Thursday night the family had dinner with my mom at her favorite Chinese restaurant. My dad was absent, having left for his yearly trek out west and my mother was due to leave Saturday to meet my dad at their friends’ house in California.
I had told both my parents about my big win, and as we sat at the table noshing on crab legs and sesame chicken, I told my mom how that very day I had received an e-mail from Johnson & Johnson’s PR firm letting me know my specific sponsor for BlogHer would be Splenda. I also mentioned that they very politely suggested I throw them a bone and mention Splenda when writing about my BlogHer experiences.
My mom’s face lit up at the mention of Splenda. “You know they have a great deal on Splenda at Walgreens this week. 200 packets for $5.99!”
“Wow, that is a good deal,” I said, thinking about the Splenda coupons I was pretty sure I had at home.
Mom looked at me with a sly smile on her face, “I know exactly how you can start your Splenda post,” she said.
Now I hadn’t said I was going to write a specific post about Splenda, just that J & J encouraged me to mention them, so I simply told my mom, “Oh, I already know what I’m going to say.”
“I’m sure you do,” she said, “but it would be really easy to start off saying something like, ‘I needed to pick up some Splenda and saw that Walgreens had a great deal on a 200-packet box.’”
I tried not to cringe. The whole thing sounded so commercial, like the sponsored posts I’ve come to loathe. Most of all, it didn’t really sound like me at all.
While I have dabbled in monetizing my blogging efforts, I’ve realized I’m most happy just writing for me. I do have a review blog, on which I’ve written exactly one review, but for me that kind of writing is the exception rather than the rule. I would prefer to attract readers because they like what I have to say rather than what I have to give away.
There’s a debate brewing, and maybe you’ve noticed it, in which commercialization and content are being pitted against one another. Voices are emerging and decrying the glut of paid reviews, giveaways and sponsored posts that have become the mainstay of some of the more popular mom blogs. Lindsay Ferrier of Suburban Turmoil recently wrote a post in which she lamented the disappearance of the “authentic” voices that were so easy to find on the mom blogs several years ago. She writes:
As blogging goes mainstream, mom bloggers are starting to look and sound more and more like they came straight out of a diaper ad. And frankly, the moms who don’t make motherhood seem like an 18-year-long Hallmark commercial are getting harder and harder to hear amid the babbling about whateveritiswethinktheadvertiserswantustosay.
So what do you think? Do you think the authentic voices of the fallible, self-deprecating moms are being drowned out or do you think was it only just a matter of time before advertisers infiltrated our ranks and turned us into freebie-hungry retweeting vultures?
I think it’s a little of both. As bloggers we’re encouraged to change, to go with the flow and stay on top of whatever social trend is rocking the blogsphere, but think about last time you went to a movie and didn’t see a commercial tucked in between the previews. When was the last time you attended a sporting event and held a cup of soda or beer that didn’t display several corporate logos? Advertising is everywhere and it’s foolish for us to think it shouldn’t exist in this world we’ve created for ourselves.
On the other hand, if the most active product-pitching mom bloggers out there are complaining that these PR relationships are becoming a bit much, then maybe they need to step back and figure out what it was that brought them here in the first place. Was it always about the paid reviews and the freebies or was it about finding a community and sharing their lives? I’m willing to bet it was the latter because nobody goes into blogging to make money. That’s just silly.
Some of the best writers out there have a relationship with one ad network or another and some have even indulged in the random giveaway (remember the Wii Fit madness at Dooce last year?) so I think it is possible for advertising and quality content to coexist. I think what Lindsay Ferrier is saying is that we’re entering a phase in this relatively new medium called Mommy Blogging in which advertisers are controlling blog content instead of the writers. Now that is a big deal.
So as we were sitting there in the Chinese restaurant, I tried to be polite as I declined my mother’s suggestion on how to structure the Splenda shout-out. “That’s really not my style,” I said, knowing she has no idea at all what my style actually is. In the nearly four years I’ve written here she has never visited. Not once. But that’s mostly because she can never get my dad away from their computer.
