Marketing Shark

Ok, here's a weird one.

As I mentioned before, and as you all are aware of if you blog, we bloggers get many emails from companies and organizations asking us to mention them on our blog for marketing purposes, sometimes with a free prize as incentive. I am not so big on doing that, but maybe that's because no company that I really actually liked has ever asked me. Do you hear me, Anthropologie? How about you, Lola Pop shoe store? I'll even take you, Trophy Cupcakes.

But no. I always seem to get asked by a place that I really have no interest in promoting. The other day, I got an email from a cable network, asking me to promote a series they are doing on shark attacks. I have no idea why I would do that. Really, I'm asking. Why would I do that? Normally, I would delete the email before even reading the whole thing, but for some reason I skimmed this one. And then I got to this line.

"We’ve been building incredible excitement for this annual event with a breakthrough online marketing campaign that’s been generating great buzz. Many bloggers received their own personalized shark story in a custom bottle which contained the artifacts of an imaginary shark attack."

What...the hell...does THAT mean?

So many questions. They are sending bloggers their own personalized shark story? Like, personalized how? A shark story where they insert my name as the victim of a shark attack? Why would I want that? "The shark tore at Librarian Girl's leg until it ripped off of her body..." I mean, yikes. Or maybe it's personalized like I am the shark? And the victim is a person of my choice? That's better, but still. "Librarian Girl stalked her prey with steely resolve. Sean Hannity paddled along on his surfboard, never suspecting that his face was about to be a distant memory..."

They put the personalized shark story, whatever that is, into a custom bottle. A custom bottle? How exactly is it custom, I wonder?

But then, my favorite part. The custom bottle, which, at one time or another, in the past, contained an artifact of an imaginary shark attack.

AN ARTIFACT.

Let us ruminate on what such an artifact might be. What sort of artifact would result from an imaginary shark attack? An imaginary shark tooth? An imaginary spattering of blood? An imaginary shark turd? An imaginary hospital bill?

But it doesn't matter what that artifact is, because that statement is written in past tense. You are not getting the artifact. You are getting a bottle which ONCE HELD that artifact. So- do they tell you what that artifact was? And how do you know it was really once there?

It can't really be there, though, can it? Because it is from an imaginary event. So wouldn't the artifact, too, be imaginary?

Wait, I just read it again, and it says artifacts. Plural. Not just one thing that once lived in that custom bottle. Two things. Perhaps more. Things that they removed, and replaced with a copy of your own personalized shark story. Because if you had a choice between artifacts of something imaginary and a personalized shark story, then you would choose the shark story, right? I mean, duh. And if you didn't choose that, and you decided you really wanted the artifacts, too frickin' bad. They have removed them.

I almost want to advertise this show just so I can get my hands on what this could be.