I’ve long been a fan of Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty” - as where else on television can you see pictures of normally-sized women?  Their latest ad is focused on kids and their exposure to needing to be perfect starting at a very young age.  Unfortunately, that “perfect” ideal only exists in Photoshop.  The whole topic is near and dear to my heart.  A little more self-esteem and pride in my shape as an adolescent, then teenager, might have saved me from years of bodily abuse trying to whip my short, widely-hipped frame into a model’s torso.

Here’s a link to the video with more information on the campaign:

http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/home.asp?source=octddo_video

It’s quite ironic, frankly, that after one of the worst days I’ve had in a while, we end up having one of the best days we’ve had.  Life has a way of balancing out.  It’s also ironic that on a day when Jennifer and I decided to part with a significant chunk of money to hire a PR firm to help pitch our nap mats to a variety of outlets including television, magazines like Parents and Parenting and Working Mother, and local and national newspapers, we get 5 seconds (literally) of fame for FREE.  FREE!!!! 

It all started this morning around 9 AM.  We sell a onesie that says “I’m Told I Like Golf”.  It was very popular around Father’s Day, but this morning we started getting orders back to back for it.  Out of the blue.  That NEVER happens.  One customer told us that they “saw us on CNN” during a segment about Tiger Woods’ new baby daughter.  Jennifer was so surprised she was in rare form:  she was speechless.  We just assumed that our manufacturer had gifted the onesie to Tiger (she had).  For those of you who don’t live and breathe celebrity baby apparel, one of the ways manufacturers promote their products is by “gifting” their clothing to celebrities and hoping that they put it on their children and that the paparazzi photograph them wearing their threads.  So it was natural for us to assume that a picture of Tiger Woods’ daughter, wearing “I’m Told I Like Golf”, had hit the internet somehow and CNN had picked it up. 

We continued taking orders all day for the onesie and t-shirts.  The manufacturer was going nuts trying to find the segment on CNN because she, like us, had no idea it had aired.  She also assumed that it was featured because Tiger had put it on his daughter. 

Fast forward to 8 PM tonight.  Jennifer, the master of searching on the internet, couldn’t find anything in the transcripts from CNN.  Our manufacturer had been obsessively watching CNN for hours.  No mention.  She was beginning to wonder if our customers were hallucinating or making it up just to torture her.  I broke down and called Helen who is the master of all things PR. Within 2 minutes, she’d found the transcript and the full 5 seconds of our mention.  Jackie Schechner had reported on some fun things for Tiger’s “cub”.  Here’s the excerpt: 

SCHECHNER: Ah, actually, I have to show you. I found this Web site called Baby Golf, which is all dedicated to things golf and little younguns. I also found this onesie on line that says, “I’m told I like golf.” I thought that was kind of fun, too. So, I bet she will start really, really early.

Apparently, she showed a screen shot of the Baby Golf site, and a screenshot of . . . yes . . . .wait for it . . . SassyOnesies.com!  I am pooping in my pants right now!!!

Those 5 seconds of CNN prompted a horde of people to google “Sassy Onesies” and buy this item from us.  As Helen put it, “That’s the power of PR right there.”  And it feels so good!  I’m actually looking forward to plopping down thousands of dollars on PR in the next three months!  This is better than drugs, sex AND rock and roll, combined!!!

So, if any of you happened to see the segment on CNN’s American Morning today around 9 AM, PLEASE let us know! In the meantime, we’re trying to order the actual segment so we can see what it looked like. 

I’m sure most of you have noticed the Dove “Campaign for Real Beauty” ads out right now.  They are pretty cool.  Here’s a link to one of the commercials. I haven’t seen it on television, so I thought I’d post it here.  Made me feel a little better about all those PMS pimples I seem to have. 

Yes, I just received notification - Jennifer and I are going to be speaking at the national Accounting Marketing conference in Denver in June. I don’t know whether to barf or jump up and down for joy. The barfing because speaking in front of that many people, especially senior marketing directors in our industry, scares the living bejesus out of me - the jumping for joy part because once you speak nationally, it’s much easier to get additional speaking engagements - FOR MONEY. It’s one of those rare moments that I will savor as I can actually feel our company breaking through another barrier. Usually I don’t realize we’ve surpassed something we wanted until much later. I don’t stop and smell the roses very often. So for the next 30 seconds, before I begin to freak out about what we’re going to talk about for an hour and fifteen minutes that involves branding and e-mail marketing, I’m going to enjoy this moment and cackle internally at all the other speakers we beat out for this gig. HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!

Lily found out about bathtub crayons last night. They are the coolest thing - you can write all over the shower/tub and they rinse right off. The only problem with them is getting the child to release them from her deathgrip in order to towel her off or wash her hands. I wonder if giving them to her isn’t creating a major problem - how will she know the difference between bathtub crayons and regular crayons? I can see her decorating my mother’s house with primal art on the walls.

We’re leaving for Asheboro tomorrow, to see my aunt and uncle and take Lily to the zoo. Saturday we’ll go to Pinehurst for a quick stopover and then head back to Richmond on Sunday. It will be interesting to see how she does at the zoo, or if she’s even interested. I love looking at the animals so at least I know I’ll have a good time! My silly uncle was concerned about all the walking I would have to do there - you know, in my pregnant state and all . . . I guess if I can’t haul my fat butt around efficiently they can get a wheelchair for me and just pull me around, or I can try to fit in Lily’s stroller with her.