中英双语 | 奥运会门票该如何定价？来看看伦敦做对了什么

不管是对奥运会主办方还是其他企业，定价战略实在太重要。一直以来，公司都习惯于通过价格机制从交易中尽可能多地获取利益。这种方法存在致命弱点，最大的问题是，它会带来公司与消费者对立的局面，而消费者一旦感觉受到欺骗就会进行转移。企业和组织应该向伦敦奥运组委会学习，采用“创造共享价值定价战略”。

2012年，伦敦奥组委面临着一个巨大的商业挑战：对应26项体育竞技活动，伦敦奥组委需要为800万张门票制定公平合理的价格，既保证收入和上座率，又能实现奥运会“人人参与”的社会目标。为了实现这个目标，组委会运用了“创造共享价值”的定价战略。

The committee organizing the London 2012 Olympic Games faced an extraordinary business challenge: How to price 8 million tickets in a way that allows equitable access to 26 sporting events, meets revenue and attendance targets, and adheres to the explicit social objective of making the Olympiad “Everybody’s Games.”To accomplish this, the committee took what we call a shared-value approach to pricing.

传统的定价战略带有对抗性，但是，这种方法需要更多地考虑社会和合作因素。公司应超越枯燥的数字计算（这仍然重要，但已经不够），采用人性化的方法创造收益，后者将带来附加价值。这意味着公司将客户视为创造价值的合作伙伴并与其建立一种合作关系，在这样的关系中客户的参与度更高，并会就他们希望寻求的价值和可能的实现方法发表真知灼见。这样能把蛋糕做大，使公司和客户同时从中受益。

Traditional pricing strategy is by definition antagonistic, but it needs to become a more socially conscious, collaborative exercise. Businesses should look beyond the dry mechanics of “running the numbers” — still relevant but no longer sufficient — and recognize that humanizing the way they generate revenue can open up opportunities to create additional value. That means viewing customers as partners in value creation — a collaboration that increases customers’ engagement and taps their insights about the value they seek and how firms could deliver it. The result is benefits for firms and customers alike.

通过对2012年奥运会的定价策略进行深入研究，我们发现了5项对公司有益的定价原则：

By studying the 2012 Games and the committee’s multiyear pricing process, we determined five pricing principles that every business could profitably adopt:

1. 聚焦关系，而非交易。

Focus on relationships, not on transactions

伦敦奥组委很早就注意到组织与英国政府、英国公众、国际奥组委等机构之间的关系，而票价是其中最有形的连接。正如一位组委会成员所说，票价收入只占奥运会总收入的20%，但如果定价出错将是最让组织方挠头的事情。

The committee understood early on that it was in various relationships — with the British government, with the British public, with the International Olympic Committee, and so on — and that ticketing was the most visible aspect of those relationships. As one committee member put it, tickets account for 20% of the Games’ revenue but when done wrong result in 80% of an organizer’s headaches.　

对此的解决方案就是将消费者置于交易之上。首先，组委会为很多项目制定了多阶梯票价，这样既保证收入，又保证低价门票。第二，组委会对不同年龄段人群设计了不同票价，分别针对青少年和60岁以上的老人给予折扣。第三，组委会为开幕式门票选择了高低两种票价，分别为20.12英镑和2012英镑，其中的象征意义不言自明。最后，组委会杜绝发放免费门票，以避免往届奥运会因为免费门票所引发的公愤。对很多人来说，这种行为的潜台词是“我们正在救助你”。

The solution was to value customers more than their money. First, the committee increased the number of pricing tiers for many sports, which kept some ticket prices low while still hitting revenue targets. Second, it offered a pay-your-age pricing plan for young customers and discounted tickets to those over 60. Third, for the opening ceremony it chose high and low price points — £20.12 and £2,012, respectively — whose symbolic rationale everyone understood. Finally, it instituted a strict policy of no free tickets, avoiding the public outrage free tickets had provoked at previous Olympics. To many, these actions said, “We are looking out for you.”

2. 主动定价。

Be proactive

过往奥运会主办方常常把观众稀少的项目与热门赛事的门票捆绑销售，以提高上座率和收入。伦敦奥组委没有这样做，主要考虑它会增加消费者负担，未必能提高上座率。很多曾购买捆绑门票的消费者并未去观看冷门项目比赛。

Consider the committee’s decision not to bundle tickets to a more popular sport (swimming, say) with those to a less popular sport (tae kwon do, for instance), a tactic sometimes used in previous Olympics to increase ticket sales and boost attendance at the less popular events. While bundling can increase revenues, it can also add costs for consumers and doesn’t necessarily fill seats. Indeed, past experience with bundling suggested that many who purchased the bundle let the tickets to the secondary event go to waste.

为了避免这样的问题，伦敦奥组委为26个体育项目分别制定了独立的票价，并详细制定了各自的目标人群和营销战略。值得一提的是，组委会将公共交通和门票进行了捆绑销售，以缓解场馆附近的交通堵塞。通过积极定价，组委会既降低了人们不观看比赛的比例，又提高人们使用公共交通的频率，使观众和组织方皆大欢喜。

To avoid this problem, the committee let the ticketing of every sport stand on its own, creating 26 different pricing plans detailing how tickets should be promoted and sold to the appropriate target markets. Interestingly, however, the committee did bundle public transportation into the ticket price, recognizing the opportunity to reduce traffic congestion in and around the venues. By pricing proactively in this way, the committee discouraged one type of behavior (not attending events) and encouraged another (using public transportation), benefiting both spectators and the Games.

