Ask and you shall receive

I love getting mail (even if the mail doesn’t love me). I also know that I’m not alone in liking free stuff.

The Stuff

On two separate occasions, I signed up on Facebook pages to receive something free.

Mio released two new flavors: lemonade and blueberry lemonade. Already being a Mio user, I got excited when they let Facebook fans request to try a “sample” of one of the flavors. I  requested a blueberry lemonade. Six to ten days later, I had a full-size blueberry lemonade in the mailbox.20120501-084807.jpg

Target (or maybe it was Target Style) allowed their Facebook fans to request a free beauty bag with product samples. I jumped on the opportunity to try some different skincare problems and get some bonus coupons. When my Target beauty bag arrived, it was better than I had expected! The bag alone was worth the time spent submitted my request.

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Excuse me, my PR is showing

As a consumer, when I requested the items on Facebook, I was playing straight into a marketing plan. And I don’t care.

When I got the items, I connected with the brands, I recognized that they followed through (technical difficulties and all) and I appreciated my loot. After all, I am writing a blog about it!

What’s more… being able to try the new flavor of Mio without investing the 4-ish dollars into it just for a taste (the only reason I even purchased Mio before is because someone let me try theirs!). Now that I know I like it, there’s a good chance it’ll end up in my shopping cart when this container is gone.

With the Target bag, sure I’m going to try the sample products and probably like them. The bag will most likely get sucked into the diabetes-vacuum and carry out it’s days being home to a spare meter and back up syringes. The coupon book might encourage me to buy my next bottle of lotion or tube of face wash at Target. Once I’m in Target… well you know about the Target Phenomenon.*

Plus, in some cases, people like a page in order to request a freebie then never unlike the page, effectively handing their eyeballs to the brand’s marketing communications team for an undefined time period.(I am not on either of the mentioned brand’s teams.)

*ahem* 

What was I saying?

Oh yes! Free stuff. Free stuff is cool. It makes consumer-Rachel AND communicator-Rachel happy.

*The Target Phenomenon is the frequent occurrence of walking into Target with the intent to purchase a few items with a total value of (or under $20) and walking out of Target with several items totaling five times the intended purchase value.

Disclaimer: Neither Target nor Mio (or any brands associated with these giveaways) requested that I write about my experience. I requested samples as a regular consumer and was pleased enough to talk about them.

3 thoughts on “Ask and you shall receive

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