16 September 2004

BERLIN - With consumer spending down dramatically in Germany these days, retailers are having to resort to extremes to lure customers into their stores.

So when executives of the Innova appliance mart at Alexander Platz in the heart of Berlin opted to have topless hostesses greet customers at the door, they assumed they had hit upon a novel gimmick to go along with their "end-of-summer strip-off prices to the buff sale" campaign.

But they had not counted on the notorious sophistication of blasé Berliners. People in this city pride themselves on being imperturbable and unshockable.

So when the sale opened and a young woman - naked from the waist up - handed out sale leaflets to customers at the door she elicited no visible response whatsoever.

She stood there all morning, smilingly covered in goosebumps in the draft every time the glass doors slid open. Customers unsmilingly (another native Berliner characteristic) took her leaflets and looked anywhere but at her upper torso.

They studied the sign inviting do-it-yourselfers to "make your own charming chandelier". They frowned at the long line of people waiting for the elevator up to the TV/Video/DVD department. They scrutinized the balcony hibachi barbecue pit with colour-coordinated wicker patio furniture.

They glanced at the crowds of tabloid photographers and TV camera crews, who had assembled to record this historic unveiling for posterity.

But the customers paid no attention whatsoever to the bare facts at hand.

"We thought this was going to create an uproar," a store executive told Berliner Zeitung newspaper. "We thought there would be crowds clamouring to gape at here. Or that women's rights protesters would turn out to demonstrate and give us even more publicity. And now it has turned out to be a fizzle."

One middle-aged male customer was so ostentatiously not looking at her that he tripped and nearly fell on the escalator.

 1 2 Next >