Why “5 Simple Steps to make the most of The Great Giveaway” turned into a nightmare for millions of online bargain hunters.

Last week I received a press release from UK-based discount electronics retailer Buy It Direct.

It heralded a massive free giveaway of stock from their Huddersfield warehouse, in order to make way for new stock. That’s the story, anyway:

Buyitdirect.co.uk are holding The Great Giveaway, for one day only starting 1am Monday 4th May 2009. Thousands of high value products will be exclusively available online for FREE on a strictly first come first serve basis.

So what’s the catch? There isn’t one – buyitdirect.co.uk are expanding and need the space in the warehouse to make room for some new products. Rather than disposing of the products or sending them back to the manufacturers they decided to give Credit Crunch Consumers the chance to get their hands on some amazing products for FREE. Smeg fridges, Sony LCD TV’s, Laptops and Miele washing machines are just some of the branded products included in the promotion. The only cost the customer pays is the shipping charge of £4.95.

Staying up until 1am on a bank holiday Monday seemed a small price to pay for the possibility of bagging a bargain…

A few things didn’t sit right, though:

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Given the vocal nature of bloggers, the snub I received today from Sony is a little strange. Perhaps Sony doesn’t fully understand the outspoken immediacy of many blogs, or perhaps they really don’t care.

A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to attend Sony’s latest BRAVIA ad photo shoot in Miami. I must admit, I was a little bemused to have been “chosen”, given that — at that time — only a handful of bloggers had been invited, but given my work on Tech Digest and HDTV UK, it was justified enough.

For an expenses-paid to trip to Miami, I’d be able to report to close-on half-a-million monthly visitors to both sites about the photo shoot, and some of Sony’s latest camcorders.

However, today I was informed — most apologetically — by one of Sony’s PR companies that I’d been dropped from the trip, due to a change in filming dates, “logistical issues”, and… because “Sony is only keen to get US based bloggers”.

OUCH!

It seems that, despite Sony being happy enough to use a tower block in Scotland for their exploding paint ad (perhaps an exploding high rise in America wouldn’t have gone down so well?), when it comes to filming an ad in the US, and despite the likelihood that it will be used worldwide, Sony only wants US bloggers to cover it.

Now, I must make it clear that I’m not particularly bothered about the trip. Yes, it would have been an interesting thing to do, and I’ll happily accept the offer of free travel and accommodation, but the “logistics” of planning a trip away when there are still the same number of targets and deadlines to achieve is no small task.

It wouldn’t have been a holiday.

However, the supposed snub is rather unfortunate. As a freelancer and a blogger — even for a relatively large UK new media company — I would never expect to be invited on these kinds of trips.

So, to be invited — I thought — showed some forward thinking on behalf of a company that should already be forward thinking — technology, after all, is nothing less than shaping the future.

What should have happened? Sony should have been more organised, and decided exactly what they wanted before trying to entice bloggers out to their PR event.

Filming dates rearranged? Flights do that too.

Apparently, I’m on the list for “next time” — whatever and whenever that might be. Thing is, I’m not sure I’m particularly interested now.

Companies, listen up — bloggers tend not to like being used as pawns in your PR games. Actually, I reckon most media professionals don’t, either, though I’d imagine (perhaps wrongly) that the most established media gets slightly better treatment.

Update: TrafficJam.com is now live, read my Blog Herald news post about the launch.

Update 2: Blog Rush shuts down for good and I can’t say I’m surprised.

Good for you, John — everyone needs a break and I don’t mind that.

However, it’s been a long time since I’ve heard anything about BlogRush, and I’m starting to wonder if it’s just a stagnant project.

Actually, I quite like BlogRush, so — unlike some of the nay-sayers — I’m prepared to give it a go.

In the niche that my BlogRush-accepted blog resides, I’ve found some decent blogs because of the widget. Yes, I could’ve found them in other ways, but it was easy to do.

While my traffic conversion isn’t amazing, it isn’t terrible either — given that the whole system is effectively free (apart from the space you have to give up on your blog, of course, which could arguably be put to better / more profitable use)

Still, I’d like to find out a few things, and as your blog doesn’t accept comments (perhaps you’re frightened of criticism?), I’ll have to write my questions here. Whether you read them, is another matter, because…

1. …none of your support staff ever replied to my email enquiring why one of my sites was rejected from the network. That’s plain rude, given that your page invites such questions. Actually, you never sent the original explanation email either.

2. What’s happening with this TrafficJam.com project? It sounds dead in the water. It’s all very well talking about 2008 and massive opportunity but that was two weeks ago. Small time bloggers like me can still get away with that, but just because you’re “not a typical blogger”, you are still (supposedly) a “big fish” in your niche.

That’s why so many people joined and endorsed BR in the first place.

3. What other stages are coming up? That “stage two” video has been idling for months now. What about stage 3? How is my web site, and my readers, and my niche, going to benefit from being a part of BlogRush / TrafficJam / Project X, Y, Z … ?

4. I’ve heard that you kicked quite a few people out, and yet never told them why.

I’m wondering if it’s because they didn’t place the widget above the fold as you asked people back in November to do.

