It is possible to do a good holiday pitch. Here are two examples.
First, the Green Christmas Award goes to Better World Books. The folks over at Alpha Mom sent me this pitch and wrote about it earlier this week.
What’s good about this pitch? First and foremost, the content is a great match for the Alpha Mom site. Green, books, charity donation, carbon offset. Perfect. Second, the timing. It was sent to Alpha Mom in plenty of time to be included in the site’s holiday coverage. Finally, and you’ll hear this from me again about other good pitches: the brevity. It’s a good story, and the writer doesn’t wreck it with lots of fluff and puff. She lays it out in perfect order: need, pitch, facts, close. Well done, Margaret. I hope you have a very green and merry holiday.
I struggled a bit with the name for the next award, and even called she-who-knows-all, my mom, for a sanity check for my idea. She laughed at the original thought, but suggested a slight twist, so with no further ado, the Christmas Princess Award goes to the Nikon Look Good in Pictures campaign featuring Carson Kressley. Agency: MWW Group
The pitch was sent to me by Allison Blass, the rep at MWW. She noted in her email that the campaign had a number of different pitches geared toward style blogs, wedding blogs, travel blogs and so on. The one above was used for parenting blogs. It’s also not just a holiday pitch, although the family portraits one featured here has a holiday angle.
Here’s why it’s good.
The pitch is short and gets to the point right away. No cutesy schtick trying to make the blogger think Allison reads the blog. She probably does, knowing Allison, but even if she doesn’t, it doesn’t matter because the pitch is clearly tailored to things most parents find relevant – how to take better pictures of their kids, family photos, vacation photos.
I watched the episode on family portraits. Carrie Sandoval, the professional photographer highlighted in the segment, is a mom and a blogger, and it looks like other segments use a similar tactic — using a photographer with whom the principal audience for the particular segment will identify.
My one concern is while I think the bloggers who get these pitches will check out the video series, I’m not sure how many will actually write about it as there is no incentive to do so. Sure, Carson is funny, but what’s the value-add to the blogger that leads her to give it valuable space on the blog? Folks already committed to Nikon may do something with it, just because. If it fits an editorial requirement for a blog or mainstream media outlet, it might get used. That’s especially relevant for wedding and travel blogs, for whom these topics are a perennial.
Otherwise? Not sure. We’ll see. The campaign was too new for Allison to tell me how it did, but I hope she’ll be back to us with a report.
That’s it for today’s good holiday pitches. I’ll have one more over the weekend, but for now, I’ll leave you with the Israel Kamakawiwo`ole version of What a Wonderful World, the song referenced in today’s post title.