What Do I Have To Do To Get a T-Shirt?

I’ll never forget the first time I interviewed for a promotions company. “So you are ok with promoting alcohol even though you treat alcoholics for your full time job?” the interviewer asked me. “Well, I drink even though I treat alcoholics. It’s not like I’m actually in the program. Besides, I need to keep my clientele up.” I guess that was the right answer, because the next weekend I started promoting Heineken Premium Light in bars across Philadelphia for twice the money I was being paid to help people stop drinking. By day I spoke of alcohol as the poison of society and held the hands of its victims; by night I handed out free drinks and bribed consumers to buy beverages with branded t-shirts and novelty key chain bottle openers. I lead a double life. I felt like Republican, except I wasn’t cheating on my spouse.

Promotions have saved my ass financially more than once. I have gone through career changes and layoffs, but it remains constant that someone will pay me to flash a winning smile and swear that their merchandise is the best I have ever come by. For as long as products and services are sold, there will be marketing. For as long as marketing exists, there will be tactics for selling that involve attractive women. For as long as I have a pulse under the age of 40, I plan to be attractive enough to promo whore myself out for every marketing company I come across. Regardless of employment, marital, and parental status I will keep open legs and purse strings to any job that pays an unnecessarily ridiculous amount of money for me to look good, answer inconsequential questions, hand out free things, and refer any inquiries more complicated than, “What do I have to do to get a t-shirt?” to the people who actually work a 9-5 job for the company. This isn’t shallow or an “easy way out” tactic, it’s a survival skill.

Many common judgments exist about brand ambassadors (a.k.a. promo models), most of which are myths, but some of which are very, very true.

Myth: All promo models are just a pretty face. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Many of the promo models I know are hard working women working a second job or networking for their careers or just making an extra buck to get ahead of the game. I have met some of my best friends selling my soul to the marketing devils. These ladies and I have something in common; we are hustlers. We fake it until we make it and clench our teeth to a pearly white smile for those dollar signs. Whether it means nicer vacations, paying for graduate school, putting food on the table in tough times, or just using our positions to meet potential clients for our non-fun jobs, we all have an ulterior motive that doesn’t include getting hit on by strangers.

Truth: Promoting kicks ass. Well, not all of the time, but no job is pure awesomeness. When you get down to what we actually do, promo models have it made. Our job requirements are to show up (more or less on time, but almost any excuse is accepted as long as you make an appearance), smile and be friendly to everyone (even if they are such an asshole that there is no possible way that even their own kin would be nice to them), and remember what we are promoting (a task made easier by the supplied uniforms with the product logo printed right under our noses). The rest isn’t very challenging. There are no expectations to know any valuable or crucial details, since we are contracted by marketing agencies and don’t actually work for whatever company we are promoting. Any tasks of surveys, data collection, or consumer education are made simple enough that Sarah Palin could do it without cue cards.

Myth: Anyone can be a promo model. The truth is that pretty much anyone who breathes is capable of being a promo model, but not anyone can actually be a promo model. There are a few simple requirements that weed out the majority of the population. First, you need to be attractive or at least pull off the façade of attractiveness. As shallow and stupid as it sounds, unattractive people do not get hired. Period. Attractiveness has a specific definition for promo model though. You need to either have an awesome body and load on enough make-up to distract the world from your huge nose or you need to have a relatively average body and a face that screams “I belong in a Maybelline commercial next to Heidi Klum.” Either way, you need a nice smile that includes a full set of teeth that had (or look like they had) braces at some point even if they have shifted a little bit. Bigger the boobs and a tiny waist make up ill-defined cheek bones and a lack of skill with make-up. Perfect bone structure makes up for a flat chest and legs that are shorter than your torso. Just remember that companies only supply uniforms in promo girl versions of extra small, small and medium sizes, which translate to mean extra, extra small, extra small, and small real world sizes.

Second, you need to be perky in the worst situations possible. Picture being the only sober person in a dive bar, dressed in booty shorts and a top that hardly covers your tits while frat boys who actually think it’s acceptable to shotgun beers at the bar hit on you and drunk girls who got in with fake i.d.’s all but yack in your handbag. All the while you plaster on a shit-eating grin and answer questions like, “Who invented the body shot?” or “How can I get a t-shirt?”

Third, you need to be able and willing to take orders from a manager/supervisor with the intelligence of goldfish, motivation of a sloth, and leadership ability of an insecure teenage girl. You need to accept that even though they may be an incredible idiot and on something of a power trip because for once in their uninspiring life they get to be the one in charge. You may, and probably do, know a more efficient and effective way to run the promotion, but your job is to smile and do whatever they say. In the end it will have absolutely no impact on your life or career if the promotion goes well or not. You will never be affected by the success or failure of the event and the only thing you need to worry about is making sure you get another booking. The only way to get more bookings is if your minimally competent manager reports to your agency that you did a good job and the only thing that qualifies doing a good job is listening to them teaching you the vital importance of collecting accurate email addresses. It’s probably easier said than done.

