More ideas for Hugo/ MBY

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tcm

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Hugo needs some more ideas for MBY. Mind you i have already thought of a few possibles and I especially liked my "April fool chart update" but are there any others eh?

Obviously, we don't need any navigation ones cos otherwise we'd be reading a different magazine, possibly an alamanac or even doing a course, so navigation articles would be a bit like buying a mag all about holidays in france, and finindg the mag is banging on about whether to say le maison or la maison, which would be shyte, and is the reason why i don't buy the MBY mag any more i'm afraid, cos it is rather deathly dull since most recent change of editor. I think i saw MBM actually have more exciting boat tests than MBY this month, sheesh. Mind you hardly surprising cos the MBY ones are resolutely fun-free and read almost excatly like a car test from autocar magazine in 1973.

Ahem, SO how about a kit review that isn't so middle of the road and slightly poverty stricken in its outlook and grimly sensible throughout? Cos you have to bear in mind that all the readers are keen on mobos, possible the most expnsive and useless method of travel yet invented. So, how about a slanted-towards the-extreme tests of lots of boat gear? Eg do a test of the most ultimate yahoo expnsive passarelle manufacturers. Then a roundup of the most ultimate handheld vhfs, and focus on the one costing three grand. Same for deckshoes, and everthing else. NOT any of the PBOish best buy junk, i need to know if there are any 400 quid deck shos just so i can ooh hmm think about buying them instead of the mental 40 million pound boat. You could do the ultimate whistle as well, and find out if there are any whistles costing 300 quid. Or perhaps some pencils for under a grand. The idea is to pack in being "reasonable" and drive it all nicely upmarket. We don't want to be locked into the mundane real world too much.

Actually, talking of this, a package has just been delivred to our house today and it seems swmbo has bought some tea. Hm, ok. Except this is very fab tea and cost fifty sodding quid for quite a small packet. Arg!
 
very good ideas - I think a test of the most stupidly loud and expensive marine horns /loudhailers is vital. also a preposterously costly mattress shoot-out; those dodgy monogrammed tool kits maybe?, a host of possibilities.


Or a Pimp-my-ride type feature where some hapless boat owner gets made to look daft, yet ends up with a boat makeover & loadsa snazzy gear that they'd never buy normally, and err hates the results most likely.
 
The Judith Chalmers principle

Yes a jolly good idea to show even more things that the average user can't afford. I'm all in favour of a bigger window into how the other half live. The "Custom Yachting" section could be extended to include "Custom Clobber".

This is of course the Judith Chalmers principle; when she presented "Wish You Were Here" the other presenters would be shipped off to sample the delights of Scarborough or Pontins or a weeks Peat Digging Holiday in Ireland. Judith though would be found roughing it in Dubai's latest 6 star hotel or Cruising on "Silver Wind". Just the sort of affordable package that the average ITV viewer, who had tuned in waiting for Coronation Street to start, would be interested in.

£50 for tea! its not Tetleys then
 
Re: The Judith Chalmers principle

[ QUOTE ]

£50 for tea! its not Tetleys then

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe it is, but just an awful lot of it! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
course, if you dont read it, its a bit hard to comment... i actaully think its thebetter of the two mags
 
How about a custom yacht tractor pull competition. say Gusta 108 pulling against a sunessker 108... that'll sort the men out from the boys.
 
Ah yes...you lot say you want all this nonsense (and in the distant past MBY has obliged with comparative tests of mad Mediterranean liqueurs, stupidly over-designed juice extracters for the galley, sunglasses costing £500, etc) yet when it gets published the vociferous PBO element complain loudly and point out that they're never going to the Med in their Coronet or that no one can possibly afford £37,000 for a passarelle, blah blah mumble moan.

This frightens Soft Furnishings who point to market research that shows the average size of boat owned is around 40ft and the average spent is around £100,000 (or something), and actually couldn't we make it a bit more like PBO please. You only have to look at the posts on here during the London Show, where everyone complains about lack of cheap chandlery and paying £3 for a sandwich, to realise that actually the readership can't afford a Vertu mobile and don't want to be reminded of the fact.

No reason not to have a bit of fun while doing "attainable" stuff, though.
 
You don't hear many people complaining about Evo doing a review of the latest Pagani Zonda though do you? Despite 99% of the readership being a million miles away from affording one.

