will blog for dishwasher

Every day I get email from someone wanting me to review something on my blog. I usually don’t respond. I think the only reviews I’ve done are for books—and I usually ask to review those!

I do, however, volunteer for market research studies separate from the blog. I’ve done this for years—go taste test yogurt for an hour and get $50 kinds of deals. When the noisy boys were babies I did a diaper study that paid for our diapers for at least a month. That was cool. My favorite, though, was when a woman came to my house with her marketing people and watched me make soup, then asked me a bunch of questions about the soup making experience. I even made a poster about how the food made me feel. They gave me $300 for my time.

Last night I got a call from one of my research places with another cooking gig. I answered the questions honestly, and they said I didn’t qualify. Then they called back and said I did. For a special blogging review.

They wanted me to cook with their products and blog every day for three weeks about the experience. Every. Day. About. Food. And then spend three hours with a focus group talking about the experience. All for $200.

I asked her to call the company and clarify—every day? They want me to blog about their food every day for three weeks? Wouldn’t that get, um, boring? She put me on hold.

“Yup. Every day for three weeks. That’s the deal.”

I told her I’d do it once. ONE review on the blog. ONE focus group.

No deal.

Bummer. I do like the cooking stuff…but to turn my blog into some weird marketing machine defeats the purpose of blogging. (Maybe I’m a hypocrite since I’ve got ads in my sidebar, but I can live with that. The ads don’t dictate what I write and for pete’s sake somebody has to fund my Starbucks habit.)

Now. If someone wants to offer me a new dishwasher, we can talk. I’ll blog every day for a week for a new dishwasher.

(Yeah, those are some dishpan hands typing. Our dishwasher bit the dust a few weeks ago and we’ve yet to replace it. I’m just so irritated because it was a NICE dishwasher. A Kitchen Aid. The quiet kind. And it just up and died after only seven years. The repair people I’ve talked to tell me to just buy a new one. They don’t last as long as they used to, blah, blah, blah. But only seven years? Is it just me or is that crazy?)

Maybe we’ll just teach the noisy boys how to do dishes.