ms. Kao, who usually appears in public with sheaves of long hair covering half her face, concealing a scar, succeeded her father, Michael Kao, as chief executive at Boto. The company supplies about six million artificial trees to major U.S. retailers such as Wal-Mart, Target and Kmart each year.
Ms. Kao's father built a billion-dollar business after coming up with the idea of using pliable polyvinyl-chloride sheets -- shredded and wrapped around wire to resemble pine needles -- instead of traditional, stiff plastic, to make trees. Naming his company "Boto," or "treasure road" in Chinese, he built up the business from a tiny factory into a huge complex with more than 8,000 employees.
Boto was acquired in August 2002 by the Carlyle Group in Washington, a politically well-connected investment company with interests in everything from aircraft to soft drinks. The Kao family still owns about 10% of Boto. Last year, Boto said it exported $1.1 billion in artificial trees, mostly to the U.S., up 3% from the year before. Pictures of Mr. Kao hobnobbing with dignitaries, including former President Bush and former British Prime Minister John Major, decorate Boto's boardroom walls.
Mr. Kao's daughter is branching out by introducing innovation to a durable plastic product that consumers don't buy every year and seldom feel the need to replace. It isn't easy. She faces a challenge shared by many low-cost, Chinese manufacturers: being squeezed by increases in the price of raw materials and labor, and by bloody price wars.
"There are still a lot of ways to sell a green triangle," says Ms. Kao, who says her sales strategy lies in technical and marketing innovation. "We don't want to be low-cost, always getting beaten down on price," she says, striding through the fake forest in Boto's Hong Kong showroom.
Ms. Kao joined the family business in 1994, after graduating with a marketing degree from the University of California, Sacramento. Under her prodding, company executives say, Boto's artificial tree line expanded to more than 400 types, from 50 a decade ago. The company has a 50-person research and development team devoted to Christmas-tree technology. It is headed by Mr. Leung, who holds an engineering degree from the University of Houston and used to design consumer appliances for Honeywell International Inc.
Inside a Chinese Christmas-tree lab
Over the years, Boto's research team has experimented with styles that have since become industry standards, including a move from hook-on branches to easy-to-assemble, hinged models that snap open like an umbrella. Applying injection-mold technology, Boto has introduced branches with tips that replicate the springy feel of real pine needles. It has colored trees in new shades of green, and now offers 30 choices ranging from light pistachio to dark emerald.
Not all of Boto's trees are attempts at simulating the real thing. Ms. Kao created a tree made from a cheaper, plastic version of the slender, translucent strands of fiber used to pipe high-speed Internet data. The strands transmit light, allowing green-tinted trees to flash purple, fuchsia and blue at the tips of branches, obviating the need to string lights.
Although sales of fiber-optic trees have sagged in the past few years, Ms. Kao hopes Boto's newest models -- which glow in psychedelic shades like hot pink and tangerine -- will find favor with children when they hit shops a year from now. "The only green you see is lime," says Ms. Kao, referring to the new line.
This Christmas, Boto's latest offering is the Staylit, which retails for between $199 and $399 and comes out of the box already hung with Christmas lights, each individually embedded with a microchip. The chips contribute to a longer life span for the bulbs and ensure that the tree stays lit even if some lights are defective or burn out. Ms. Kao is so sure of the product's durability, she has slapped on a 10-year warranty instead of the usual two-year guarantee.
Some of Boto's creations have proved too cutting edge for popular tastes. Four years ago, inspired by the Apple iMac computer, Ms. Kao launched the Dr. Festive I-Tree, a techno tree that played "Let It Snow," and performed a New Year's Eve countdown topped by a rendition of Auld Lang Syne. Although Boto's R&D team spent five months developing the product, it was discontinued after only a year, after ringing up a disappointing $500,000 in sales. "I guess people were more traditional than we thought," says Ms. Kao.
Cindy Leines, of Minneapolis, readily sacrifices tradition for the sake of convenience. When her two children were young, Ms. Leines would pick out a real pine tree for Christmas each year. Now, the 48-year-old communications executive says, she wants a tree that wouldn't be a fire hazard or leave a blanket of pine needles on the floor. She is on her third artificial tree in six years.
She remembers her first tree as an unattractive, synthetic green model "so fake you could tell across the room." To assemble it, she had to stick each branch into a hole on the steel trunk, "a real headache," she recalls. Stripping down the tree was equally annoying, "and it never would fit the same in the box."
Now, her $150, 9-foot-tall tree, bought last year, comes out of the box festooned with 900 lights and takes about as much time to assemble "as pouring an eggnog," she says. "The only thing I miss is the smell."
