In June, I wrote a lame-ass blog post where I alluded to a PR pitch I received that was g-d freaking awful and made me want to crawl through the computer and shake silly the account person at the marketing agency who sent it. I was tired then, and could only allude to the awfulness.
No more.
Because isn’t it ironic that today, while sitting with my friends in attendance at the wonderful Windy City Social Media Masters Summit, where we were learning about how large companies like General Motors, Con Agra, Kenmore and Edelman (a former employer) are handling social media outreach in the RIGHT way, I got another bad pitch by another grunt from the same marketing agency on behalf of a very large company who is doing it ALL WRONG? (The person at the agency, that is.)
I thought so. I’m using names now.
Someone named Emily (who apparently replaced Lindsay the old account person) from Lead Dog Marketing sent me, and apparently, the rest of the momosphere, a PR pitch today on behalf of Toys R Us to join their “I Want To Be A Toys R Us Mom” awareness campaign for the newly combined Toys R Us and Babies R Us megastores (There’s one down the street from me. I love it. Isn’t that ironic too? I also worked on the Toys R Us Account for Edelman back in 2004 so I know the company well. At least the old company.)
The email said in part (paraphrasing):
“As we celebrate each grand opening, we are looking for community and online partners to help spread the word so that local area families can take advantage of grand opening savings and fun. Because your blog/website reaches moms and Chicago-area residents, we’d like to extend an invitation for you to be our promotional partner during the Toys“R”Us grand opening celebration …
Ok, fine… then the kicker:
As our partner, you have the opportunity to be involved in raising awareness for our “I Want to be a Toys“R”Us Mom” campaign. This viral campaign encourages local moms to visit our microsite, iwanttobeatoysrusmom.com to download a ‘secret coupon’ and bring it to the store during the grand opening weekend to reveal their shopping discount; up to 50% off one item! And if that is not enough, the first 100 Moms to arrive at each Grand Opening will receive a special ‘Toys“R”Us Moms’ gift bag bursting with gifts and offers.
We are seeking your partnership to help drive local moms to the iwanttobeatoysrusmom.com microsite and create buzz about the grand opening, using tactics like email blasts/newsletters, social media posts, strategic banner ad placement and news or editorial features highlighting the grand opening weekend.
You will also enjoy benefits, such as logo placement and information about your blog/website on the webpage affiliated with your grand opening market on the iwanttobeatoysrusmom.com microsite, the opportunity for exposure at the grand opening celebration with on-site table presence, as well as free Toys“R”Us gift bags, give-a-ways and more.
We look forward to discussing this exciting opportunity with you in more detail. In the meantime, please see attached Partnership One Sheet for additional information.”
I was shocked. I not only rejected this pitch 3 months ago when I got it (so take me off your pitch list please), I have a fundamental issue with the approach and expectation of what the agency expected me as a blogger to do on behalf of her client Toys R Us. I’m calling it predatory PR. It’s a predatory practice when the PR agency who’s getting paid by a big time client asks YOU, the blogger to do what she’s getting PAID for (advertising/ marketing/ local PR/ social media) for free or for cheap. Liz already wrote about this once. But I’m saying it again.
This pitch and the ask of it is outrageous. I tried to be nice to Lindsay about it the first time around by telling her I only do giveaways/contests/banner ads if they’re in conjunction with a PAID advertisement. You PAY me, and I will help to PROMOTE you. It seems easy enough, right? She responded with this:
98% of our partners are on-board through barter, as it is added value to provide this incentive to their mommy viewers, members…We are offering incentives to mommy bloggers with huge reach in the millions. Can you send me your reach?
I think that your mommy viewers, followers, members will be quite happy if you tell them about a $100 value gift bag that will be given away for free! Our first city is in Colonie, NY and the moms are going nuts over it!
We’d be happy to feature you with your logo, a click through and 300 characters of copy on our micro-site. Just think how many moms will have access to that site!?!? We already have over 20 million impressions from our already on board partners.
Let me know if you’re interested in barter.