As we wrapped up our dinner, I started calculating how I could get my mom online as I continued to wonder, in spite of what I had told her, how to insert Splenda into my posts without sounding like a hypocritical hack.
I’ll let you know when I figure something out.
{ 6 comments }
This is a great post. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I believe that in a perfect world, reviews/giveaways can exist, but they are the LAST priority of the blogger, not the first.
These moms who are complaining about how PR stuff is too much for them have their priorities out of whack, in my opinion. I do reviews and giveaways, but I spend no more than an hour or two per weekend on them, and I take “breaks” all the time, in which I do no reviews at all. I’m waaaay more concerned with the quality of my writing on my main blog than I am with getting my reviews done in a “timely fashion.”
To see moms who are obviously primarily concerned with the “stuff” and the “traffic” that comes from blogging is just hard to take.
Can’t wait to see you at BlogHer! Big congratulations on the sponsorship. That’s awesome!
Lindsay´s last blog ..The DivaDON’T
Congrats on the sponsorship!
I certainly haven’t had a problem finding genuine voices out there. I may like getting free stuff, but being small, I don’t have to worry about being asked to pitch it very often. I just enter the giveaway without the same care that I enter contests for door prizes at the holiday party at work.
That doesn’t mean I don’t have a review blog, “just in case” or that I haven’t really enjoyed writing about the local businesses in my area that I think should be given kudos. For the most part I fail to see what the big deal is. If you don’t like it either don’t do it, or don’t read it.
Amelia Sprout´s last blog ..Owning my girly
@Lindsay-I have to admit to nearly being sucked by the desire for the “stuff.” I saw all these women getting wooed by PR people and wanted a piece of the action. I have received a few pitches, mostly from small sites that have nothing in common with my blog, and I’ve turned them down simply because I can’t bring myself to post about car rentals or custom sneakers when I have no use for either. I usually tell them how little traffic I get and they don’t pursue me further
That being said, I did just sign up to be a reviewer for BlogHer. I don’t know if they’ll throw anything my way, but I’m more comfortable with the idea of someone else facilitating the pitches so that I don’t have to deal with the PR people directly. That’s a good boundary for me and allows me time to write about what I really love-my family.
Thanks for adding your comments and I look forward to meeting you this weekend!
@Amelia-You’re right, we don’t have to write the reviews or read them. I like the internet for the same reason I like my TiVo-I can cut out the commercial crap and get right to the good stuff (and I swear that’s not a paid insertion by TiVo-I really do like my TiVo). I think what some people are seeing and complaining about is that marketers put more value in the review blog bloggers and not the good writer bloggers.
I’ve actually thought about going back to my review blog to write about a few things I’ve bought and really liked, and I also like your idea about reviewing local businesses. The thing that has really held me back is time. I just don’t have enough to do it all!
I have to say when I read the title to your post and began reading about your being asked to sponsor Splenda, I honestly thought I was going to read about how you turned them down (you know, since it’s a chemical sweetener and all). Don’t get me wrong though, it was a great post and I completely get what you are saying about the commercialism in blogging.
SAHM: Surviving Assorted Home Mayhem´s last blog ..It was the flux capacitor
@SAHM-Nope, I accepted. I guess I don’t have THAT much integrity
What I gathered, from talking to another contest winner, is that they paired us with a J&J brand based on our survey responses. The woman I talked to hates Splenda and thus was paired with Carefree. I don’t hate Splenda so there you go.
And honestly, I do like Splenda. If sugar had no calories I’d be putting that in my morning coffee. It’s the lesser of two evils, I guess. I struggle with my weight and try to use lower-calorie alternatives, but sometimes those alternatives have chemicals that could potentially kill whatever part of me isn’t destroyed by obesity. It’s really kind of depressing.
Thanks for your comments!
Comments on this entry are closed.