the grove

In 2011 I promised myself that I’d stop picking on the poor publicists who pitch the mommy bloggers. I swore I’d avoid the low hanging fruit, and I vowed to ignore WalMart, Skittles, and train wrecks in between.

Today’s pitch is too rich to ignore.

A group of Mommy Bloggers were invited by Special K to go to The Grove (its an outdoor mall here in Los Angeles), and hop on a scale. You know, in front of people, presumably a crowd. From the pitch:

Because Special K focuses on helping people lose weight and be healthy, at the event, people will be invited to step on a super-sized scale to reveal what they will GAIN when they lose weight (a common New Year’s Resolution) in 2011. Instead of a number, the scale will give an inspirational word or phrase that encompasses the emotional benefit of achieving a goal!  You can also write your “gain” on Special K cereal packaging, take a photo with it, and share it with other women on the SpecialK.com community.

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it:

– Help us encourage people to attend the event!  Post the details on Twitter, Facebook and your blogs during the week leading up to it.
– Attend the event and be an on-site reporter for your blog – talking to Special K representatives and other attendees about their New Year’s Resolutions, etc.  If you can include video that would be awesome!
– Live tweet during the event if you have the capabilities.
– Take photos and video as you talk with people and participate in the activities!
– The next step would be to take all of the fantastic material you gather – quotes from attendees, photos, videos, things you learned – and turn it into an inspiring, wonderful blog post for your readers.

The stipend for participating is $300!

The issues as I see them:

• Who is going to weigh themselves at The Grove? Is nothing private? I don’t care that you get a message instead of a number, this is a horrible plan that reeks of 23 year old publicists twirling their frosted hair in a boardroom.
• Why would I care about the “Special K Community”? We have communities, we don’t have to gather around a cereal box.
• Encourage people to attend the event? Why? So they can weigh themselves too? Am I supposed to have any friends left?
• Post on twitter, facebook and my blogs? For $300? Three Hundred Dollars to reach 50,000 people? Did someone drop you on your head?
• Attend the event and be an on site reporter, plus video? Again, this is a HUGE ask, with a minuscule amount of money attached to it.

I can’t go on point by point, Special K has devised a five figure campaign and offered bloggers $300 to humiliate themselves and then get about $10 an hour by the time they’re done. In addition to that it’s a huge expense of social capitol.

Also, ladies, before you attend an event like this I’d like you to look at the ingredients for Special K and decide if that’s what you think you should eat for two meals a day. Keep in mind that they’re listed in order of greatest to least quantity.

Special K Ingredients: Rice, wheat gluten, sugar, defatted wheat germ, salt, high fructose corn syrup, dried whey, malt flavoring, calcium caseinate, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), alpha tocopherol acetate (vitamin E), reduced iron, niacinamide, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), riboflavin (vitamin B2), thiamin hydrochloride (vitamin B1), vitamin A palmitate, folic acid, and vitamin B12.