Testing the Marketing spiel by giving stuff away

I was being entertained with wine and lovely food one night and being told of the latest weapon for busy mums. The all in one face cream.

I am not really sure what they said, I got side tracked on twitter and also on the words, ‘charities we work with,’ and ‘improvements we have made to reduce greenhouse gases’.

All the bloggers in the room were given the chance to do a large giveaway to ten of their readers, but I am still not sure how my readers like (or dislike) the giveaways I have. There is often very little response to them (this should tell me something).

So I decided to see how true Garnier were in there marketing spiel. I asked them to send me as many of the product boxes that they were happy for me to giveaway to people/organisations that I thought could benefit.

A couple of weeks later and this was the lounge room.

This is flats like where Charlie and Lola live, complete with car ramp.

Initially I wanted to donate all 19 to a woman’s shelter. This has proven a difficult task. Women’s shelters are well protected, for good reason, and they don’t really encourage random people walking up with boxes. I considered dropping them with the section of the police that work with women’s protection, but they are also quite overworked and it is not their job to go handing out my giveaways.

So I looked closer to home, I found a charity that is looking for items to raffle to raise funds and gave them a couple, I took some to my regular family services group, dropped some at a pregnancy support services near me and have given some to another group who have started looking for gifts for families this Christmas, usually the kids get most of them, so now the Mums will get a little something too.

So thank you Garnier. You stood behind the words you uttered in the marketing spiel and have made a difference to a few extra women this week.  It may be a small gift to many, but sometimes that is all you need to change your day.

I should also add, that I only did this as I thought the product was worth giving. I use it, I like it and I will keep using it, especially as I can get it for under fifteen smackers from the supermarket. But I am also fully aware that $15 is a lot when you can barely afford nappies. 

Have you ever found it difficult to give things away?