very few companies even offer logging opportunities any more, i can remember when there were a LOT of logging opportunities--to get someone to do a month long log seems like a lot of bang for the buck for supp companies for very little cost-very cheap advertizing, imo.
I forgot to reply to this part of your post in my last reply.
Simple answer to this one - because companies have gotten screwed so many times by people who were supposed to log things. We used to give out a lot of free product for logs and that's why we stopped.
We've had so many people not fulfill logging or even review obligations; we even at one point had a competing company that would offer rep positions to anyone running logs on our products just to get them to do a bad log. It was ridiculous and it became like a full time babysitting job to make sure it got done. If you remember MW, that's one of the reasons he got frustrated and quit posting was crap like that.
And then, if you do have certain people you trust but you send them things over and over, the logs look more biased if the same person is doing sponsored log after sponsored log.
Here's a good example - I've had a long standing offer - if you buy an SNS or CEL product and do a detailed log and a review when you're done on social media, if its a quality review and you like the product, I'll send you a free bottle as a thank you. Yet hardly anyone ever has taken me up on that to the point where I just quit mentioning it.
Plus, if you look at the views that some great logs get, people don't follow them as much anymore. I really do think its because the average persons attention span isn't what it used to be. People used to love to follow long detailed logs and now, most people would rather just read an end review. A great example of this is that in all my years in this industry and on the forums,
@TheMrMuscle has one of the best ongoing logs I have EVER seen and if you look at the views, it doesn't get nearly what it should. And his log isn't anything at all sponsored; he does it because he likes inspiring and helping people and his attention to detail is incredible.
i remember when pes was 1st starting out with just 1 product-ERASE...nattydisaster had sample packets made up and nutra put them in several of my orders...i think this worked out pretty well for him. natty also gave out several bottles for logging opportunities also.
Another reason the sample thing cut back is that making sample packs yourself and sending them out now days is an absolute no-no from an FDA standpoint. If you open a bottle and start making sample packs, they literally consider you in the same category as manufacturing. So to an owner trying to follow GMP guidelines that doesn't manufacture, they would either have to create a whole new set of guidelines (thousands of dollars to do so) just to do samples or they would literally be risking their business by doing it. So basically, by FDA guidelines, all samples are supposed to be done by the contract manufacturer now and the minimums are normally 5k units for capsules and 2k units per individual flavor of powders. For example, we looked at doing samples for Thermagize XT - the minimum run is 5k sample packs. So that would be tying up close to 5k just in samples alone. For me personally, I'd rather put that money towards launching new exciting products.
(I'm not disagreeing with your viewpoint at all; just offering an explanation as to why its not as simple as it used to be back when he used to do that).
