Wednesday, April 9, 2008

The Power of the Blog

Let me share a random short story with you:

A couple weeks ago, I bought a stick of my usual deodorant at a local retail store. I won't give the brand of the deodorant, or the name of the store from which I purchased it, because it's irrelevant to the story. When I opened the brand-new deodorant to use it a few days later, I found it was all dried out and crumbly. Unusable. And the expiration date listed said 2010.

I wanted to complain, so I filled out a contact form on the company's Web site. I filled in all my information and, at the very end of the form, was curious to find these three questions:

1. Are you a blogger?

2. How often do you participate in online forums/message boards?

3. How likely are you to recommend a brand/product based on your experience?

So is the company trying to gauge how much of a stink (no pun intended) I'm going to raise if they don't satisfy my inquiry to my liking? Don't you find it interesting that they're interested in knowing if I'm a blogger? Does my affirmative blogging status give this company the impression that I have a supreme power of influence (and if so, should I stop letting this go to my head)?

1 comment:

Christine said...

It probably did. Maybe that's why they're sending you a physical new product rather than just a coupon?