At the intersection of commerce and narcissism...and now charity, too...

A recent article in Wired let a blogger unburden himself of his flirtations with PayPerPost, a site that pays bloggers to write posts. It's a simple enough set-up - pay otherwise impartial folks to talk about products or companies so as to start a bit of buzz going. And, in the spirit of true disclosure, it's something that I took part in once before through a different company.

Plus it's something that celebrities do all the time.

It's not a thing that I'm entirely opposed to, even though the concept of schmucks like you and me turning into spokespeople is a little unsettling to me. I understand the draw for the companies, sure. If you hear something from a friend or coworker that you already trust, if they just sort of casually mention something - particularly if they already know your tastes and tailor their "casual" mention to those tastes, you just might be more likely to be influenced to try that fabulous new product. Plus there's the fact that hiring you and me costs pennies on the dollar instead of the thousands that it would take to get a big time celebrity spokesperson.

And now comes this email that came to the other co-chair of our Pasta for Pennies campaign:



I understand how the company found us as we've been advertising the 5K on every runners club and running store website that we could find, but it's still a little weird to think that our little event - something that I think of as being just barely bigger than the Princeton community folks - somehow got the attention of what I think of as a real company.

We're probably going to go ahead and have Fuze as a sponsor for the race - which means they'll likely be handing out their beverages and finding their logo on the back of our shirts. Partially because of the flattery of somebody else thinking of our race as being a big enough deal to want to use it to advertise and partially because we really want to give our runners as cool an experience at the finish line as we can.

But there's a tiny touch of icky in being asked to advertise...

...at least in doing it so overtly.

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I discussed this with my campaign co-coordinator, her view is that we actively go out seeking this kind of thing from local businesses. Why should that process going in the reverse direction be any different, much less worse?

I think it's because it somehow seems different when we go and ask a local business where we know people and who exist in our community instead of a faceless corporation contacting us asking us somehow to endorse a product about which we know nothing and for which we have absolutely no affinity at all.

And, as always, because I'm a human so I can hold two opposing viewpoints in my mind at the same time.

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In an update, another business has contacted us.

This one feels even less genuine because it seems much more a form letter request.