meillionen - clover (Photo credit: waen ♡)

Today I’ve got a short post over on my personal blog about the new Cartier ad, L’Odyssée de Cartier. Up next here (maybe tomorrow) a few words about infographics.

To my faithful (and ever patient) readers, thank you for sticking with me even though I haven’t been posting nearly enough. This fall has marked a number of personal and professional changes, but things are settling down a little bit so I hope to be back to a more regular (and frequent) posting schedule.

In the meantime, my best wishes to you all for a happy new year.

Happy Independence Day! And a belated Happy Canada Day to friends and family north of the border.

Here are my holiday wishes for you.

Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

2009 has not been a banner year. The economy really impacted my business, as it has so many. Among other things, the competition for projects got quite fierce. When full-service agencies slash their fees to the bone, it is pretty hard for an independent to match it. And the projects that did come in tended to be smaller than in previous years.

Things seemed to pick up a little toward the end of the year, which makes me hopeful for 2010. I’m also always looking at all my options. If  you’ve got something in which you think I might be interested, whether a project, long term assignment or full-time job, please never assume I am too busy or wouldn’t be interested. I am always interested. Always.

There were some highlights over the year:

• I have some wonderful clients, both long-term and recent, and  am tremendously grateful for the confidence they have in my work. I just want more like them! And fewer deadbeats who never pay their bills.
• I am excited to be working on my first book, Professional Blogging for Dummies (Wiley, Summer 2010).
• The community response to the Blog with Integrity initiative made me proud — once again — to be a blogger. We’ve got some exciting plans for next year, so stay tuned.
• The trip to Africa with my mom and brother was the experience of a lifetime. Full reports on my travel blog and a dedicated site set up by my brother MashatuTiger.com
• I started writing about Digital Parenting for BlogHer’s Family Connections project.

But no lie, I am ready to kick 2009 to the curb and say hello to 2010.  There’s a lot to look forward to. I’ve just started work on some challenging new client projects and as I mentioned above, we’ve got good stuff in the works for Blog with Integrity. And of course the book. I have to write a chapter a week every week until mid-March. Doesn’t sound like much until you start to do it, and then it’s a bit like having a term paper due every week. Worth it in the end though.

I’m also honored to have been invited to speak at a number of conferences over the next few months, starting with the Consumer Electronics Show next week in Las Vegas. Here’s the schedule, through April 2010.

CES, Las Vegas, January 8, 2010 –

• MommyTech Summit - Mommy Power 101 panel. Moderated by Beth Blecherman of TechMamas.com, the panel will talk about how technology advancements have empowered moms and changed our lives.
• Help, My Mom Friended Me on Facebook, part of Kodak’s in-booth television studio. Session will stream live over the Internet (January 8, 11 am PST). The panel, which also includes Jill Zarin from Real Housewives of NYC, will be talking digital parenting and the impact of technology on our children and our families.

BlissDom ’10, Nashville, February 4-6, 2010 –

• Social Media & the Women Who Love It. Advanced Social Media Workshop (Feb. 4, 2010)
• You Should Know Better:  A Blogger’s Guide to Legal, Accounting and FTC Guidelines. Session. (Feb. 5, 2010)

ETC 2010, Providence, Rhode Island, February 6, 2010 –

• Navigating Social Media: A Hands-on Approach. Workshop.

Mom 2.0 Summit, Houston, February 18-20, 2010 –

• Got Strategy? session (Feb. 19, 2010)

BlogPaws, Columbus, Ohio, April 9-10, 2010 –

• Gulp! The FTC? What the New Guidelines Mean for You (April 10, 2010)

New Comm Forum, San Mateo, California, April 20-23, 2010 –

• Introduction to Social Media for Business. Pre-conference workshop. April 20, 2010
• Social CRM Stories: Case Studies, Challenges & Emerging Best Practices. Moderator. April 22, 2010
• Disclosure: It’s Not Just for Bloggers. Impact of the new FTC guidelines on corporate social media programs. April 23, 2010

If you have a moment over the next few days, please take my blogger survey about marketing pitches and Facebook contests. Only 10 questions! Results will be reported here and on the Blog with Integrity Facebook page early next week.

I’d like to end the year with the lyrics from Louis Jordan’s holiday classic May Every Day Be Christmas (listen to it on Last.fm). Sums up my wish for all of us in the coming year:

May every day be Christmas
And every day be blessed
Let the end of every day be filled with happiness
And may the Lord be good to you with every rising sun
All through the day have a smile for everyone
[repeats] At night time comes a longing to be with ones you love
To sit around the fireside and dream of stars above
So may God bless you and keep you, come what may
Then every day will be a happy day [end repeat]
May good times come to you every day.

Marketing Roadmaps has been pretty serious of late, and likely will be so again as I continue to dig into topics related to the FTC endorsement guidelines. But today, my friends, I received an email pitch I just have to share with you.

Here’s the pitch:

And here’s the accompanying picture:

I guess someone thinks I’ve got a set….

cross posted to Snapshot Chronicles

As we were driving up to our house in Vermont last Friday, my eight year-old son asked me if I believed in Santa Claus. It’s been a couple years since he last asked me this question, and I responded the same way this year as I did then: Do you believe in Santa Claus?

He assured me that he still believed, and I in turn assured him that that was what really mattered.

