《面具下的布蘭森》新書聚焦看點

Branson: Behind the Mask by Tom Bower, Faber & Faber, £20

《面具下的布蘭森》(Branson: Behind the Mask)，湯姆•鮑爾(Tom Bower)著，Faber & Faber出版，定價20英鎊

Few entrepreneurs have grasped as clearly as Sir Richard Branson the imp­ortance of public relations in modern business. Over the past 25 years, the tycoon has assembled an empire by trading access to the likeable image that he and his Virgin brand project in return for hard assets and stakes in enterprises.

沒有幾個企業家像理查德•布蘭森爵士(Sir Richard Branson)那樣深諳公共關係對現代企業的重要性。過去25年間，這位大亨建立起了一個帝國，方法就是利用他本人和他的維珍(Virgin)品牌受喜愛的形象，換取實實在在的資產和企業中的股份。

Behind the happy-go-lucky exterior is a carefully contrived pose. This portrays Branson – in fact a vastly rich, private jet toting tax exile – as a combination of hippy and buccaneer, a scrappy outsider taking on complacent and anti-competitive giants of big business.

在布蘭森無憂無慮的外表下，隱藏着精心的算計。這使他像一個兼具嬉皮與海盜特質的綜合體，以及一名好鬥的“局外人”——常常對得意自滿、反對競爭的企業巨頭髮起挑戰。而布蘭森事實上非常有錢，擁有私人飛機，是一名“避稅流亡者”（tax exile，指爲逃避高稅負而移居海外的人）。

It is an image that Tom Bower, a stern and un­bend­ing investigative hack of the old school, has over the past decade and a half set out systematically to debunk. He took his first stab in 2000 with the publication of his Branson biography – a book des­c­ribed by its outraged subject as “a foul, foul piece of work from the first words to the last”.

過去15年來，湯姆•鮑爾一直努力系統地揭穿布蘭森苦心經營的形象。鮑爾是個頑強、不服輸的人，秉持老派的調查作風。2000年，他第一次出擊，出版了一本布蘭森傳記。那本書讓布蘭森大爲光火，他稱該書“從頭到尾都寫得極爛”。

Since then Bower has twice honed his verdict. In 2008, he updated his opus, adding some disobliging chapters on Branson’s fail­ed initial attempt to buy the collapsed building soc­iety Northern Rock. Now he has published a fresh volume. As the title imp­lies, Branson: Behind the Mask continues the theme of probing the dissonance between public image and reality. But un­like its pre­decessors, it omits much of Branson’s business car­eer to focus on recent events, such as his much-delayed attempt to launch a space tourism service.

後來，鮑爾又兩度增強了自己的論斷。2008年，他更新自己之前的作品，補充了一些章節，毫不客氣地講述了，布蘭森最初試圖收購陷入困境的住房按揭銀行——北巖銀行(Northern Rock)時，是如何遭遇失敗的。如今，鮑爾又出版了一本新書。如書名《面具下的布蘭森》所示，這本新書的主題仍然是探究布蘭森的公衆形象與實際情況的出入。但與之前的布蘭森傳記不同，這本書省略了布蘭森的大部分經商生涯，聚焦於一些新近發生的事件，比如推遲了很久的太空旅遊服務。

Somehow, after years of peddling affordable fun to the masses, Branson has ended up betting the ranch – or at least several wings and the best pasture – on a venture offering four-minute suborbital flights to celebrities and jaded millionaires willing to part with $200,000 a go.

多年來，布蘭森一直向大衆售賣價格親民的商品和服務。不知爲何，布蘭森最終把身家——或至少是最精良的那部分身家——押到了一項提供4分鐘亞軌道飛行的太空旅遊業務上。該業務的目標客戶，是願意爲一次飛行掏20萬美元的名人以及那些玩膩了普通玩意的百萬富翁。

Branson’s cap­acity for reinvention is not new. It is matched only by his P T Barnum-like ability to generate ex­citement – generally through silly stunts – around the businesses he backs. The bigger question is why we, the public, go along with it.

