Holiday

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.