Or, how the rich get richer…
Regular readers will remember that earlier on this year, there was much temporary excitement round these parts when This Morning (which, for American readers, is a major networked morning TV show in the UK) called in the Atelier LZC Bee mirror for a feature.
The excitement quickly abated when the mirror wasn’t mentioned at all during the feature and indeed only a tiny corner of it was fleetingly visible during the programme, resulting in absolutely no sales whatsoever.
This is pretty much par for the course, I would say of everything that is called in by journalists etc. only about 25% is actually used in any capacity. As is also par for the course the mirror was never returned to us.
Most journalists are really bad at returning stuff. In theory they’re meant to return it, and some are very good about it, but many seem to assume that you’ve just given them a generous gift, whether or not they actually use the item in their publication. The mythical Vogue accessories closet is not just a myth (and yes, one of their staffers managed to ‘acquire’ a couple of scented candles a year or so back, though they had at least featured them in the magazine). And it doesn’t seem to matter to them whether the company they’re ‘acquiring’ things from is a huge multinational behemoth, or a teeny tiny online shop.
The reason I’m writing about this scam now is that when we emailed This Morning to enquire as to the whereabouts of the mirror, we were told by the researcher that it had been ‘passed on to Fern’. For the uninitiated Fern Britton is the main anchorwoman of the show, one of the very few women on TV that I actually like, and one of the highest paid women on UK TV.
While part of me is pleased that Fern liked it enough to ‘acquire’ it, she has gone down a long way in my estimation. Though to be fair, This Morning did say we could invoice them (but only after we’d emailed them).
The temptation to write “as ‘acquired’ by Fern Britton” on the mirror product page is almost too strong to resist. At least that way we might get SOME publicity out of all this.
And with this post all chances of ‘mirrormirror’ ever being on the telly have just disappeared….
I feel your pain Paola. I actually put in the loan letter than we’re a small business and ask for samples to be turned around quickly. I also chase up fairly quickly, not that this always works. We’ve lost a few samples but actually I would say we get about 90% back. Most annoying one for me was the now defunct Family Circle, not really my market anyway, requesting 3 of my most expensive bags, not featuring any of them and then never returning them … Grrr.