I suppose you've got to ask, is it a mag for boat enthusiasts, in which case an in depth review of the latest mega Sunseeker is entirely relevent irrespective of affordability because us enthusiasts want to read about it, or is it a mag for boat owners in which case we want to know which is trhe best anchor and the cheapest GPS.

The answer of course should be a good mix of both. Plenty for the enthusiast amongst us who wants to see what the inside of the new Princess 95 is going to look like (cos we'll never physically get on one) together with consumer advice, GPS reviews, etc.

Can't be that hard surely? /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif
 
Absolutely agree, a good mix of everything is what most people seem to want. It's the style and tone in which that is delivered that makes the difference.
 
Totally agree with that.

As I said before, it's why I read road tests on the Toyota Yawn in Car Magazine, not because I'm remotely interested in the car, but because of what they do with the car and how it's written.

In a word, entertainingly.
 
To Hell With Soft Furnishings

yep, add up the total length of boat and divide by number of readers and 40 foot might be about right. Thus the readershipis about 25,000 and won't ever be 100,000 cos they can't make that many boats. I spect they oughta change the name to "Get stuffed if you haven't got a boat 25'-80' But Not a Fishing Boat Or A Sailing Yacht Even Though Cumberlidge Is Secretly A Raggie, Monthly "

Of course, the "average reader" is meaningless and catering for them probably explains why the samish numbr of readers for yonks and yonks. Yet the mag will still be a destination for boaties (for a while anyway) - it's got the ads, and that's a real concrete reason why a boat owner needs the mag - to check what his boat is worth. Or what his next boat might cost.

But to expand readership it has gotta target aimless people in airports/whSmiths who have 4 quid and perhaps a boat but prolly not. Just a passing interest will do.

I mean, what about the average car engine power of an evo reader? Probably about 100hp, since most of them have no car and are 16. I spect that on average, FT readers are also quite skint.

So, at the moment the boaty tests are very earnest in a sort of Which? magazine way, as though i'm going to buy one, with my sensible head on. But that doesn't apply to 99.8% of the readers. It's just something fun to read to read. Or er actually not. But in fact, MBY competes with Razzle and Hello and Evo and IpodWeek etc. Not great news onthe boaty front either - there's more kit reviews in the saily mags and better columns.

So perhaps the boat testing itself could be secondary? Blam round some boat rally, go x-channel at night, bash across biscay, scotland whiskey tour, or summink *with* the boat and make the test a sideshow. That way the 1% who want to know about the boat can learn about it (but not in detail cos it's a matter of taste andthey wd have to se the thing anyway) and the other 99% actually have something interesting to read - the article is aimed at them with all nice writing about actually doing something, and not dull.

At the moment, the mag is written as tho it is constricted in the same way as um, a mag about stereo speakers is restricted in that there's some pix of t'speakers and a price and um, that's about it. No way of doing anything more. Unlike with a boat.

At the moment, MBY is a lazy fact-free version of PBO. Very nice pix, correct articles ...but not fun. Not incredibly informative either - a test of some boats that about a dozen or so people are going to buy in the next year, a pilotage guide of somewhere that about fifty readers are going to visit, and the ads of which almost every page is skimmed by boatowners and sellers in the market or planning to be soon. And since i'm not...i don't need to buy MBY! Which as mobo owner is pretty damning really.

So i say bollx to those ten readers who are gonna buy the boat under test , and bollx to those coronet owners. Itwill be difficult to shake off their letters thoand they willbe plentiful cos -heh- the mag was just perfect for them with all the fairline ads, pix of their marina extension plan, a review of the new equivalent of their model and a pilotage guide to somewhere not far away that they *might* go to or went to last year. Stands to reason that if "their" mag gets any of these even a bit wrong they will write in cos they are the bullseye target along with the few others along the same few pontoons with those samish size of boat. But the factis they willbuy it evry day till they die, whereas the sixteen year olds panning to er spend their first million will lust after a Veyron cos the articles are more readable.

With slightly different editorial values it wd be perfectly possible to have teenagers discussing whether sunseekers or ferrettis are any good. The test is whether someone with only *slight* interest in boats can read the mag. Not just the owner/buyer, as now.

