The following is NOT pedantry but a cry of sheer frustration at the casual misuse and abuse of the English language!

[GoreRenewed]

Is this or this not complete meaningless.

"Ensuring that products are presented on the shelf in a way that allows shoppers to have confidence in our brand and their purchase in an absolute essential"?

What gives the customer confidence in a brand and a purchase is the quality of the product. The way the stuff is presented might make it easier to see and access.

Surely it's a cut-and-shut. It started out as two sensible sentences:

"Ensuring that products are presented on the shelf in a way that allows shoppers to see it and pick it up easily"

and

"The quality of our products and the price sllows shoppers to have confidence in our brand their purchase is an absolute essential"

Are marketing and packaging people a bit mad? Or am I just allowing the stream of complete lingo-junk that flows over me in this job to get to me too much?

And also, from the same trade mag:

"We all know that if you get your packaging right it can be the best advert for your product..."

No no NO!!! The best advert for the frigging product is whether it's any GOOD!

"The quality of our products and the price allows shoppers to have confidence in our brand their purchase is an absolute essential"

That still doesn't make sense - there's something missing after "our brand" surely?

It's vile, I agree, and nonsensical.

Yes, there's an 'and' missing

No, more than that - needs a verb.

Ooh OK. You may be right.

But so much stuff is like that these days

Was listening to some discussion on the radio...various people wheeled out... then some woman from the Council who talked total PC-speak, with the result that what she said sounded vaguely reasonable, as your sentence does, but was in fact total tosh and you couldn't work out what she was trying to say. The saddest thing is that these people think they're being clever.

There was an illuminating moment for me when they were discussing the collapse of the Icelandic bank on Radio 4. The Icelandic bank chief spoke precise and correct English and was a pleasure to listen to. All our lot waffled and chucked in stuff about stakeholders and ringfencing and all the other clap-trap.

God knows I am no fan of jargony, crappy use of English BUT I think that this sentence is technically correct, though ugly.

"Ensuring that products are presented on the shelf in a way that allows shoppers to have confidence in our brand and their purchase in an absolute essential"?

i.e.ensuring the stuff is presented well is an absolute essential.

And whether you think it's true or not, I think their structure is ok if they are trying to say that it's the presentation on the shelf that gives people confidence in the brand, and gives them confidence in their purchase.

Or should I have had my coffee before tackling this?

Oh I agree it's well structured but it means nothing. It's as if the beginning of the sentence is unrelated to the end.

A well-presented product is an absolute essential, OK, if you say so. But the presentation does not give the buyer and more confidence in the brand or the product. It might be eye-catching, pleasing to look at etc but it won't make any difference to the customers confidence in the brand. Nothing will, apart from trying it and liking it.

Oh, I see - I was reading it as if the purchase had to be an essential, not the ensuring. Or maybe I just got bored reading it before I got to the end. And yy, where the product is on the shelf can't give actual confidence in the product. Perceived prestige, maybe.

Funny, when they are rattling on about the presentation of the product being so important, when you could apply the same principle to their language.

Amen to that. It's not inspiring confidence in their brand as marketers!

Agree , it's dreadful. I used to work in PR where bullshit language like that was common place.

Is it saying the product is essential, or presenting it well is essential?

Basically it means "we need people to buy our stuff and htink it's great even if it's crap because that's how we make money".

Just think, whoever wrote that rubbish is probably on a 6 figure salary too.

presenting it well is essential miggsie.

But it's from a packaging supplier so I guess it's not that surprising they should include quotes from people saying how ESSENTIAL good packaging is.