3. 注重灵活性。

Put a premium on flexibility

伦敦奥组委必须提前一年半的时间对所有赛事门票制定价格，此时的市场需求信息尚不明了。为了应对这种不确定性，如前所述，组委会为比赛设定了更多阶梯票价，但是，每档票价的门票数量都不固定，组委会却承诺观众购买的门票越贵，越能获得好座位。2011年春季，消费者通过一个在线投票系统选出他们愿意看的比赛和能承受的票价。了解情况后，组委会可以评估每种票价的需求，并据此重新分配相应座位数量。因为没有事先预定各种票价的座位数量，组委会可根据实际而非预计的需求灵活处理票务，这样不仅成功出售了更多门票，而且消费者的满意度也很高。

The committee had to price all events more than a year and a half in advance of the Games, before it had a clear understanding of demand. To manage the uncertainty, the committee increased the number of price tiers across events, as mentioned, but did not assign a fixed number of seats to each tier. It did, however, promise that someone paying more would have a better view of the event than someone paying less. In the spring of 2011, fans placed requests for tickets through an online ballot, thereby revealing how much they were willing to pay for various events. This allowed the committee to gauge demand at each price point and reallocate some seats accordingly. By not predetermining the number of seats in each tier, the committee had the flexibility to better satisfy actual rather than anticipated demand, which resulted in more seats sold and happier customers.

4. 提高透明度。

Promote transparency

伦敦奥组委知道自己的一举一动都处于大众的监督之下，尤其躲不过英国小报的耳目。这次奥运会公开的定价目标之一，就是避免负面的媒体报道。因此，从一开始，组委会就向消费者和媒体发布了透明的信息，包括定价原理与流程、购票时间线的主要节点、各个赛事的阶梯票价、可售门票数量和组织方对赞助商与普通大众的门票发售情况。到目前为止，组委会的努力基本上是成功的。

This being England, the committee knew its actions would be subject to intense public scrutiny, especially in the British tabloids. One of the explicit goals in pricing the Games was to limit negative media attention. From very early on, therefore, the committee issued a continuous flow of information to consumers and the media about the rationale and process of ticketing, the major dates in the ticketing time line, the price tiers for each sport, the number of tickets available, and the distribution of tickets to corporate sponsors and the general public. To date, the efforts have been largely successful.

5. 确保市场标准的公平性。

Manage the market’s standards for fairness

说起这次奥运会，很多伦敦市民表示希望以最合理的票价观看最精彩的比赛。毕竟，伦敦市民亲历场馆的建设，并为奥运会的筹备做出经济贡献。但是，不是每位希望观看特定比赛的观众都能成功买到门票，而且一些项目的票价并不合理。为了应对这些问题并满足观众期望，组委会采取了以下两个举措：

Ask Londoners about the Olympic Games, and many say that they deserve to attend the most desirable events at reasonable prices. After all, they financed and endured the construction. But not everyone who wants to attend a particular event will be able to obtain a ticket, and some tickets may seem unreasonably priced. The committee took two important steps to manage these and other expectations:

首先，从售票第一天开始，组委会就对为特定年龄人群提供折扣以及低至20或30英镑以下的特价门票进行大力宣传。毋庸置疑，媒体会对某些价格昂贵的门票口诛笔伐，但组委会希望公众明白，如果没有这些昂贵的门票，组织方就无法为大众提供多种低价和特价门票。

 First, from the moment the ticketing process began, the committee heavily communicated the pay-your-age and senior discounts and the percentage of tickets that would be sold at £20, at or below £30, and so on. Yes, there would be some very expensive tickets, and the British press would surely comment on that fact, but the committee wanted the general public to realize that without the expensive tickets there would be fewer inexpensive ones.

其次，组委会坚决禁止拍卖抢手门票或进行高于票价面值的二次交易。门票通过随机抽取的方式获得，以避免任何可能出现的不公平情况。

Second, the committee rejected any suggestion to auction the tickets in highest demand or to allow secondary exchanges above face value. Instead, ticket allocation was carried out through a simple lottery, reinforcing the fact that there was no preferential treatment.

这不只是伦敦奥运会独有的挑战。多数公司都面临着类似的挑战，只是伦敦奥运会有着更紧迫的时间安排和更广泛的媒体关注。虽然很少有公司会像伦敦奥组委一样明确公布其共享价值使命，但大部分公司都能从伦敦奥运会的定价方法中受益良多。

The committee’s challenge is not unique; it’s the same one most firms face but writ large and executed in a highly compressed time frame under intense public scrutiny. While few firms have been as explicit as the Organising Committee in stating a shared-value mission, most can nonetheless learn from the multiyear process used to devise the Games’ pricing.

奥运会的定价战略也可能会出现小差错。创造共享价值的定价战略尚处雏形期并在不断演变，一些尝试必然会失败。但是基于买方市场的现实，客户的期望正在不断提高。与消费者建立共同的市场价值能为公司带来巨大利益，如果你仍执意对这样的战略选择视而不见，该是面壁反省的时候了。

The Olympics’ pricing scheme will probably experience some glitches. Shared-value pricing is a nascent and evolving strategy, and some experiments will surely fail. But given the fundamental shifts in consumers’ power and expectations, customers will have dwindling patience for antagonistic pricing. And considering the benefits to be gained by increasing the pool of value in the marketplace and sharing it with customers, any firm that is not evaluating its pricing through a shared-value lens should ask whether it can afford not to.

马尔科·贝尔蒂诺（Marco Bertini） 约翰·古维尔（John T. Gourville）|文

马尔科·贝尔蒂诺是伦敦商学院市场营销学助理教授，约翰·古维尔是哈佛商学院工商行政管理学小艾伯特·韦瑟黑德（Albert J. Weatherhead Jr.）教授。

陈晨 |译  鲁志娟 |校  李全伟 |编辑

本文有删节，原文参见《哈佛商业评论》中文版2013年4月《定价掘金术》。