I found example of the power of (mostly i suppose) magazines when i rented a lamborghini diablo for a weekend about ten years ago. There's only one for rent in london so if you ring a few people the actual owners calls you and says oi stop wasting my time - you've been ringing all my agents up aintcha? Oops. Anyway, when you park it a zillion schoolkids know by sight what it is, manufacturer and model from 100yards away ormore. Even tho most of them cannot possibly have seen one before, ever, and none of them old enough to drive.

Yeah, ok, i wrote columns for MBY a while back and I wanted them to be a bit of a laugh. Soon, rather stunningly, I found my youngest lad was buying the mag to read the daft column. I think he was about 11 or 12 at the time. Yeah ok it was his Dad writing but he was actually a harsh critic. And he would have got the mag free a few weeks later. Pretty soon i threw most pieces i though were any good past him first. If he smiled/sniggered, and if he could read it fast, in about ninety seconds or so, i knew it was quite good. He didn't like some, and neither did the editor. Any chance that a teenager would spend their own money buying MBY these days? I think not. He buys some footie discussion mag and reads that. And he's only ever beento two live fotball matches in his life.

There's loads of better writers than me of course, thousands. I wonder if one or two could be persuaded to write for MBY?
 
Re: To Hell With Soft Furnishings

Selling dreams?

How about these for articles to get MaxBoat (the renamed MBY) under way:

Blag yer way onto Abramovitch's yacht: we check out the blinis

Where to get a decent bikini wax in Monaco in GP week

New York to Paris: La Hilton drives the new Manhattan
 
Re: To Hell With Soft Furnishings

I like it, a sort of "Top Boat", maybe, and merge MBY and MBM into a sensible mag for owners.

It might be a bit of an upheaval for an organisation that produces titles as radical as "Country Life" and "Horse and Hound", though.

dv.
 
Re: To Hell With Soft Furnishings

TCM has it absolutely spot on.

We want a boat enthusiast magazine, not a "Which Boat and boat gear" magazine.

The teenager buying the car mag and knowing what a Lamborghini is is a perfect example. Trying to make a mag for boat owners specifically is where it all falls down right now.

Make it fun, make it interesting, make it readable.

And FFS stop panicing about upsetting boat companies! TEll it how it is. And if they refuse to let you have any more boats, tell that how it is too, big full page "Sunlinefairess 50 test here" and a couple of blank pages follwed by a footer to the effect that Sunlinefairess weren't prepared to put the boat up to independant scrutiny. That'd soon change their mind about refusing boats in the future.

They need you more than you need them, look at the lengths car manufacturers go to cozy up to writers, exotic launches, fab hotels, all expenses paid.

Go for it, there's a great mag waiting to burst through the mundanity.
 
Re: To Hell With Soft Furnishings

I dont see the analogy with car mags. You grow up surrounded with cars; your dad has a whatever; your mates dad has thingummy, and cor, did you see that jezza bloke in his ferrari yday.. Doesnt work with boats; most people arent interested- not bcz they havent seen a thrillseeker clad with babes- no, they just arent interested. Take the work environment;ok, maybe a few think you must be a bit loaded to have a boat(though not necessarily at all), but apart from the polite question.. no one cares. Any more than any other hobby.
So I dont see that a spunky bit of journo will make MBWhatever a hot read for a wider audience. Might find a copy at a private clinic in Harley St (though I think in my case it was some self opinionated car journo crap)
So I'd say, forget the wider crowd; maybe they buy a copy to help them sleep on the plane. The mag should be for those interested in the hobby. If you want a good read, buy a decent book-though thats a problem at the airport too. If you think the journo in MBY is bad, you cant have read MBM recently;apart from the inability to spell anything properly,its by far the more boring read from a journo point of view. Not sure its any better on relevent topics either.
 
Re: To Hell With Soft Furnishings

OK, all good stuff, and for what it's worth I absolutely agree with you. Trouble is, there is a problem — the trade.

The boating trade is incredibly catholic in its collective views, and these are the guys who buy the ads that make the magazines work. Shortly after I was appointed Editor I was invited to lunch by the MD of one of the major UK builders. At that lunch I was harranged about the "tone" of the magazine, the "inappropriate" humour, blah blah (I think it was my Lady Di and Mother Teresa gags that upset him so much). We used to do annual MBY Awards where we poked gentle fun at the industry, but although these amused the readers the Trade absolutely hated them.