布蘭森擁有高超的創新能力並不是新聞。他的費尼爾司•泰勒•巴納姆(P T Barnum)式炒作能力同樣高超，他常常通過製造一些低級的噱頭，來吸引公衆對他所支持業務的注意力。更值得關注的問題是，我們的公衆爲什麼會買賬。

It is not as if we cannot see behind the PR mask that obsesses Bower. What does it say about us that we still buy into the image, snapping up seats on Branson’s expensive and not very glamorous trains, or, even more puzzlingly, investing in ISAs with Virgin Money (a venture Branson promises with almost comic chutz­pah will deliver his objective of “a fairer distribution of wealth”)?

布蘭森的公關面具讓鮑爾耿耿於懷，而我們並非不能看穿這一面具。儘管如此，我們仍然買賬——購買昂貴的車票乘坐布蘭森旗下並不特別豪華的火車，甚至更奇怪的是，在維珍理財(Virgin Money)開設個人儲蓄賬戶（布蘭森以近乎滑稽的厚臉皮承諾稱，維珍理財將實現他“促進財富公平分配”的目標）。這說明什麼呢？

Bower never really ex­plains. Much of the book is spent exploring Virgin’s financial performance, which he concludes is more rickety than its promoter would have us bel­ieve. Stretched as it is across so many ventures, money is always scarce. Too many businesses fail or do not make money. Much of the cash flow has come from businesses that, far from being “challengers”, are in­cumbents in highly regulated industries, such as the state-subsidy-guzzling railways.

鮑爾始終沒有真正給出一個解釋。該書大部分篇幅都在探討維珍的財務表現，最後得出結論：維珍的財務狀況並不像布蘭森希望我們認爲的那樣穩定，而是搖搖欲墜。雖然維珍業務跨度如此之大，但總是缺乏資金。太多業務失敗了，或並未賺錢。維珍集團的大部分現金流，來自受到嚴格監管的行業，比如享有大筆國家補貼的鐵路業，維珍在這些行業中已站穩腳跟，遠非新興的“挑戰者”。

One problem with Bow­er’s approach is that his thumb is always pressed rather too firmly on the scales. Branson is forever slightly in the wrong, wheth­er for allowing initiatives to un­ravel, such as “The Project” – an ill-starred magazine app – or taking perfectly sensible commercial decisions, such as pulling out of a failing Formula One team.

鮑爾的方法有一個問題，他總是用太強的偏見來影響他的結論。布蘭森所做的任何事情，在鮑爾看來都做得不太對頭，無論他是推出了一個失敗的商業計劃（比如推出命運不佳的雜誌應用“The Project”），還是做了個非常合理的商業決定（比如退出一支戰績每況愈下的F1車隊）。

Bower questions Branson’s business acumen, criticising him for missing out on the internet and the low-cost airline revolution. But if it were so poor, Virgin would be much smaller than it is.

鮑爾質疑布蘭森的商業智慧，批評他錯失了兩個機會——互聯網浪潮和廉價航空革命。但如果布蘭森真的那樣欠缺商業智慧，維珍就不會發展成如今這樣一個龐大的帝國了。

And for a book that promises to take you be­hind Branson’s mask, you get little of the man himself.

此外，該書雖然承諾要揭開布蘭森的面具，但書中關於布蘭森本人的描寫少之又少。

The biggest problem about Bower’s pursuit is that he cannot ultimately run his quarry to ground. Branson now claims Virgin stands for something “beyond making money” and has started dismantling parts of the empire.

鮑爾對布蘭森的揭祕行動，最大的問題在於，他最終也未能捉住自己的“獵物”。布蘭森如今宣稱，維珍的宗旨“超越了賺錢”，並且他已開始解散維珍帝國的某些部分。

But the last chapter on his business career rem­ains to be written. The master of self-reinvention could yet pull off another coup. I predict another book.

但布蘭森經商生涯的最後一個章節仍有待撰寫。這位自我創新的大師仍可能再出奇招。我猜鮑爾還會再寫一本書。