As a fashion/beauty/lifestyle blogger, I am frequently the recipient of free stuff. Free stuff can absolutely be great, and some of it is very welcome, indeed. (Thanks for the camera, Nikon…sorry it, uh, broke). Of course, other free swag heads straight for people who are, well, not me (The Ultimate Pregnancy Guide can wait for another five ten years, thanks), while still more things I receive are so downright baffling that–after a great deal of head scratching–they ultimately meet their end in the garbage. (Three cases of nail stickers? An entire box stuffed with knife sharpeners?)
Regardless of the pile in which products end up, nothing amuses me more than the ways in which PR people pack them. Just recently, for example, I was sent some unsolicited hair product:
(Normal Sized hair Serum)
A nice, normal, even appropriate thing to send to a blogger in my position. I would have forgotten all about it, in fact. Except. Except that said hair product came alone, without so much as a card or product spec sheet, in this box:
(Obscenely Large Box)
Understandably, this packaging decision was cause for great consternation on my end:
(Consternation!)
I couldn’t help but wonder: Was it possible that this massive monstrosity of a box was the only thing that the PR representative could unearth to send her product in? Why not just pick up something smaller at the post office when mailing the damn thing? Or perhaps the large box was a symbol of the hair product’s greatness? Perhaps a smaller box would just not do for something as life changing as (checks photo again) Frizz-Ease?
While puzzling over this great mystery, (I have a lot of free time lately. Layoffs and all of that.) it occurred to me that by sending the hair product in the truly massive box, the PR rep in question had managed to make something completely forgettable (for which I have no use, by the way–I have stick straight, humidity-proof hair) actually stand out from the pack of other free stuff. Realizing this, I at last gave a nod of understanding. Nay, a nod of respect.
Well played, you nameless PR rep without a card. Well played.