So, you could ignore the trade and go all-out for a fun and entertaining mag, but you'd probably lose a large number of advertisers who felt that the magazine "no longer reflected the brand values of Tartline (or whatever)". If you could deliver an extra 20,000 readers as a result they'd probably rethink their strategy, but if you only delivered an extra 5000 readers you'd be in trouble.

There is also a cost/benefit issue...the mags just can't afford to do extended jaunts on boats because they have neither the manpower nor the expenses budget. From the trade's point of view, a standard boat test costs them a day of their time and £100 of fuel, whereas an extended jaunt requires lots and lots of fuel and lots of man-hours. And all that for the same number of column inches, most of which would be about things other than the new boat.

Meanwhile, Soft Furnishings rarely feel like rocking the boat. The first rule of Soft Furnishings is cover your arse and make sure you don't scupper your career before it's even started. You don't get to be the Publisher of Country Horse or Celebrity Gossip Weakly by causing a sh*t-storm in the marine industry and playing fast and loose with a "pillar brand" like MBY.

I hasten to add that these are my own views as someone who has been editor of four boating/watersports mags, not necessarily those of anyone at the mags. It's a difficult job to get right, which is why I'm a freelancer...too much aggravation!
 
Re: To Hell With Soft Furnishings

[ QUOTE ]
But to expand readership it has gotta target aimless people in airports/whSmiths who have 4 quid and perhaps a boat but prolly not.

[/ QUOTE ]
Chance would be a fine thing. Last two times I was in T4 couldn't buy MBM or MBY.

Pete
 
Re: To Hell With Soft Furnishings

ah but i renmeber you sayig how it was quite a good idea to have more freelancers and not so many staff. So, freelancers writning nice articles and art photogaphy is the way to go.

As regards the industry - Soddem! - *a bit*. I mean, if the boat industry followed what the mags had suggested it would be all a bit sensible with no swoopy anytning, see? then what will happen is we will have foreignish mags like BI and then what hm - sunseeker no longer premium brand but an also ran, see? Again, justlike the cars. Although hm maybe that to do with the products as well. Anyway, at least one could promise notto do a clarkson qv vauxhall, ehm hm?

But the builders haven't been boring- they've done quite a lot of ooer blimey haven't they? Yes. And it worked. Same would work with mags

Tone-wise....not too many years ago even writing on here had to be a bit earnest and well thought out with all the spelling etc - but now it's a far more acceptable to have a stream of conciousness, and same with telly, radio, eveything.

Fair point tho about career burning, and the builders pay for the ads. Mind you, if the mag sells they will always pay for the ads. Whereas if the mag is cack - would theystill payforthe ads hm? No they flippin wouldn't. Thus, soddem (again).

AND another thing - mentioned above. If theindustryfeels it can tweak a mag - that's a badsign innit. No advertiser feels it can get a hearing with an editor of a big national, really. Worse than that - if the editor in turn asks on open forum for "any ideas" - again it's a bit damning. Ido actually remeber asking you "what do i write about in a column hm" which showed the same sort of naivety - if the write needs telling, if the editor needs telling if the builder/designr needs guidance of "what to write" or "how to design" - it's gonna be a cr ap product.

And the builders could bea bit more progressive couldn't they? - no car mag would hold up if all the ferraris, lambo's, astons, everythig is declared Officially Rubbish. It isn't true with boats, not cars, houses, anything. However, it far more New Realism to slam into the the shield thingy on Fairline logo and what does that mean? The green and red wrong way around - unless the the shield is boat-shapedanddriving down the page hm? Fairline Boats won't drive you up the wall, although lights might be slightly offset from time to time. Who knows? Wortha cal to see if it is Historic or just er made up.

Also all the builder-bosses are nearly deads or oldish and therefore if everythig likely a bit dear me dreadful - he wasn't wearinga tie! - so mags should be reflectig this too. Otherwise like the ole carmags were torn apart so some new boat mags do the same

Alternatively,if Custom Boat is ever going to fly, it may as well try soon. No need for boat tests in the normal fashion cos they all go nicely and are plenty big enough. In depth poking about st tropez, nice wideopen ceneryshots of somewhere fairly unlikely like the Baltic or scotland, non-dateable stuff about granite bathrooms, "inside" the big charter companies and so on, plus a cartoon would be ideal. More staff dedicated to conniving their way onto boats rather than being distant is vital.

Kustom Boat, anyone?
 
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