FEER(9/2) Asia Lifestyles: Redefining Our Goals
BRANDED FOR LIFE QUIZ: You're on your way to your mother's house for her birthday dinner. What would you pick up as a gift for her? Have a think about the perfect present before you read the next paragraph. Got it? Now, be honest. Did you think of a generic product, such as a scarf, perfume or a brooch? Or did you think of a labelled product, such as a Hermes scarf, Chanel perfume or a Cartier brooch? People from Japan, Australia and a number of other places would think of the item first, and not specifically consider the brand. But Filipinos would think of the brand of the product first, and then choose the specific item. For Malaysians and Taiwanese, the two considerations have equal value. Clearly, there's a great deal of brand-consciousness in Asia. Is it because we are showy and ostentatious? Readers' answers show that the less noble reasons--to show off, or because celebrities carry the stuff--were not key factors. The majority of respondents bought European-labelled goods because they were better designed and of higher quality. The exceptions were Singaporeans and Filipinos, who saw luxury goods as personal rewards they could earn for themselves. Reinforcing this finding was the chart that shows answers to a question asking whether price or brand was more important. Every community chose price, except for South Korea, which identified brand as a more significant factor. Do REVIEW readers buy real stuff? Or are we in Shenzhen, China, picking up dodgy items of uncertain provenance at cut prices? The answer rang out loud and clear from every group questioned: No fakes please. We'll pay for the real thing. Even if we deduct a few percentage points to compensate for the fact that people being surveyed are likely to want to present themselves as being more law-abiding than they are, the vote for real products was so strong as to suggest that most respondents genuinely dislike buying pirate copies. In the long run, quality wins. --- ELECTRONIC INROADS HOW GEEKY ARE YOU? Readers seem to fall into three categories we might identify as Tech-Literate, Serious Geek and Gadget Junkie. The first covers 70%-90% of us. We have the Big Four techie toys: mobile phone, DVD player, digital camera and laptop or notebook computer. The second category, which contains one in three respondents, we call the Serious Geek. They have the Big Four products plus several of the following: MP3 player, PDA, flat-screen TV, digital camcorder, or home theatre. What's more, they can surf or take pictures with their mobile phone. The third category, the Gadget Junkie, contains only about one in 10 respondents. They have most items from both lists, plus some of the cutting edge products which imply electronic addiction: invisible Wi-Fi connections in their home or office, game consoles under their TVs, and a habit of watching video clips on their 3G mobile phone. Meanwhile, one in two of the people surveyed are not buying more on the Web than a year earlier. The other graph shows that people haven't cut magazine-reading time for Web-gazing--phew! --- COMING UP: What's the hot car these days? Are salaries up? Check out Parts Two and Three of Asia Lifestyles, to be published in the issues of September 30 and October 21. -A Special Report By Nury Vittachi Sponsored by Alcatel and Bvlgari
亚洲白领生活方式调查：重新定义生活目标
品牌与生活 一个小问卷：你要到妈妈家参加她的生日晚宴。你会选什麽礼物给她？在往下阅读之前，先考虑一下你认为的最佳礼物。 好了吗？现在实话实说。你考虑的是大路货，比如普通的围巾、香水或胸针，还是品牌产品，比如Hermes围巾、Chanel香水或Cartier胸针？ 来自日本、澳大利亚及不少其他地方的人们可能会首先考虑何种物品，不特别在意品牌。但菲律宾人会首先考虑产品品牌，然后再选择具体的商品。而马来西亚人和台湾人的??值观基本一致。很明显，亚洲的品牌意识很强。这是不是因为人们喜欢炫耀和表现自己？ 读者的答案显示，炫耀，或是名人崇尚这些品牌并不是主要原因。多数受访者购买欧洲品牌的商品是因为其设计和质量更??一筹。只有新加坡人和菲律宾人例外，他们将奢侈品视为是对自己的奖赏。 从一个调查价格还是品牌更重要的问卷中也能发现这点。除了韩国人将品牌看做最重要的因素之外，其他地区的人们都选择了价格。 本刊的读者会购买货真价实的商品吗？还是在中国深圳等地以低价购买产地不明的可疑商品？不同地区的人对此问题的回答惊人地一致：不要冒牌产品，我们花钱就要买真品。即使考虑到人们在调查中可能希望表现得更加遵纪守法，而从中扣除几个百分点，但投票选择真品的比例依然非常高，这表明大多数受访者的确不想买到冒牌货。从长远角度来看，还是质量最重要。 电子轰炸 你有多老土？我们把读者分为叁大类：略懂技术类、精通技术类和痴迷技术类。我们当中的70%至90%都属于第一类。我们有四种主要的电子玩具：手机、DVD播放器、数码相机和笔记本电脑。 第二类大约占受访者的叁分之一。除了上述四种主要产品外，他们还拥有下列几样：MP3播放器、个人数字助理(PDA)、平板电视、数码摄像机或家庭影院。更有甚者，他们还可以用手机上网或拍照。 第叁类称作痴迷派，仅占受访者的约十分之一。除拥有上述两类中的大部分产品外，他们还购入一些时髦的新潮产品，显示这些人对电子产品爱好成瘾，包括在家中或办公室里运用无线保真技术(Wi-Fi)、电视下面的游戏机以及用3G手机欣赏视频图像。 此外在接受调查的人中，每两人就有一人的网上购物量未高于去年。另有一项调查表明，人们并没有因为在网上冲浪而减少他们阅读杂志的时间。
