Once like four years ago, Disney invited me to a blogger lunch meeting in New York and sent a car service to pick me up. At the last minute, instead of her coming across town to playbysit, I dropped the kid at her aunt's place, and called the publicist to change the pickup location.
Apparently, I was entered into some publicist industry mega-database as "token dadblogger," because every 2-3 months since then, I get a call from the concierge in my sister-in-law's old building [she has long since moved to Brooklyn.] A giant Fedex package has arrived for me, but there's no apartment number. What should he do with it? I just tell him to open it up and take anything he wants from it, then throw the rest away.
Until reading the LA Times' tasty smackdown, I thought my phantom swag drop was the most amusing example of the ridiculousness of the Momblogger Junket Industrial Complex. I had no idea. Liz of Cool Mom Picks [who I first met at that Disney luncheon, btw] has the best, truest quote of the piece:
"It's easy to paint everyone as product whores. They're not. I think sometimes they're just naive."Yes, naive and flattered by the 36 hours of attention and coach-class travel paid by food and packaged goods giants like Starbucks, Nestle, Kraft, P&G and Yum! That's Yum! the fast food brand conglomerate, btw, not Yum! the reaction:
Fast-food purveyor Taco Bell flew a group of bloggers from Maryland, Michigan and Missouri to California for a retreat this spring, paid for their lodging and let them spend the day creating new taco and burrito concoctions.Waitaminnit, I didn't get invited to test out my wishlist of off-menu variations of the Cheesy Gordita Crunch?? This is an outrage! Will Blog For Chalupas!
Maybe you should see if Taco Town is interested in your Cheesy Gordita Crunch instead?
I know I have a few spare junket invites floating around my inbox somewhere.
Paper towel manufacturing plant tour, laundry detergent meet and greet, canned pineapple trade association brainstorming session and fashion show...take your pick. I'll send it along.
is that last one in Hawaii or New Jersey?
Now I know who to blame for the Black Jack Taco.
Guess that makes me the token West Coast dadblogger. I have figured out the key to not getting invites: write an honest post about your experiences (hi Legoland!)
hah, or start blogging your way through the "closet full of free baby products [you] never liked," like the from dates to diapers lady.
I've been told you can always ask for "green sauce" on your tacos even though it is not listed. Me -- I'll pass.
Just read the LA Times piece you link to. Having spent much time at the Frito Lay headquarters in Texas, that is more of a punishment than a perk.
Car service? I was forced to slum in corporate shuttles. This is an outrage!