Thanks,
Lindsay
The only thing I’ve ever bartered for in my life is sex in exchange for my husband allowing me to watch “The Bachelorette” finale in his presence. But I digress.
Hmmm… so in exchange for a link and 300 chars on the crappy iwanttobeatoysrusmom.com microsite (which has a page rank of ZERO according to Liz so the 20mm impression numbers have GOT to be made up) you want me to post on my site, put up banner ads and host a giveaway? Back in June, I nicely said no, not for me, shoved my anger away, did a lame ass post and shut the hell up.
But now that they’re back, and apparently aren’t paying attention to their initial outreach, there must be a call to action. The promise of “links on a microsite,” “on-site exposure (which, if you read the fine line in the attachment is “limited”),” and giveaways are not enough. There might be some of you who find glamour (like a whopping 20 of you) in all of this. Maybe it’s exciting to be contacted by a big, brand-name company that has products you and your kids like. Maybe you just don’t know how lame and circa 1999 microsites are. Maybe you love, love doing giveaways and you accept any pitch that come your way.
I do not believe that in these brand/ blogger exchanges there is all right or all wrong on either side. I think Lindsay and Emily probably work for a good agency, but are unfortunately uneducated in the practice of social media outreach. They think their offering is good enough that if they spam pitch 20,000 mom bloggers some will stick and that’s good enough. I can’t imagine that they’re pleased that only 20 sites bit on their campaign. So they’re at it again. I also think it’s safe (hope) to say both Toys R Us and Babies R Us don’t have an inkling that this is going on underneath them.
I also think the problem lies with us. There are a lot of naive bloggers out there who just don’t have the PR experience that others and I do and who cannot see through the BS that is this campaign. For example, Akron Moms (I’m only picking this site because that’s the example Emily used in the email) got really excited about the promotion (back in June, mind you) and posted it on their site because they actually believe they are a “sponsor” of the Toys R Us Grand opening in Parma and Chapel Hill. Akron Mom, you weren’t a sponsor of anything. You are just a pawn in this bad pitch campaign.
And, poor Melissa. She participated too and all she got was a bag of crap samples, no links and a bunch of rude email exchanges. Michelle got zilch, she said. Shannan complained about the rudeness of Toys R Us’s agency. And there are many more stories.
That’s why I stayed up two hours past my bedtime to write all of this down. Because there are uneducated PR folks like Lindsay and Emily out there preying on either naive, too nice, or too willing bloggers with the promise and glory of links and badges. But that’s not enough anymore. It doesn’t cut it when there are real companies and real dollars paying real money elsewhere.
As Lucretia put it:
.@Mom101 @tothink @selfmademom @mommyinstincts @PBinmyhair – sadly, some still think giving away milk for free increases cow sales
Lucretia M Pruitt
LucretiaPruitt
I think the bloggers expected the best from the company and agency but got let down instead. They got preyed on and it’s up to us well-educated bloggers to keep the conversation going to stop it from happening again. At least in this instance.
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Wow- Shasta. I’m so glad you got compensated. When I said I’d host it on my site for a paid advertisement/ sponsorship, I got the above response. Happy you had a good experience. Cat – I’m glad you got it rectified, but it shouldn’t have to come to contacting the PR owner. And, where are they now? If they had one bad experience with you, they should have jumped at the oppy to fix it right then and there for the rest of us. That says something altogether. And, it doesn’t mean just replacing the gopher for the campaign. Thanks for sharing your stories ladies!
I received the pitch and stopped reading pretty quickly considering I don’t do give aways or anything like that on my blog had they looked at it… And I have said on my blog that I hate Babies R Us and would pretty much rather stab myself than step into another one of their filthy, disorganized stores again. Even if I have an “up to 50% off” gift certificate. (OK, a bit dramatic, but seriously my registry experience with them still makes me want to cry.)
Akron Moms, if you were indeed compensated with a gift card as you say in your comment here, why did your post say you received no compensation?
