Lights, camera … shopping!

Rina Khanna is a twenty-six-year-old bank officer who has a passion for Bollywood. She loves the fantasies that these movies bring to life.

As she watches a film in a darkened auditorium, Rina sometimes wishes that from a mere onlooker she, too, could become a participant in the glamour of Bollywood movies, however unrealistic the thought.

When Rina and her husband went shopping in a department store after a movie, super bright lights, hushed voices, plush interiors and piped music greeted the couple.

Rina made a beeline for the female western wear section where she tried out a few combinations of tops with skirts and jeans to the admiring eyes and helpful comments of a shop assistant.

With each change, Rina found a different woman staring at her in the mirror. As she changed into a multitude of outfits, she felt not very different from Aishwarya Rai in the movie she had just seen.

Wasn’t this also what Ash had done —- changing six outfits within the five minutes of one song sequence?

The glamourous ambience of the store with its marble flooring, colour coordinated walls, concealed fittings and upholstered sofas wasn’t so different from the opulent interiors that Bollywood is so good at projecting.

And Rina herself felt like a film heroine, most unlike her usual image. Not only that, Rina found that she had an audience as well, in the form of her critical husband and the saleswoman whose admiration did wonders for her ego.

For a couple of hours after the movie, Rina’s dream run on Bollywood continued, albeit in a different form, though it was anyone’s guess which of the two Rina preferred to be, a passive member of the audience or the heroine herself.

Malls across India are introducing an element of fantasy in the customer’s life that never existed before.

In the pre-mall era, no thought was devoted to customer comfort, forget luxury.

A customer walked into the non-airconditioned store, was shown merchandise by the shopkeeper and then a transaction was entered into.

Malls not only offer a variety of merchandise to the customer, they show a world that she had never entered before, the larger than life world of dreams, similar to Bollywood. And the possibilities of enhancing these dreams have suddenly ballooned.

Where else can the customer find herself on centre stage?

Consider the parallels. Bollywood presents heroines as perfect beings, attired in the latest trends, surrounded by the most glamourous props, and highlighted by lights that hide all their blemishes even as they emphasise their strengths.

The mall invites the customer to be exactly one such heroine. While the actors on screen project themselves from place to place seemingly without effort, isn’t that exactly what the customers actually do in a mall with the help of elevators and escalators, hopping from one glamour merchant store to another?

In fact, it’s a wonder department stores haven’t gone a step further to encourage these fantasies. Andy Warhol said that every person gets her fifteen minutes of fame. In the same way every Rina of this country can become a prima donna for a couple of hours. Unlike in the West, Indians need the opinion of their shopping companion and even the store assistant on their choices before taking a decision.

Why can’t the exit of the fitting rooms, therefore, be made to resemble a ramp on which Rina sashays down as she tries on outfit after outfit?

A camera can take Rina’s picture in these outfits, which can then be mailed to her. Who can resist the thought of seeing herself at her best and retaining that image?

Malls can explore the vast talent that exists in the shopper community, the singers and dancers and painters, and give them an opportunity to show-case their talent. Imagine the possibilities of such a venture! Rina, the shopper, will be immensely flattered to be treated like a celebrity.

She will spare no effort to bring her acquaintances and relatives to watch the display, thus creating more footfalls for the mall, and at the end of the day, at least one truly delighted customer would have been born. Simple ideas such as these can create another level of customer delight altogether.

In fact, real life is almost better than reel life in the world of modern retail for the customer, since her shopping fantasy actually translates into a bag filled with goodies to take a part of the dream home with her.

There was a time when dreams were only ‘supplied’ by Bollywood, and the general public consumed these dreams as viewers sitting in the dark.

Today malls, with their attention to giving the best to the customer, have become the new dream world, one where every customer is a star in her own eyes, and not a passive viewer.

(Mall is the group customer director, Future Group. He can be reached at damodar.mall@futuregroup.in)