This exchange however reminded me of the timeless words of newsman Francis Pharcellus Church when he replied, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.”

In this time of economic uncertainty, and no matter what religion we practice or holiday we observe, I think it would do us all some good to carry a little bit of Mr. Church’s Santa in our hearts.

“DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
“Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
“Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.’
“Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

“VIRGINIA O’HANLON.
“115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.”

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

- source, Newseum

Do you believe in Santa Claus?

I do, and I will forever.

Today, I have two pitches for you. One naughty, one nice.

I’ll start with the nice one. First, some facts. This is another pitch for a shapewear product, which is always a dicey proposition of the “does this dress make me look fat?” variety. In fact, I discussed this pitch with two mom bloggers via email, one who was initially offended and one who quite liked the pitch. Further proof, by the way, and pun intended, that one size does not fit all.

While I find the product name unfortunate — Yummie Tummie just doesn’t have the allure that the name  Spanx has — I write about the pitch, not the product. And this is a decent one. While it includes  product information, it isn’t solely about the shapewear. The pitch adds value with the content at the EatDrinkandBeYummie microsite and offers product for both review and a giveaway on the blogger’s site, two tactics that are at the top of my list for a good pitch.  The intro flash is really quite cute, although don’t watch on a slow connection. Like all flash, it needs speed.

Marketers take note: a significant benefit of a dedicated microsite is that it is far easier to measure the results than a campaign that sends all web traffic to the home page.

Negatives. Not too many.  It seems like they used a broad mom blogger list for the outreach, and in the instance I mentioned above where the blogger was a bit offended, part of the problem was they pitched her for the wrong blog. She writes a number of different blogs, each with its own editorial purpose, and the juxtaposition of the pitch with a specific and not appropriate blog was jarring. The broad nature of the pitch could also have been a problem. I’d be interested in hearing from other women who received it what their reactions were.

It also seems like the offer of the review and giveaway product is contingent upon coverage, and if you’ve been reading me for any length of time, you know my mantra: if the pitch is good, you don’t need to ask them to write.

Nevertheless, it’s a nice pitch, especially in counterpoint to last week’s scummy pitch for arm girdles. For proving that it is possible to pitch shapewear to women without implying that we’re fat, the Festive Fruitcake Award goes to Yummie Tummie and its agency Rocket XL.  (By the way, Santa, if you are reading, I wouldn’t mind a Yummie Tummie in my Christmas stocking.)

The naughty pitch isn’t so much naughty as it is nasty, but nasty doesn’t work too well with today’s holiday song (below). As noted above, women and weight is a sensitive issue. Whether we have too much, too little or just think we have. Fat, thin, heavy, skinny, flabby. I don’t know many American women who don’t have some issue with weight, and quite frankly, our culture encourages women to have a negative body image. That’s not a battle I can fight with this blog.

Except maybe a little bit.

I have a problem with a pitch to mom bloggers that implies that a size 8 is a plus size.

What exactly is a frame adjusted size 2?

The pitch also includes the by-now expected Oprah reference. Hullo. She can talk about her weight as much as SHE wants, and shill as many related products as SHE wants. The rest of you? Back off. Stop using her as a pitch point. She didn’t endorse your product and using her name to game the search engines is bad form. Granted, this was just a mention; the whole pitch wasn’t built around her, but still.

The other major sin of this pitch is the usual broad brush. As usual, it seems as though they sent a press release to a mom blogger list without understanding how it might be received. That’s stupid.

But the reason they get the BIG FAT LUMP OF COAL AWARD is for sending a press release that insults many of the women who will receive it by basically telling them that yes, that dress makes you look fat because you are.

Now, clearly I have an issue with the whole premise of the book, and I daresay the blogger who forwarded the pitch does too, but I am certain there are some bloggers who would not. Somewhere. The good news? If you are interested in this title, which will be published January 2, just wait a bit and I’ll bet you can get a REALLY good price at Better World Books, our good pitch award winner from last Friday. ‘Cause I just don’t see them flying off the shelves…

I’ll be back with a few more naughty and nice pitches before Christmas, but for now, please enjoy Bruce Springsteen’s version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town, the inspiration for today’s post title.

Next week, I’m planning a special holiday edition of Good Pitch/Bad Pitch. There will be awards, fun, frolic, merriment and possibly munchkins and flying monkeys. We’ll see…

But I need more good and bad holiday themed pitches. Especially good ones. If you got something kicking around in your inbox, I would be so grateful if you’d send it along.

PS — any holiday, not just the imminent ones!

As my long-time clients know, I stopped giving holiday gifts a few years ago. Instead I donate to two or three causes. Recession notwithstanding, this year is no different. The amounts may be slightly less, but the spirit isn’t.

This year, I am supporting Take the Lead, an organization that provides services and support for people in the sport of purebred dogs during times of life-threatening or terminal illness, and School Year Abroad, the year-abroad program that I participated in during my junior year of high school.

Best wishes to everyone for a safe and happy holiday season.

Next week is shaping up to be pretty crazy — a new client, more bad
weather, I’m taking 3 kids to the Hannah Montana concert next Friday
and then we’re off to Vermont until the New Year — so let me take this
moment to wish you all a Merry Chrismakah and a Happy New Year.

I so appreciate that you continue to read Marketing Roadmaps and look forward to another year.

Peace.