Allison Bass- journalists may refuse payment in order to stay “objective”, but they are paid by the paper or magazine they are writing for, so they aren’t doing anything for free.
Well paint me purple and call me Barney!!!
I feel so left out, here I was on my high rocking horse thinking I was a Blogging superstar and I didn’t even earn a place on the crappy pitch list
Excuse me while i put myself on time out :/
lol, I have thoroughly enjoyed this post and ALL of the comments. I am indeed one of those bloggers that would have totally agreed to this, just because of the big name. You’re right, i don’t know my worth, I am always comparing myself to huge bloggers, and therefore think I would be silly to ask for anything else in return. I have learned what little i know on my own, and have no blogging friends i can speak about when it comes to pitches, and monetizing, so i would have totally worked my butt off for that sample bag and cried afterwards LOL
Thanks so much Ladies for such a great conversation
Lucretia,
I enjoy the blog but find it bizarre how you can be so self righteous that on the one hand you talk about being “preyed” upon, but then on the other hand indicate that if you were offered money you’d be happy to promote something. I’m not sure that I’d call that “integrity.” I feel compeled to comment because I thought it was insensitive to call out the actual names of the marketing people who are just doing their jobs and seemed to be pretty straight forward about it. I’m not sure about the official protocol in the blog world but I do think that it’s unproductive to fill the blogosphere with such negative energy.
I did not receive this pitch however I have received similsr piches from other PR companies. The majority of PR companies I work with are truly smedia savvy & understand the benefit of a blogger and the reach thst the have worked hsrd to develop.
That being said I still receive some truly awful pitches prompted me to write a podtventitled *PR 101 How Not to Pitch A Mom Blogger. One of the reasons I wrote it was although I didn´t use (or hadn´t thought of) the term *predatory PR* pitch it was my intent to try to warn newbie bloggers to not accepbthose pitches as a form of flattery but to realize theywere being used. Please excuse typos here I sm on my cell phone & aldo can´t link to my exact post.
Can you please correct typos in my post in moderation since I am typing from my cell phone? Thanks!
Portia – my name is Sara, not Lucretia – she was the one who “tweeted” that line. I’m not trying to spread negative energy at all. Just trying to make a point and have a conversation. I’m sorry you saw it as all negative.
I too am a blogger who gets a ton of bad pitches. I’ve been reading this thread with a lot of interest. The post and the comments have been so eloquent … providing an analysis of the situation I know is true in my heart but haven’t been able to successfully put into words for myself.
I would love for the community to band together and come up with a great email reponse to PR agencies who send out these kinds of pitches. Something we can all cut and paste and tailor to the sender. Our time is WORTH something.
Thoughts? Ideas? I for one would be willing to add my two cents.
How can new brands like us compete with big name brands like “Toys R Us” that abuse the system. As companies and PR agencies abuse the system more and more, bloggers will require payment. We would love to be able to pay bloggers but we’re a new start-up company that can’t afford it. What can we offer bloggers when we can’t afford to pay them. We like it when bloggers contact us with ideas for posts and blog offers, because they will generally let us know what they want in return.
The abuse of larger corporations will only make bloggers require payment every time a company contacts them. Shame on you “Toys R us”! Your hurting the future of business and small companies chances to be found.
I’m responsible for a new start up called StickyLife.com where we produce cool personalized gifts that our customers design through our website. We enjoy working with bloggers and prefer that they do their job as they see fit. (We just ask that they use quality anchor links to appropriate pages on our website). We like the control in the hands of bloggers because the outcome is always different and gives us a chance to learn more about how people see our business, products and services.
We have no interest in telling the blogger what they can and cannot do or say. We see it as an equal partnership where both parties have something to gain. More and more bloggers require payment for posts but I fail to see how this will give us an honest post, review or article. What blogger wants to post negative comments when the company pays them. It also puts new companies like us behind the 8 ball from the beginning, because as a new company we simply can’t afford to pay bloggers for their hard work.
When money gets involved it can become difficult for honest and reliable content.
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