Yet, I’m still visiting blogs where the widget is way down at the bottom of the page, or stuffed —half-obscured — in an inline frame.

I PUT MY WIDGET at the top of the page — I don’t begrudge that, it looks OK — but why, three months on, are there still sites flouting your own guidelines. No wonder the conversion rates are pretty pathetic.

So, basically…

5. WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO GIVE BLOGRUSH A KICK UP THE BACKSIDE

OR

6. WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO OFFICIALLY KILL BLOGRUSH AND LET US ALL GET ON WITH SOMETHING ELSE?

I don’t feel any particular loyalty, but something nags at me to stick with BlogRush, even when many others have shunned it.

That won’t last much longer.

PLEASE, tell us what’s going on. At least update your blog more than once a month, even if it’s to say “we’re working on it” (don’t push it, though. If you’re still saying that in July with NOTHING to show for it, then it’s “goodbye”)

Thanks John. What’s happening?

The BBC has recently started running some seasonal adverts encouraging viewers to buy a DAB digital radio for Christmas, instead of unwanted gifts such as naff perfume or nasty jumpers.

It seems that UK-based “The Perfume Shop” has taken great offence at these humorous ads, to the point that they’re lodging an official complaint to determine whether the BBC’s guidelines have been broken. Oh, and they’ve written to the BBC’s DG, Mark Thompson.

Jeremy Seigal, Managing Director of The Perfume Shop, said, ““The BBC should not be trying to influence what people buy at Christmas solely to promote and protect its own broadcasting future. Their message that aftershave is not a ‘goodÂ’ present is wrong. Each Christmas we sell over one million bottles of aftershave but sadly, our advertising budgets will never be able to match the massive impact of the thousands of ‘freeÂ’ adverts so far run by the BBC.”

Oh, look, the Fragrance Foundation aren’t happy either.

John Ayres, Chairman of The Fragrance Foundation UK said, “This is irresponsible advertising by the BBC. With all the economic forecasters pointing to a poor Christmas and this holiday season being the most important trading time for retailers and fragrances in particular, the BBC should be promoting their own services rather than attempting to deprive other companies of Christmas sales. If the BBC was a more commercial operation and accepted advertising on its stations, it might be a little more careful whom it chose to offend!”

To all you smelly companies, I say, “Please get a life”.

While I don’t agree with masking truly and grossly offensive content in humour, this is supposed to be a gentle poke at the stereotypical “bad present”, which is now fully ingrained in British folklore.

It’s not the first time the BBC has been criticised for covert advertising, but I think that’s a slightly different issue. Buying a DAB radio will allow people to listen to both BBC and commercial radio stations. Perhaps perfumeries would consider taking out cost-effective advertising on the IBA network?

The BBC encourage people to buy “cheaper” DAB radios. Surely there’s enough room in someone’s budget to give other presents too? If that includes aftershave, socks, and bad jumpers then so be it.

Quite honestly, I think the whole argument is petty, and by making such a fuss you’ve actually discouraged me from buying any of your products.

Take a look in the mirror at your phrase, and make it work for you:

“If the [Perfume Shop] must advertise, then possibly it should stick to promoting its own [products] rather than [sending out] negative messages about [national broadcasters]?””

After all, by sending out this press release and making a fuss, you’re presumably trying to get some free publicity. Yes? Just a shame it makes you look stupid.

I can’t remember how I found BlogRush (non affiliate as I’m not sure I can recommend them to anyone at present) but I think it was a direct email invitation.

They must have been desperate to begin with, because they accepted one of my blogs.

I say this because, despite having jumped through hoops to ensure that the blog met the new quality criteria (which I agreed with), such as moving the widget above the fold, and such like, when I submitted a new blog with the same level of content, the same template layout, and three to four times the number of visitors, it was rejected.

And I didn’t get any explanation as to why, despite the FAQ saying there’d be an email sent to me.

The stupid thing is that, despite a lot of people saying how pathetic Blogrush is, I decided to stick with them as Phase 2 sounded interesting. That’s precisely why I added (or tried to add) a second blog, of equal if not better quality, to the first.

It seems that’s not welcome, and the lack of courtesy which couldn’t even run to an automated response makes me wonder if my first blog is very soon going to be for the chop.

I don’t know, but as someone who hasn’t written anything negative about Blogrush, and who doesn’t run spam blogs, it’s actually a little insulting.

Yeah, sure, they say not to take it personally, but when it’s supposedly being human-checked now, it’s hard not to.

Come on, Mr Reese, if you want this to be a success you need to look after the people who ARE sticking with you. Or are you too big to really care? After all, you’ve made all of your money, haven’t you?

I can forgive an MP3 player that insists on sticking an “i” at the beginning of its name in order to be “cool”.

I can forgive the additional lowercase letters and alternative spellings.

Surely, though, someone in marketing must’ve said the name back to themselves a few times and thought “this doesn’t sound right”

According to the press release, it “precisely reflects the desires of the young, trend-conscious target group we are aiming for”.

Uh-huh?

[Worst MP3 Player Name Ever: i.Beat blaxx (Shiny Shiny)]

Update: It’s been renamed