Truth: Promotional models are dumb as rocks. This is a true statement in the sense of what it takes to be a successful promo model. Often times the models are actually smart, ambitious, and incredibly competent, but that doesn’t mean they should show it. This is one of the biggest mistakes I see new promo models make. It doesn’t matter if you have your Ph.D. from Harvard in rocket science or you barely graduated high school; you still have to listen to the event manager, smile, look pretty, and not try to be a leader. In fact, I have found that it is better to only give enough information to the booking agents and managers to show them that you are able to successfully breathe and walk at the same time. If they are questioned or find you intimidating then they feel less powerful and intelligent (which they probably are) and they will find any reason to not have to deal with you in the future.

Beyond the realities of being a promo model, there are a few rules that you need to follow. Some are actually written by the marketing company you work for and some are more like tricks of the trade.

1. Wear the uniform that was given to you or mandated for you to wear. This seems really obvious and simple, but I am never surprised to see girls show up wearing the wrong thing and sent home. My friend Jules got in trouble for wearing too long of a skirt to a Captain Morgan promotion. The uniform required knee-high black boots, a short black skirt and branded t-shirt. When she submitted photos from the event she was called out. When she explained that she didn’t own a short black skirt and thought it was classier to wear a knee length one anyway her manager told her she would need to get a shorter skirt. She thought her hooker days were over; think again, Jules.

2. When the cat’s away the mice will play. A lot of promotions don’t have an actually manager present. One of the models, who’s more responsible in theory, is named the team lead and has to submit photos and a recap of the event to the company. These companies aren’t stupid; they know you don’t follow every rule perfectly. They have all sorts of idle threats about reps showing up, but even when it happens the reps often wonder why you aren’t drinking while working instead of getting mad at you for enjoying one of the drinks you are handing out. The golden rule is to not give yourself away in the pictures. Below is an actual email Jules received from her booking agent.

Thanks for sending over the photos. I greatly appreciate both yours and Julie’s energy during the Brownies event and feel that you were perfect for that venue, but I see a few MAJOR violations that we have to make sure don’t happen in the future. In a college environment, it’s extremely important to have high energy and create a buzz. Unfortunately, I think the team was a bit too high energy for what X would view as a legal problem. Attached you will find a photo of the team on the stage pouring a drink in the mouth of a consumer. This could be viewed as X forcing liquor on an unwilling consumer. The quick and simple answer to this in the future is never pouring any product in the mouth of any consumer. Always hand the product to them to give them the option of consuming or rejecting.

The other photo represents X samples distributed on a Finlandia tray. We have to make sure we’re not utilizing competitive POS during our promotions. This is usually not a top of the mind thing for the laymen consumer, but a major bone of contention for top executives from X.

As the manager for our team in PA, it is important that I address and fix these issues as quickly as possible. I really want to make it clear that you we’re not aware of this situation. Moving forward, I will look to you both as Ambassadors to spread to word among your fellow team members. I will purchase a ton of trays and provide one per Sampler that can be used for future events.

Feel free to give me a call if you have any questions or concerns.

Manager

3. Be nice to bartenders and bouncers, not just managers and owners of the accounts. This serves your best interest in the future. Within six months of promoting booze in the Philadelphia market I was able to go out and never wait in another line, pay another cover, or buy my own drinks ever again. I’m not sure if the bartenders and bouncers feel sorry for us, but they hook up promo models nonetheless.

4. Don’t stay and drink at the place you were promoting at in the same night. You need to leave and go somewhere else. People will continue to ask you for free shit even though you aren’t working anymore. Men will use it as a reason to talk to you and since you need to be nice to everyone you will get stuck talking to some weirdo forever. Also, if you get drunk and make an ass out of yourself you will definitely get fired. I knew one marketing company that hired this chick who got wasted after a promo once. They found out the hard way that she was a former stripper when she took off her shirt and puked on the floor. It didn’t go over well for the company with the bar or their client.

5. Get rid of ALL of the swag you were allotted to hand out. It may seem cool to have some extras in the beginning for your friends or the gym, but eventually your friends won’t want anymore Bud Light hats and you will have enough branded items to open your own promo store.


Stayed tuned for the next few days for some of my favorite experiences promo whoring. A little sample of what is to come: two of my promo friends are banned for life from Mission Grill after someone told the manager that they were prostitutes.