Is it Fluffy Fit Bit Cheating...or Bad Marketing?

Hello and Happy November!

As a Novelist, I'm buried in the middle of Nanowrimo, which is the annual attempt at writers to crank out 50,000 words in a month, or, as I like to call it, the final countdown to absolute panic because I've set an impossible deadline for myself.  Which is exactly what's happening again this year with my fourth and probably final Nora Hill Mystery:  Freed on the Fox.  I'm pretty excited at how the first 25000 words are coming along...of course I still have to cough up another 25000 to satisfy the NANOWRIMO beast, plus editing, formatting, finishing the cover, uploading, ordering, marketing, and all before a book signing I've scheduled for myself mid January. That seemed like such a huge amount of time back in March of last year...but here we are.

Want to see a rough draft of the cover?  

But I'm not here to talk about my book, not today. Instead I'm here to talk about something that happened a couple weeks ago while I was trying to be a good girl and sing in a church choir.

It was a Thursday night and we had practice. See, this choir isn't exactly like other church choirs. This is the group I call the "Wine drinking choir." That's because we like to gather sometime after practice for something called, "Wine is Fine after Choir Time."  (Some shorten it to WIFACT, but I think that makes it look less fun.)

Anyway a couple Thursdays ago we had to go to a church that was not our to practice with a very well respected Christian artist and his band.  You'd think we'd be on our best behavior.  I mean, I guess we were, but still...there's always down time when you're trying to wrangle multiple groups.   So, while the artist and his band were warming up and sorting things out, we choir members (some of whom had done the whole WIFACT thing PRIOR to practice) were left to our own devices.  Which means we were talking.  Loudly.  About anything and everything.

One of the ladies stood up and shook her arm. It happened to be the arm upon which she wore her fit bit.  This lead to the question, "Does that give you steps if you just shake your arm?"

It's a valid question.  She checked. Why yes, she does get steps if she just shakes her arm.

All Fit Bit wearers know that.

THAT lead to a conversation about how to cheat wearing the fit bit.  

Here's something I noticed about the people taking part in the conversation.   They are the fluffy people.  Which makes sense, because Non-Fluffies don't need fit bits to remind them to MOVE.  Fluffies do, it's how they got fluffy.  We forgot to move.

BUT, and here's the funny part:  FIT BIT markets to the Non-Fluffies.    Think about it, no Fit Bit commercial EVER centers around super fluffy people marching in place at 11:37 PM praying they can march fast enough to get their steps in for the day. NO!  FIT BIT commercials are full of people running, swimming, biking, hiking with their kids who are also unfluffy, also wearing Fit Bits.  Like the woman in that picture right there.

And then the woman in this picture...which would be me...same pose, right (sort of)?  Same expression.  But...um...yeah.

So apparently Fluffies know all the tricks to messing with Fit Bit. This is my point.  We Fluffies should NOT know that you can get steps counted by applauding. Suddenly that fourth grade play your sisters' kid is in is just THE BEST THING EVER and you keep clapping well beyond reason.  In fact, people are staring at you and the kids have already left the gym and are getting out of their felt and newspaper costumes and getting cookies and orange drink in the lunch room.  But you don't care. You're getting steps in!

Fluffy people should NOT know that you can get steps in if you swing your fit bit arm back and forth while you're sitting down.  (This is great for those who like to read or watch TV.  You can get a whole day's worth of steps done and never move a muscle...except your arm.)

So here's the thing I'm thinking:  Fit Bit needs to change its marketing.  Instead of showing us super athletic ultra runners and Tour de France guys riding through the mountains while where their Fit Bits, how about showing us the real Fit Bit wearer: The fluffy girl in the choir who just needs that thing to get to 10,000 steps, and she doesn't care how. Show her doing creative things to get her active minutes in, like walking around the dining room table, swinging her arms back and forth while she's in line at the bank because she's already walked 10,000 steps but has zero active minutes because the thing won't register anything under ten minutes of continuous motion.

Then, if THOSE people lose weight, get fit, feel better about themselves, maybe you've got  winning product. Otherwise, you just have yet another thing the Fluffies will use to measure failure.