Editors of magazines and newspapers get free stuff ALL the time. It's part of a pitch. If you want a little editorial action for your brand, you send out samples to the key magazines, as well as bloggers. Have you ever seen Parents, Parenting, Cookie or any OTHER magazine or newspaper disclose that the products they have featured in their "must have" sections were given to them for free? Do you think any of these magazines would actually go out and pay for a product to feature? Of course not! It's part of the deal. I think it's safe to say the only publication that actually buys products to review is consumer reports. The difference is blogger reviews are editorial, not scientific. Bloggers don't put products through rigorous laboratory tests, they put the product on their kid and comment on what happens. Media, whether it's a blog reviewer, magazine or the Today show, needs to get the product in their hands to look at it, feel it and hey, maybe even use it, to see if it's something worth writing about. If product companies made everyone PAY for press samples, then there would be no editorial or feature coverage anymore, JUST ADS. I think the issue is that bloggers are getting more and more influencial and the tradiitional media is getting intimidated because their ad revenues are down.

Just saying no sometimes absolutely makes sense, I agree. I also had to start saying no sometimes on the opposite end of the blogosphere, as a product person being pitched by bloggers. I did say yes to just about everyone in the beginning for the same reasons that you would say yes when being pitched for reviews, fearing that saying no would somehow blackball my product in the community. But I began to realize, just as in the good old days of traditional advertising, that you need to carefully choose who you associate your brand with. A women's fashion brand wouldn't place ads in a men's car magazine. I had a children's shoe brand, and was pitched by a blogger who had a high end shoe blog that featured fancy high heeled shoes for fancy high heeled girls, which is fine, but made absolutely no sense for a playful brand of children's shoes. I was also pitched by a foodie blogger. Having a random review for kids' shoes surrounded by posts about recipes and kitchen gadgets didn't make sense. The readers of those blogs wouldn't care about my product. Your brand, whether it be a product or a blog, needs to be presented in a consistent manner to build validity. As a blogger, you should stay focused on your individual voice and products that are consistent with your interests and lifestyle. That's why people read your blogs. The personal connection to something is key. Product companies want reviews of their products to be done by people who ACTUALLY would use their products in the course of their normal lives. This approach is a win, win, win scenario for the bloggers, the products and the readers.