March 29, 2006
we need a new word to replace “luxury”
[115m “Pelorus”]
From Fenderkicker:
Luxury, luxury, LUXURY .…aaarrrrgh
What an over-abused word these days!! We need the marketing genii of the world (no, I am not including myself in that little group) to come up with something a little less obtuse and more interesting to describe our amazing products. Considering it is blantantly used in the yachting industry for anything from 65 feet to 65 metres and upwards, there is an obvious need for a more discerning vocabulary.
One of the most unpleasant jobs I ever had was writing a 10,000 word brochure for a luxury 60-foot yacht.
The agency thought because the product was “upscale”, the writing style had to be pretentious and fake. “Imagine yourself surrounded in the sumptuous, princely luxury that only the discerning few will have the rare priveledge to experience yak yak yak…”
It was 6 weeks of hell, writing that. Utterly dreadful.
Luxury = Comfortably essential
Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o’clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of ‘ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky! From Monty python 4 yorkshiremen sketch taken from http://www.phespirit.info/montypython/four_yorkshiremen.htm
Luxury ice cream…! I had an amazing, heated discussion with an old school marketer about the use of the word luxury. What the f**k is luxury ice cream? The word needs consigning to the scrapheap of mediocrity. It means nothing of value to me and suggests the ultimate lack of discriptive imagination on all counts. If the yacht is damn well made by skilled craftspeople and represents the best you could possibly get in its class then say so. Just like English Cut you have to cut the bullshit and tell it like it is. Luxury smuckxury, that’s what I say. The ice cream discussion raged on until we tried some and both decided that it was crap! I rest my case.
No we don’t need a new vocabulary — we just need to acknowledge that it is the customer who determines what is luxury for them.
That and the word “sumptuous.” It’s used whenever talking about food. Arg. I feel your pain.
You may want to read a book by David Foster Wallace called “A supposidly fun thing i’ll never do again” where he writes about his experiences on a luxury liner. It’s funny. Well Written. And it’s convinced me never to go on a “pampered” cruise.