Give up the booty: the politics of swag

It's the night before BlogHer08, and already the swag is pouring in. So far, I have been to three parties and have received a bunch of stickers, a red plastic clown nose, a can opener, some buttons, a granola bar of some sort, a charm bracelet, some popcorn and several other items I can't quite identify.

Before the conference is over, I'm expecting to get three more bags of stuff.

Now here's the thing: my mother always taught me to be a gracious gift recipient, so I apologize in advance for what I am about to say:

Enough with the swag already.

As someone who works in marketing, I go to a fair number of conferences. And so I am acutely aware that in a landfill somewhere not far away, thousands of chipped logo mugs and stress balls and broken pens are slowly, slowly releasing their chemical juices back into the earth.

But there's something different here: the sheer, relentless scale of it all. And there's another issue at stake: the assumption that all women who blog are obsessed with products.

If you look at the conference agenda for BlogHer this year, you'll see sessions on politics, on privacy, on personal finance and the convergence of traditional and new media, in addition to the parenting and business-related panels. I have a hard time believing that Joanne Bamberger, for example, who has written for many outlets from MOMocrats to the Washington and Huffington Posts, is likely to immediately start peppering her posts with references to granola bars and tooth whiteners.

Now I'm not saying that brands shouldn't try to engage with women bloggers: we're here, we're powerful consumers, and many (Cool Mom Picks comes to mind) do wonderful, thoughtful product reviews. And there are many, many other productive ways to engage with us beyond the obvious.

And this isn't to say that I won't ooh and ahh when I open my bags tomorrow, or that I won't appreciate or be intrigued by many of the gifts inside. In the interest of full disclosure, probably I will. But let's face it: swag does not equal engagement. Most of this stuff will end up getting donated to Goodwill or advertised on Freecycle before it makes its inevitable way back to the earth. And the people and brands we remember will be the ones who stopped to talk, or to comment on something we wrote, or who made a real effort to find out what our readers really care about..

Here's the secret on the treasure map: personal, specific, authentic, transparent. And no two-ounce sample of passion fruit hand lotion can replace it.

Friday am update: Just learned there's a recycle room here for the stuff people don't want, and that it gets donated to people who do. Awesome.

Comments

[Liz]

Thank you so much for the kind words about Cool Mom Picks.

Agree we're all sort of scratching our heads here about the clown noses. I think that part of the issue with the swag (and holy hell is there a lot of it!) is relevance. Just because someone has a product to give out doesn't mean they always should. I also wonder what the aim of the giveaways are - to engage us as consumers, or as potential evangelists.