Should've been strangled at Berthon

[dancrane]

Does anyone know who at Berthon Brokerage is responsible for the stomach-turning way yachts for sale are described?

It's painful to read - endless, artless undergraduate attempts to bring 1930s 'Bertie Wooster' enthusiasm to yacht sales.

Does your yacht have a bow thruster, or radar, or air-con? It will be described as "heaped high with whizzo kit".

Has it got a coloured spinnaker, or cruising chute? Then it'll be "dressed to the nines for the ambassador's ball". If the boat has been refitted or sprayed this century, it will be "spoodled to the enth and gleaming spiffingly". If it's steel, it'll be "uber roughty-toughty".

Actually, I can't invent anything half as bad as the wording Berthon uses. It's wretched. Not funny, not stylish, just moronic.

Not all Berthon's ads seem to be written by this twit. Some are factual, informative, totally adequate. Or these sections may be lifted from the builders' original brochure. I daresay Berthon's staff cringe at being associated with their colleague's repellent phrasing.

I'm a huge P.G. Wodehouse fan, and I'm mad about boats. I expect the descriptions by Berthon are meant to appeal.

They really, really don't.

 

[TimBennet]

Well said.

 

[sailorman]

i believe its the lady boss of the brokerage who has her knockers its true

 

[capnsensible]

Hot Liquid.........yeech

 

[onesea]

stomach-turning
wretched
Not funny,
not stylish,
moronic.
repellent phrasing

Yup but you read them? I must admit if I see there ads I have to look for the latest wording.....

So I guess it works???

 

[dancrane]

Naturally, I scan through every page of each mag I pick up - but I've learned to recoil when I see the Berthon name at the head of a page - because the chief writer working there, doesn't seem to have left school yet.

That really is the way it reads - like a sixth-form, Pimms-fuelled, end-of-term rag-mag. I actually went looking for the examples above...but one needn't look far. Every sentence seems to say "I'm delightfully over the top! Jolly good!"

It isn't good though, it's embarrassingly lousy.

Berthon seems to be a big company, and one would think a serious business warranted some sensible tone in its output.

Does the writer, or his/her boss, realise this garbage turns the customers off?

 

[Poignard]

A depressing thought

Maybe it's simply that they know what will appeal to their target market.

 

[scottie]

i believe its the lady boss of the brokerage who has her knockers its true

Did you read before posting this

 

[Tranona]

Does the writer, or his/her boss, realise this garbage turns the customers off?

The lady in question is the boss and she has been doing her job successfully for many years.

Doubt you will ever be in a position to buy a boat of the type that she sells so guess she will not be bothered that her writing offends you.

 

[DickB]

Does anyone know who at Berthon Brokerage is responsible for the stomach-turning way yachts for sale are described?

It's painful to read - endless, artless undergraduate attempts to bring 1930s 'Bertie Wooster' enthusiasm to yacht sales.

Does your yacht have a bow thruster, or radar, or air-con? It will be described as "heaped high with whizzo kit".

Has it got a coloured spinnaker, or cruising chute? Then it'll be "dressed to the nines for the ambassador's ball". If the boat has been refitted or sprayed this century, it will be "spoodled to the enth and gleaming spiffingly". If it's steel, it'll be "uber roughty-toughty".

Actually, I can't invent anything half as bad as the wording Berthon uses. It's wretched. Not funny, not stylish, just moronic.

Not all Berthon's ads seem to be written by this twit. Some are factual, informative, totally adequate. Or these sections may be lifted from the builders' original brochure. I daresay Berthon's staff cringe at being associated with their colleague's repellent phrasing.

I'm a huge P.G. Wodehouse fan, and I'm mad about boats. I expect the descriptions by Berthon are meant to appeal.

They really, really don't.

I like it... It makes a change from the bland old rubbish lots of the brokers use...

 

[Danny Jo]

I like it... It makes a change from the bland old rubbish lots of the brokers use...

Me too. And I bought Danny Jo (then Freestyle) through them.

 

[dancrane]

Parsifal's quote: A depressing thought... Maybe it's simply that they know what will appeal to their target market.

I don't believe that. If I went into a hardware store for a nut and bolt, and a loud, coked-up assistant described how extravagantly, bolt-tastically smooth the thread was, and how hex-maniacally slick the nut was, and how gruffly galvanised the old-school-engineering was...I wouldn't buy. I'd just back out and leave, rather quickly. Wouldn't you?

No other broker (of anything, anywhere) uses wording so bizarrely eccentric. I don't believe there is a target market for that. If the phrasing was either funny or clever, it wouldn't be so unwelcome, when all one actually sought was technical information.

The weird, unsolicited cocktail of street-speak/ad-agency/locker room/Wodehouse/semi-literate multilingual titbits, can't be attracting more potential clients than it repels. It's just awful.

I see that when Berthon advertised the Nelson 80 motoryacht in the lofty Boat International magazine, the verbal diarrhoea ceased, and readers were treated as if they had an interest in boats. So, Berthon can get it right. I think the fact that they rarely do, makes it worse.

 

[Seajet]

I bought a boat from Berthon once around 1987 but had no experience of the lady's knockers; any chance of another go or a refund ?

 

[doug748]

...cocktail of street-speak/ad-agency/locker room/Wodehouse/semi-literate multilingual titbits....

"A home for all Reasons"
"Invest in Happiness"
"All the "I Wants""
"Looks like Home"
"We Found It - Believe it!"
"Storybook Perfect"

..A local estate agent is a follower of the same school of whimsy.

 

[Sandy]

Maybe it's simply that they know what will appeal to their target market.

I can see this old, cynical engineer is not their 'target market'.

 

[dancrane]

Not sure if I'd want to encounter those knockers - imagine having to listen to the description!


Yes, Doug748 - sounds like the local estate agent is similarly afflicted. Ghastly.

 

[graham]

Quote Not sure if I'd want to encounter those knockers - imagine having to listen to the description!Unquote

Probably best not to imagine



The flowery language must be reserved for magazine ads. The Website adds are purely factual.

 

[Robin]

We bought our last boat through Berthon and the brokerage side were very good and very professional. Just don't ask what I thought of the engine 'servicing' or the list of add-on charges to get from ashore to afloat, and then to be hassled out of the berth to make way for another boat, well!

 

[dancrane]

I make no comment on Berthon's professionalism or organisation, or the company's qualities beyond its most public face.

QUOTE (Graham) The flowery language must be reserved for magazine ads. The Website adds are purely factual.

I only wish these cringe-making advertorial dog-droppings were confined to paper...

...the following was on the net, here: http://www.theyachtmarket.com/boats_for_sale/86762/

SWEDEN YACHTS Sweden Yachts 42
Description
Immaculate Peter Norlin design as only Sweden Yachts really could. Still with her original owners and spoodled to the enth.

Gentlemen, don't lower yourselves, by trying to excuse this self-styled idiocy.

 

[dylanwinter]

well it works

here we are -

on a thread that has gone over onto its second page talking about the language used by a yacht broker - several of the posts have said that a good job they do

so creative use of language does work

good for them


I am sure they will read this and I would like the good lady to watch some of my films and describe the slug for me

perhaps you creative chaps could apply some of her sort of language to my own dear boat "THE PRINCESS"

http://www.keepturningleft.co.uk/galleries/super-slug/

Dylan