Consuming Interest
Time To Decide
By LESLIE ADRIAN In the meantime, they plan even greater re- finements of comfort for the late-night viewers at the two new stores they are opening at Ilford and Bromley in June. A creche will be open and in use for parents who wish to deposit their babies out of earshot while cogitating on future dining- room or bedroom sets; free coffee will be sup- plied; and the basement car park as well as rest rooms will be in service. The store, in fact, aims to sell more by making its customers comfortable and inviting them to take it slow ('we are not a charitable institution). Except for the cost of the electricity, late-night viewing presents no problems; only one-tenth of the normal staff is kept on and they are volunteers, paid overtime— paid for being unobtrusive, and to see that none of their 1,500 'guests' walk away with the stock.
This seems to me an admirable example of sales initiative. Harrison Gibson believe that recent trends in the US—where customers have shown themselves" willingto travel twenty miles or more away from towns to visit suburban shopping centres, where they can find somewhere to park and where they are treated with con- sideration—are going to be seen here. A 'family (an official of the firm told me) 'want to take more than twenty-five minutes to decide on the furniture they may be living with for the next twenty-five years'; and they don't want to be distracted by fractious infants or the fear of a parking summons while they are deciding.
But quite apart from the service to customers, I am particularly glad to see that Jack Gibson— grandson of the founder, and the firm's managing director—is determined to expose what he calls 'the ludicrous anomalies' of the Shops Act. Un- fortunately the Conservative attempt to bring in an even sillier and more restrictive Shops Act three years ago, though it was soon killed by ridicule, makes it rather difficult for them to bring in a new one designed to do precisely the opposite of its predecessor : to free the shops of unnecessary restrictions. The only way now to get the law changed is to rally public opinion against it; this is what the Harrison Gibson ex- periment is helping to do.
How many men have even a slight suspicion that they might be the one in the middle who is not using Amplex? If they do, they are being in- fluenced by one part of an intensive advertising campaign which is trying hard to convince men that it is time they started using pre-shave and after-shave lotions, deodorants, colognes and talcums—and now a special Amplex spray for the feet—all specially prepared for men.
• Amplex is bi-sexual, if that's the word, but the campaign I've been watching is specifically male. In the world of the advertisers men are all men of action symbolised by a polo player on horse- back (Lentheric) or hearties who have, not one, but three for the road (three bottles in a travel- ling pack by Max Factor) or outdoor types— show jumpers and racing drivers—who are discreetly fragranced but briskly masculine (Elizabeth Arden). Racing drivers now smell of spices and tweeds instead of oil and petrol.
The intention is to persuade men to buy these preparations of their own accord, but it is very often a man's wife or girl friend who first per- suades him that he is not being effeminate if he does so. Women welcome the preparations largely, of course, because it is they who will be at the receiving end of the resulting smell—and men should remember that a woman is the Ccg/' sumer: if she says you smell, you smell. Men need not be put off by the fact that man! of the preparations are sold by firms wios names they associate with preparations fut women. Yardley, for example, have been se1101 to men for nearly two hundred years. One of first products was a pomade for men calla (without benefit of a public relations consultant) Bear's Grease. Yardley's Lavender, outside Britain, is used by men rather than by women, It is true, however, that the largest share of tills growing market is in the hands of Shulton's produce 'Old Spice' preparations for men Oh and leave the women's market alone. Prices range from the reasonable to the vet! expensive. It is very difficult to decide what is good value for money : if what you want Is It feeling of luxurious well-being you should° expect to get it cheaply. Even a 07 leather caske.) stuffed with preparations might be cheap if II made you feel like a million dollars.
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