圣诞树也高科技
如果想一睹未来圣诞节饰品的模样，就到中国深圳的一个实验室来看看吧。一个技术人员正在调整一个2米多高的塑料结构上的金属探针，这些探针的另一端连接到电脑上，可以从屏幕上看到温度数据，如果灯光过热，电脑就会发出警报声。另一个技术人员正在对放置于另一个产品内部的保险丝盒进行遥控测试，将灯光从稳定的白光加强到像迪斯科那样的闪光。
第三个技术人员正在检查一台机器，这台机器已在一个架子上不间断地运转了2个月零17天。“必须得持续90天，否则就要退回重新设计，”宝途(Boto Co.)研究主管Alan Leung表示。宝途是全球大型人造圣诞树生产商之一。
作为中国大陆新兴的低成本圣诞商品行业的主要产品，人造圣诞树的科技含量正在不断增加。几年来，中国大陆生产的人造圣诞树日益逼真，而且组装方便。有些圣诞树装饰有灯光，可以使用10年。有些圣诞树则会喷出人造雪，播放圣诞歌曲，甚至进行新年倒计时。
这些新增功能使美国的人造圣诞树销售直线上升。根据圣路易斯全美圣诞树协会(National Christmas Tree Association)的数据，过去4年人造圣诞树的销售增长了32%，达到了960万棵，而同期真树的需求下降了16%，至2,340万棵。
这个圣诞节带领宝途驰骋美国人造圣诞树市场的是32岁的高苇颖(Vivian Kao)。她去年从父亲高长昌(Michael Kao)的手中接过了宝途行政总裁一职，宝途每年要为沃尔玛(Wal-Mart)、Target和K-Mart等美国主要零售商提供大约600万棵人造圣诞树。
从想到用柔韧的乙烯聚氯化合物包裹在金属线外面，替代传统的硬塑料模拟松针开始，高长昌的事业已从一间小小的工厂发展到了今天雇员超过8,000人、年收入上十亿美元的集团。
2003年8月，宝途被华盛顿的凯雷投资集团(Carlyle Group)收购；高氏家族依然持有宝途约10%的股份。去年，宝途宣布出口了11亿美元的人造圣诞树，主要是面向美国市场，较上年增长3%。在宝途董事会办公室的墙上，高长昌的图片与一些显赫人物并列放在一起，包括美国前总统老布什(George H.W. Bush)和前英国首相梅杰(John Major)。
高苇颖积极扩大产品系列，通过技术创新引入耐用的塑料产品，这样消费者就不必每年购买，无需时常更新替换。这可不容易。她面临许多低成本的中国大陆制造商的竞争：原材料和劳动力成本上升侵蚀利润，还有残酷的价格战。
“仍有很多销售方式，”高苇颖说，她的销售战略是基于技术和营销创新，“我们不希望变成低价企业，总是打价格战，”她一边说，一边大步走过宝途香港样品间中的人造圣诞树森林。
高苇颖1994年起投身这项家族业务，此前她刚刚从加州大学萨克拉门托分校获得营销学位。在她的推动下，宝途的人造树品种从10年前的区区50个扩大到了现在的400多个。公司有一个50人的圣诞树研发团队，负责人就是Leung，他拥有休斯顿大学的工程学位，曾在霍尼韦尔(Honeywell International)设计消费电子产品。
几年来，宝途研究团队创新的多种风格已成为行业标准。以前的人造圣诞树要用挂钩把树枝一个一个挂起来，而宝途开发的简便易装配，带铰链，像雨伞一样一触即开的圣诞树已经成为当前市场的主流产品。运用注塑技术，宝途生产的人造树枝端就像真的松针一样具有弹性感。该公司还为人造树设计了多种深浅不一的绿色，从淡黄绿色到墨绿色共有30种不同的选择。
不过，并非所有的宝途人造树都旨在给人一种真实感。 高苇颖也开发了一种用相对便宜的塑料光纤制造的人造树。这些光纤束可以传递光线，使得绿色的人造树在枝端闪烁出紫色、紫红色和蓝色的光芒，这样就不必再悬挂彩灯了。
虽然过去几年这种光纤人造树的销售不佳，但高苇颖希望闪烁粉红、橙色等荧光的最新样式今年会大受孩子们的欢迎。
今年圣诞节宝途的最新款式是零售价格为199美元至399美元的Staylit，打开包装可以看到这种人造树上已挂好了圣诞彩灯，每颗树都有内置微晶片，有助于延长灯泡使用寿命，并确保人造树上的彩灯均匀亮起，即使有一些灯坏了或烧掉了也不会妨碍其他彩灯。高苇颖对这种产品的耐用性非常有信心，宝途为这种产品提供了10年质量保修，而不是通常的2年。
不过，宝途的一些新产品也似乎有些太超前了。四年前，受苹果(Apple)iMac电脑的启发，高苇颖推出了可以播放《Let It Snow》歌曲、并进行新年倒计时的Dr. Festive I-Tree人造树。但这项宝途研发团队花了5个月的时间开发的产品一年后就停产了，销售额非常令人失望，总共只有50万美元。“我想，人们可能比我们想像的更为传统，”高苇颖说。
